In Caddo Parish and other parts of Louisiana, you have a right to make a personal injury claim if you were injured. Even if only your car (or other property) was damaged, you still have the right to make a claim for compensation. Generally, the first step is to make a claim with the relevant insurance carriers. Eventually, it may be necessary to prosecute your auto accident claim through the filing of a personal injury lawsuit. To be sure,
Note that your claim is for compensation for your injuries and/or for the property damage that you suffered. Louisiana auto accident cases are not like "winning the lottery." You cannot just claim any amount and expect to be given a settlement check. Your settlement is proportionately based on the injuries suffered and on the extent of the damage to your vehicle and other property. You may recover for things like:
Further, if proven, family members may also have their own separate claims, including compensation for loss of support, loss of companionship, loss of consortium, and more. Note also that you have the right to make a claim under Louisiana law even if you had some fault in causing the Caddo Parish car accident. Louisiana is a "comparative negligence state," which means that legal liability is based on each party's percentage fault for the accident. If some amount of fault is assigned to the injured victim, then the amount of the settlement or award will be reduced by that percentage. For example, if the settlement/award is $1 million, but the victim is assigned 10% fault, then the ultimate settlement/award would be $900,000 to the victim assigned 10% fault. Importantly, the victim can still recover even if he or she is more than 50% at fault. To modify our hypothetical, if the victim were assigned 60% fault, then the ultimate settlement/award would be $400,000 to the victim assigned 60% fault. Louisiana is a "must-prove-negligence" State. This means that to succeed with your Shreveport, Louisiana, car injury claim, the injured party must prove that the other party was at fault. In Louisiana, this means proving the four elements of negligence, which are
Contact A Louisiana Personal Injury Attorney Today For more information, you are welcome to contact the Law Offices of Philip B. Adams if you have been injured in a Louisiana accident. Our Louisiana personal injury lawyer can help you with your personal injury claim for financial compensation. To contact us, conveniently schedule a consultation through our "Contact Us" page here. You may significantly benefit by having an attorney with legal competence and experience assist you with your Louisiana personal injury case. We have offices in Shreveport and handle personal injury cases throughout all of Louisiana. Thank you for reading this blog post and visiting our website. Yes. Under Louisiana law, defacing property with graffiti is a crime, and persons convicted can face jail time from 6 months to 10 years, depending on how much it costs to remove the graffiti. Fines can also be imposed of up to $10,000. See Louisiana Rev. Stat, § 14:56.4.
The crime is called "criminal damage to property by defacing with graffiti." The crime applies to any property, whether privately or publicly owned and to any immovable surface (like a wall) or to a movable surface (like a railway car). Do I Really Need a Lawyer if I am Charged with a Graffiti Crime? You may not "need" a lawyer, but you may certainly benefit from legal assistance and guidance. Criminal damage to property can be charged as a felony. As such, any conviction can be an enhancing conviction for any later conviction. Convictions also can be used to deny you employment, trade certifications, licensures, and rental housing. If you are underage, you probably also do not want your parents to be potentially liable for restitution costs. To learn more, you are welcome to call our Louisiana criminal defense attorney at the Law Offices of Philip B. Adams. How Can the Charges Be Defended? To obtain a conviction, the Louisiana prosecuting attorneys must prove beyond a reasonable doubt the following:
From this definition found in the statute, there may be several defenses depending on the facts of your case. For example, the statute defines "graffiti" as the following: "... any sign, inscription, design, drawing, diagram, etching, sketch, symbol, lettering, name, or marking placed upon immovable or movable property in such a manner and in such a location as to deface the property and be visible to the general public." So, one possible defense is that your signs, paintings, etc., were located in a place that was NOT visible to the "general public." As another example, the statute defines "deface" or "defacing" as "... the damaging of immovable or movable property by means of painting, marking, scratching, drawing, or etching with graffiti." So, if, for example, you used stickers or some other method not listed in the statute, then potentially, you cannot be convicted of "defacing" property (at least within the meaning of this criminal statute). Other potential legal defenses may include (again, depending on the facts) the following:
Other Potential Punishments Note that the statute allows the Louisiana criminal court to impose additional punishments beyond those listed above:
Contact A Louisiana Criminal Defense Attorney Today For more information, contact the Law Offices of Philip B. Adams today. We are relentless, meticulous, and passionate Louisiana criminal defense lawyers. Go to our "Contact Us" page here. We have offices in Shreveport and handle criminal defense cases throughout all of Louisiana. Louisiana 18-wheeler accidents tend to be more complicated than standard Louisiana auto accident cases. Thus, settling an eighteen-wheeler insurance claim can easily take anywhere from months to a couple of years.
