Our client faced a Harassment charge carrying a potential sentence of up to six months in jail. The charge stemmed from an incident in which our client's girlfriend fell to the ground during a dispute over his backpack. Our attorney, Adelaide Beeman-White, took the case to trial and secured a full Not Guilty verdict.

The circumstances were important. Our client is homeless, and the backpack in question contained all of his possessions. During the incident, his girlfriend took the backpack and began walking away with it. Our client grabbed the backpack to retrieve it, and his girlfriend fell in the process. The State characterized this as harassment. Ms. Beeman-White characterized it as something else entirely: a man exercising his legal right to defend and recover his own property.

The case carried additional weight because our client had previously declined participation in the deferred sentencing program, meaning a negotiated resolution was off the table. Ms. Beeman-White took the case to trial and successfully argued that our client lacked any intent to harass or annoy his girlfriend — his sole purpose was to retrieve property that belonged to him. The jury agreed.

The court returned a Not Guilty verdict, and our client walked away free.

This case demonstrates that the circumstances behind an accusation matter enormously. What the prosecution frames as criminal conduct may tell a very different story when examined carefully.