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Law Office of Chuck Watson
1700 W. Koch, Ste 2
Bozeman, Montana
59715
(406) 586-4707
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The felony cases remarked upon below constitute only a few of my cases. In addition, I have won acquittals in dozens of felony and misdemeanor cases over the years, including two wherein my clients confessed to the crimes. In one county alone, I have won ten out of my last twelve jury trials.
The names and captions on these cases have been removed to protect the privacy of my clients.
CASE: Academy Award nominated actor of Easy Rider fame accused of threats of violence against a female prosecutor.
RESULT: No charges/no prosecution as a result of precharge negotiations with the Attorney General's Office. Client sent alleged victim a nice apology on Tiffany stationary.
CASE: Deliberate Homicide charged as a result of two pistol slugs being fired into sleeping husband's brain. Client walked down to the police station in her nightgown and confessed to premeditated murder.
RESULT: In spite of the confession, a charge reduction was negotiated, resulting in a plea to voluntary manslaughter, with a chance of parole in three to four years, based on a possible drug interaction defense.
CASE: 19-year-old Rastafarian from St. John Virgin, Islands charged with murdering 19-year-old college baseball star in small southern town. The trial was heavily attended by the Ku Klux Klan.
RESULT: The trial resulted in an acquittal, and I received a Criminal Justice Award from the NAACP for my successful pro bono representation. I offered my services to the young man, who was in jail, and without friends or family in the United States, in order to prevent what I told him was otherwise likely to be "a legal lynching".
CASE: Client charged with twenty-five residential burglaries, several counts rustling, and illegal branding.
RESULT: Filing of valid Fourth Amendment challenge resulted in plea to one count each of burglary, theft and illegal branding with thirty-day jail sentence
CASE: 18-year-old carwash employee was charged with aggravated assault, armed robbery and theft as a result of allegedly attacking a popular elderly man in a botched burglary and safe-cracking attempt.
RESULT: Two trials. One hung-jury, one conviction. Twelve-year sentence. While the case was on appeal, I hired an investigator and located the true culprit. The Supreme Court unanimously reversed on newly discovered evidence. Edwin Imwinkelreid, Andre Moenssens, and George Bonebrake, the retired head of the FBI fingerprint lab, consulted for the Defense.
CASE: Elected county sheriff charged with sexual assault.
RESULT: Acquittal, against a prosecutor who has reputedly not lost a case in twenty-two years.
CASE: Thirty-year veteran sex crimes investigator snaps and begins to groom a fourteen-year-old and attempts to engage her in a sexual relationship.
RESULT: Four felony sex crimes dismissed, client pleads to evidence tampering and receives fifteen days house arrest.
CASE: Drifter charged with kidnap/murder. State seeks death penalty.
RESULT: Murder charge is dismissed, client pleads to kidnapping, after the state's polygraph expert takes the Fifth on an ethics matter, and defense uses polygraph evidence to convince prosecutor of client's limited role in the murder
CASE: Client murders girlfriend in a manner approximating torture, all on an open 911 line. State seeks death penalty.
RESULT: Murder charge dismissed. Client pleads to equivalent of voluntary manslaughter.
CASE: Client shoots husband's girlfriend off a front-end loader. The bullet enters her neck and exits the back, near the spine. Attempted murder charged.
RESULT: Client pleads to criminal endangerment and receives house arrest, based on evidence of a drug interaction.
CASE: Client charged with five counts armed robbery. Co-defendants testify against him, in exchange for leniency.
RESULT: Acquittals on four counts and a hung-jury on the fifth as a result of the prosecutor being caught in a lie, by me, resulting in a loss of credibility by the prosecution.
CASE: Client charged with cocaine possession.
RESULT: Dismissed in front of the jury when the state crime lab chemist reluctantly admitted he examined the wrong drugs.
CASE: Elderly man accused of molesting six girls and charged with several felonies, many of which carried potential life sentences.
RESULT: State dismissed all charges after the jury arrived for selection, on the basis that several of the girls recanted and said that they made the allegations in order to get attention, and their equivocations were under reported in discovery, but discovered by the defense during my investigation.
CASE: Eighty-two-year-old great-grandfather and seventy-eight-year-old wife charged with multiple felonies alleging sexual molestation of their great-grandchildren.
RESULT: Acquittals on all counts.
CASE: Elderly man charged with molesting his mentally retarded grandson.
RESULT: Mistrial as a result of prosecutorial misconduct. Case dismissed.
CASE: Gas station attendant accused of anal sodomy of a child.
RESULT: Hung-jury. No retrial. (The jury was hung eleven to one to acquit for two full days before the judge agreed to release them).
CASE: Possession of Methamphetamine.
RESULT: Hung-jury. No retrial.
CASE: Ku Klux Klan member charged with having two pounds of marijuana in the trunk of a stolen car in his backyard. The key to the car was hanging in his living room on the wall, and gallon baggies with residue were in his bedroom.
RESULT: Hung-jury.
CASE: Client pled guilty and received a ten-year sentence on a bad check charge.
RESULT: I was hired after he was in the penitentiary for eight months. My partner and I appealed and the case was reversed, and dismissed.
CASE: College student accused of rape.
RESULT: Tried to the student conduct board at the university and not guilty verdict obtained. No formal charges filed as a result.
CASE: College student facing federal weapons' charges with mandatory incarceration under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines.
RESULT: Downward departure for substantial mental incapacity. Probation.
CASE: Theft from business by embezzlement.
RESULT: Acquittal.
CASE: College student accused of date-rape.
RESULT: Tried to the student conduct board at the university and not guilty verdict obtained. No formal charges filed as a result.
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