Why? Louisiana big rig truck accidents tend to involve more severe, life-threatening, and dangerous injuries, so medical care and recovery can take many months and even years. A settlement often cannot be reached until all the medical bills are collected and tabulated. Further, as healing progresses, it may become clear that there will be future medical expenses because of long-term medical conditions and disabilities caused by the accident. It takes time to estimate precisely how long future medical care will be needed and the associated costs of that care. Also, there may be many parties who can be held legally liable under Louisiana law, including the driver, the driver's employer, the owner of the truck, the repair company that serviced and maintained the tractor-trailer truck, and even the manufacturer of the truck (if a design or manufacturing defect had some causal connection to the accident). It takes time to investigate the cause of the Louisiana 18-wheeler accident, to determine what happened, and to understand who or what caused the crash. Victims who are injured almost always do not want to obtain less money than they can. Thus, it is not advisable to "rush" a settlement since, under Louisiana negligence law, victims are entitled to full compensation for their injuries and any damage to property (like their vehicle and the vehicle's contents). Moreover, understand that once a settlement has been reached, there is no "going back for more." If victims "rush" to settle, there will be no additional settlement money if there are more medical procedures and expenses incurred after settlement. This issue is one reason that victims may benefit from consulting with experienced Louisiana personal injury lawyers who can help determine the cause of an accident and help locate all of the at-fault parties. In undertaking these tasks, your Louisiana 18-wheeler truck accident lawyers can increase your chances of obtaining a full recovery of compensation. Contact us today for a free, no-obligation consultation. As noted, the severity of the injuries and determining the full list of at-fault parties are two factors that determine how long it takes to settle a Louisiana 18-wheeler accident claim. Another reason why Louisiana big truck accident cases take more time is that truck companies tend to be aggressive when defending accident claims. With typical auto accident claims, the owner of the vehicle that caused the accident generally lets the insurance company handle the settlement negotiations. However, trucking companies take a much more active role and are not afraid to vigorously defend a personal injury lawsuit, especially when a lot of money may be on the line. Contact A Louisiana Personal Injury Attorney Today For more information, contact the Law Offices of Philip B. Adams. If you have been injured in a Louisiana accident, our Louisiana truck accident lawyer can help you recover the full compensation you are entitled to according to Louisiana law. To contact us, go to our "Contact Us" page here. You may significantly benefit by having an attorney with legal competence and experience assist you with your Louisiana personal injury case. We have offices in Shreveport and handle personal injury cases throughout all of Louisiana. Thank you for reading and visiting our website. If a person has been convicted of a crime here in Louisiana, the person has a right to appeal the conviction. This must be done within thirty (30) days immediately after the sentencing by the Louisiana criminal trial court. Appeals from a Louisiana criminal trial court go "up" to the Louisiana appellate courts. There are five such appellate courts covering various geographical districts.
Note that an appeal is not an opportunity to offer new or alternative evidence. An appellate court only reviews what happened at the trial level and basically only "reads" what happened based on the record created by the trial court. A convicted person can "win" their appeal by proving that legal mistakes were made at the trial level. Generally, "winning an appeal" gives the criminal defendant the right to a new trial. Typically, an appeal is only allowed after a full criminal court trial. That is, mostly, if the accused accepts a plea bargain and then pleads guilty as part of the deal, the plea bargain will generally include a waiver of the right to appeal. But there are some exceptions. Louisiana post-conviction appeals are legally complex and complicated. If you have been convicted and want to explore a possible appeal, contact a committed and experienced Shreveport criminal appellate attorney at the Law Offices of Philip B. Adams. To get a better understanding of how the appeal process works, let's look at an example from a recent case called State v. Scott, 360 So. 3d 92 (La: Court of Appeals, 5th Circuit 2023). In that case, the accused -- Osiris L. Scott -- was accused, accepted a plea bargain, and was sentenced for armed robbery and felon-in-possession of a gun. The specifics involved a carjacking with a gun, which, after the car was taken, also involved the use of credit cards contained in the victim's purse, which was in the car at the time of the carjacking. Scott's lawyer offered two primary criminal defenses at the trial level: improper identification from the victim and improper obtaining of incriminating statements from the defendant during the police interrogation. Let's examine the first criminal defense and how it led to the appeal. With respect to identifications, in Louisiana, to be convicted of a crime, the accused must be identified as the person who committed the alleged crime. This must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Victims often provide identification. But most victim identifications of an alleged perpetrator involve some sort of options. A typical "police line-up" is an example, where usually five or more suspects of similar size and shape are presented to the victim. If the victim identifies the defendant, then that lineup may be deemed a proper identification that can be used at trial. Without options and alternatives, a victim or witness identification can be deemed "suggestive," and that can lead to the exclusion of the out-of-court identification from being used at trial. In the Scott case, however, the victim was shown only still photographs that depicted the alleged defendant. The two still photos were taken from video surveillance footage from a store where the accused used one of the victim's credit cards to make a purchase. The still photos were shown to the victim on the same day as the carjacking. When shown the photos, the victim positively identified the individual as Scott. Further, when she was asked what she specifically recognized, she responded and wrote on one of the photographs, "The sweatshirt is what the guy was wearing. His eyes are what I remember in these pictures." The victim signed and dated the photographs and further wrote that she was "100 % confident." At the criminal trial, Scott's attorney asked the criminal trial court just to exclude any evidence related to this identification by the victim. Scott's lawyer argued that the procedure caused an improper, unlawful, and suggestive identification. After reviewing the written request from Scott's lawyer and the written responses from the prosecuting attorneys, the trial court denied the request. The judge's denial of the request was one of the reasons that Scott's lawyer filed an appeal. Ultimately, the appellate court agreed with the trial judge. Even if there was a suggestive element to the victim's identification of Scott, the totality of the circumstances showed no misidentification. Various facts led to that conclusion, including the fact that the photos were shown to the victim on the same day as the carjacking, she identified specific things (like the color and markings on Scott's clothes), she stated her confidence to be 100%, etc. From just this one example, we can see the importance of having experienced Louisiana attorneys help with your criminal defense. Essentially, every decision and action taken by the criminal court judge can be the basis for an appeal. In Scott's case, it was the court's denial of the request to exclude the victim's identification that became an issue on appeal. In other cases, it might be the criminal defense attorney's verbal objection to evidence, to questions asked at trial, to the use of documents, etc. Contact A Caddo Parish Louisiana Criminal Appeals Attorney Today For more information, contact the Law Offices of Philip B. Adams today. We are relentless, meticulous, and aggressive Louisiana criminal appeal lawyers. Complete our "Contact Us" page here. You may significantly benefit by having an attorney with legal competence and experience assist you with your Louisiana criminal case. We have offices in Shreveport and handle criminal defense cases and appeals throughout all of Louisiana. |