You should not handle a criminal appeal alone. A criminal appeal involves a complex area of the law and requires adherence to procedures that, if not strictly followed, could result in your appeal being dismissed because of a technical violation, even if your appeal had legal merit.
If you want to know how to win an appeal in court, this article provides an overview of the six key steps to appealing a criminal conviction successfully.
The first, and most important, step you can take to improve the chances of your appeal succeeding in court is to choose the right appeals lawyer. In order to appeal a criminal conviction, you’ll need someone with experience in your state or federal jurisdiction.
If you’re appealing a criminal conviction in Pennsylvania, call us at 215-567-1220 to discuss your case. We have helped many clients get their sentences or convictions overturned or get a new trial, and we can help you, too.
Step #1: Choose an Appellate Attorney
One of the most common and inaccurate pieces of advice that people get when they ask how to win an appeal in court is just to use the same attorney who defended you in the trial. This suggestion might seem sensible at first. After all, your criminal trial attorney already knows the facts of the case, the legal arguments of both sides, the objections that were made, and the trial court’s decision, so he or she will be in the best position to know the issues to bring upon appeal. Right? Wrong.
You Need an Attorney Who Practices Appellate Law to Represent You on Appeal
Using your criminal trial attorney to handle your appeal might be the worst decision you can make. Your trial attorney is a criminal law generalist who has experience trying a case before a judge or jury, not deciding legal and procedural strategy and arguments on appeal. An experienced appellate attorney will know the appeals process in and out and have a deep understanding of how to win an appeal in court following a criminal conviction. Retaining an experienced appellate lawyer whose practice is concentrated on the state and federal appeals process is similar to turning to a surgeon instead of your family doctor if you need open-heart surgery. Your family doctor might be the person most familiar with your medical history, but a heart surgeon probably knows more about the heart and is better skilled at the specific surgical techniques necessary for a successful outcome.
You Need Someone Other than Your Trial Attorney for a Successful Appeal
Many of the errors that can overturn a conviction on appeal are made by the defendant’s attorney. How can an attorney argue to the appellate court that he or she provided ineffective assistance of counsel during the trial below? The answer is they won’t. This deprives you of a powerful and persuasive legal argument and could cause you to lose your appeal. Additionally, for a criminal attorney to represent a defendant on appeal when they may have made errors during the trial is a conflict of interest for them, causing problems for both you and your attorney.
Step #2: File a Notice of Appeal
Once you’ve retained your appeals attorney, they will file a document called the Notice of Appeal for you in accordance with the Pennsylvania and Federal Court’s strict deadlines. Be sure to act quickly after conviction and sentencing because under Pennsylvania’s Rule of Appellate Procedure 903 gives you only thirty days to file the Notice of Appeal if you were convicted in state court. If you were convicted in federal court, you only have fourteen days pursuant to Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure 4(b)(1)(A), 4(b)(2), 4(b)(3)(b).
Step #3: Review the Record on Appeal
What is an appeal based on? It’s based on the record of your trial, which includes the trial transcript, pleadings, and any evidence presented by both sides. Your appellate attorney knows what to look for and will scour the record for possible errors. One or more of these valid reasons are the most common basis for appeal:
- Ineffective assistance of counsel
- Improper jury instructions
- Jury or witness tampering
- Judicial misconduct
- Prosecutorial misconduct
- Errors in the admissibility of evidence
- Errors in testimony
- Legal errors
- Errors of procedure
- Insufficient evidence
Step #4: Prepare & File Your Brief
In order for a successful appeal, your appellate attorney will prepare a brief of the case, crafting a fact section to persuade the appellate court that errors occurred and a legal argument section to persuade the appellate judges that the error resulted in your conviction. Writing a compelling and persuasive brief is a skill that takes many years of experience and many appeals to master. The prosecution will then file a brief in response to your brief, and your appellate attorney will review it and, if necessary, file another appellate brief in response.
Step #5: Oral Argument
Some appeals require oral arguments by the appellate attorneys for both sides, and some are decided “on the papers,” which means on your appellate brief and on the brief of the prosecution. Either way, you need an experienced appeals attorney because the appellate panel’s decision will be based on either his or her oral argument or brief.
Step #6: The Decision
The appellate court will render a written decision, and if you succeed, you will likely get a new trial in a higher court. If you do not initially succeed at appealing the lower court’s decision, your attorney will advise you of the next steps you can take in the appellate process. What three ways can an appeals court rule? An appeals court can overturn the conviction or sentence, can remand to the trial court for a new trial, or can deny the appeal and stand by the initial trial’s outcome. What does it mean when you win an appeal? It means either you go free, which is rare but does happen, or you get a new trial.
You Need an Experienced Criminal Appeals Attorney to Win Your Appeal
An experienced appellate attorney knows all of the rules and procedures that apply to criminal appeals, and retaining the right appellate attorney improves your chances of winning an appeal exponentially. You also want a new set of eyes reviewing your court appeal to evaluate the performance of your trial counsel for possible errors. It is quite common for errors made by a criminal trial attorney during a trial to provide the basis for a court appeal. Let us help you appeal your criminal conviction.
If you’re looking to appeal a case in Pennsylvania, call us at (215) 567-1220 to discuss your options.
