Michigan Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog
Usually, the biggest concern for anyone facing a Michigan criminal charge is staying out of jail. My team and I see that in just about every case we handle. It doesn’t matter if a person is facing a charge for assault, disorderly person, DUI, embezzlement, indecent exposure, or anything else. Everyone’s first order of business is to avoid jail, and that’s understandable. However, there is another important and even farther reaching concern, and that’s what does (and doesn’t) wind up on a person’s record.
The good news is that the fear of going to jail often misplaced. Avoiding it, at least in the kinds of cases our firm handles, is usually not too difficult. In many cases, it’s because my team and I do good work. In other cases, however, it’s because jail simply isn’t on the menu in the first place. What is at issue in every criminal case is the potential damage that can result from a conviction when it goes on a person’s criminal record. We live in the Information Age now, so that can have a profound effect on one’s future.
The upshot, of course, is that it’s critical for us to protect that record. The importance of this can sometimes get lost in all the panic over going to jail. Unless a person has a bad prior record, or has done something truly heinous, keeping him or her out of jail is easier than keeping his or her record clean. If a person is being considered for a job, and some kind of conviction that might make a difference to that employer shows up on a background check, the mere fact that he or she did or didn’t go to jail isn’t going to matter. Let me explain….
It’s been awhile since I’ve addressed this topic. A a number of recent calls to our office have made clear, however, that it’s time to do so again. The right to remain silent and not incriminate one’s self is guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. The police, for their part, try to work around that and get someone to talk. In large part, those efforts are legal. For as different as one case might be from another, and no matter what the situation, we keep coming back to the same proven advice: Shut up.
We’ll come back to that statement shortly, because as our talk progressed, it became clear that I was not seeing the full picture of what she meant. I had thought, at least up until that moment, that the main reason people would be afraid to call (or otherwise contact) an attorney was a fear of being “hounded.” I can relate to that, because it’s the very reason I don’t want to give out my contact information online. Plenty of sites offer something like a “free quote,” but the catch is that you must provide a phone number and/or email, first. Then, they never leave you alone….
Let’s begin by noting that the overwhelming majority of indecent exposure charges and aggravated indecent exposure charges are made against men. In those uncommon cases where a woman is charged, most involve having been caught getting a bit too frisky with someone, and in those cases, both parties find themselves being cited. More often, however, men are the ones who wind up being charged. Often, it’s for something like outright flashing or masturbating in their car. Sometimes, however, it’s for seeking the sexual company of other men in what turns out to have been some kind of undercover sting operation.
Over the course of more than 3 decades, NOT ONE of the hundreds and hundreds of indecent and aggravated indecent exposure clients we have represented has ever gone to jail. As we’ll see, though, keeping a client out of jail is relatively easy because it is not the biggest threat he faces in an IE case (note that, throughout this article, we’ll sometimes use the term “indecent exposure” to refer to either or both indecent and aggravated indecent exposure). Instead, the most significant risk a person faces is being required to enroll in and complete a long and difficult program of counseling for the treatment of sexual deviancies and criminal sexual offenders.
Like so many of my other articles, this one was inspired by a real life case involving a client arrested for DUI in about the toughest jurisdiction here in the Greater-Detroit area. I often write about the importance of location in criminal and DUI cases, because it does directly impact how a case will play out, but the underlying truth is that what really makes one location easier or tougher than another are the prosecutors and Judges who work there. Certain courts are just “tougher” than others, but that tends to follow a kind of general continuum, with the more lenient courts being clustered around each other, and vice-versa.
There are 2 different kinds of “indecent exposure” charges: regular, or simple indecent exposure, and “aggravated indecent exposure.” Simple indecent exposure is a misdemeanor offense, while aggravated indecent exposure is treated as a felony offense. We’ll get into the specifics of each later, but it’s important to note that sometimes, the term “indecent exposure” is broadly used when speaking of either offense. Throughout this piece, and where relevant, I will make sure to distinguish each specific offense from the other, while at other times, especially when referring to both charges as a class of offense, I will simply use the term “IE.”
Perhaps the biggest question anyone has about indecent exposure is “why?” If the reader is facing one of these charges, he has probably asked that same question of himself, and may have been asked the same thing by other people, as well. As it turns out, the answer has huge implications for the outcome of any given case. The problem, however, is that there often isn’t a clear answer, and that’s where it becomes critically important for us, as the defense lawyers, to make sure that the court does not substitute its worst-case fears or suspicions in place of that.
Having had to do that by sheer necessity, there are likely to be some permanent changes (at least in our practice) to the way criminal and DUI cases are handled in the future, many of which are favorable. Right now, in the Metro-Detroit area (meaning Wayne, Oakland, Macomb and the surrounding counties), “going to court” in many jurisdictions means connecting to a legal proceeding virtually. So far, we haven’t had a single complaint from any client who had to appear on a video conference with the court instead of actually having to have physically show up in it.