Criminal activity becomes a web that entangles you, when you’re forced to commit more and more crimes to cover the previous ones…
Imagine this scenario: An abused woman spends years with an abusive husband or boyfriend. He hurts her on a regular basis. She’s too afraid to call the cops because he’s threatened to harm their toddler son if she reaches out for help. And then one day it happens. They fight, she tries to call the cops, and he slaps their child, giving him a bloody nose! The woman fights to defend her son, and during the scuffle she pushes her husband. He falls and hits his head on the edge of the coffee table. At first she thinks he’s knocked out, and she rushes to get out of the house while there’s still a chance. But when he doesn’t awaken, she realizes he’s dead.
Suddenly she’s a murderer. She could call the cops, show them her bruises and her toddler’s bloody nose. But there’s a good chance she’ll still be charged with homicide. So she waits until night time, when her son is in bed, and she drags her husband’s body out to the car, drives him hours away, and hides his body under leaves in a ditch. But as is usually the case, someone stumbles on the body, and suddenly she’s under investigation. Afraid of losing her son, she lies to the police, tells them her husband left home after a drunken fight and never came home. The police don’t believe her….
What would you do if it was you?
It’s not a common scenario, we know, but it’s a good example of how one crime can lead to another and another… In this case, the wife accidentally killed her husband, and then hid the body, and then lied to the police to protect herself. It becomes a web of deceit – one that gets harder and harder to keep straight the more complex it becomes. People break the law (sometimes unintentionally or by accident) and then in trying to cover up the evidence of their crime, they break the law again. And again. And then again. And on and on it goes. And that same scenario happens many times each day right here in Michigan.
Unfortunately, the end result is that when the police have finally untangled the story, there are so many additional charges. Charges that could have been avoided if only the initial crime had been properly handled (or not committed to begin with!) In the case of our fictional character at the beginning of this post, she could probably end up facing charges for Manslaughter (if not Open Murder), Concealing the Death of an Individual, and Making a False Report of a Crime (which means lying to the police about a crime). She might also get charged with abusing the corpse as well as other crimes.
Trying to hide one crime with another just makes things worse!
However, if she had called 911 right at the start, and then hired a great criminal defense attorney quickly, chances are she would have walked away from the whole scenario without being charged. In the event that the prosecutor’s office did choose to press charges, a skilled criminal defense attorney would have been able to explain her situation – the years of abuse and fear and pain, and maybe get the charges dismissed. If not dismissed, then seriously reduced. Obviously there are lots of technical issues to be worked through but our point is simply that committing a crime to cover up another crime is a terrible plan. Trying to figure out how to handle it own your own is also not such a great idea.
Admittedly, it doesn’t always work that way. Sometimes the circumstances aren’t that cut and dried. But the point we’re trying to make is that covering up a crime may seem like the right choice in the moment in order to avoid a police investigation and criminal charges, but it’s really the worst thing you could do! Trying to hide evidence of a crime only leads to more criminal activity, which leads to more charges later on, when the whole thing unravels. And it always unravels, sooner or later!
Do you need help from a Michigan criminal defense attorney?
So if you or a loved one are ever in a situation where something terrible happens in Michigan, and you’re afraid of getting into trouble with the cops, call The Kronzek Firm immediately at 866 766 5245. Our experienced criminal defense attorneys can start work immediately on building your defense and protecting your rights, even if you haven’t been arrested yet! So don’t risk your future by covering one crime with another! Call our very experienced criminal defense lawyers and let us help you sort out your difficulties.