Seeking Criminal Sexual Assault Defense Attorney who takes cases pro bono in MN

I observe that your friend is represented by counsel so does he know you are going around trying to get involved?

Remember, the attorney-client relationship is between the client and the attorney.

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Your first question is does any attorney work for free on a sexual assault (often known as rape). The simple answer is you usually get what you pay for in life. Second, he already has an attorney in the public defender and apparently doesn't like how he's being treated. That's unfortunate because when you have Legal Aide or a Public Defender, you don't often get the chance to fire them without being able to hire your own attorney at your own expense.

I suggest he ask his Public Defender attorney for a sit down conference and ask him or her how they intend to go about defending him. If he's still not satisfied, then he can either ask the Judge for a different attorney based upon a sincere disagreement between the two or hire his own attorney. If he doesn't have the money to pay for his own attorney, it may be necessary to help him try to raise it for his defense.

If, as you say, the "victim" admitted the charge is a lie, then he should have a good chance of being acquitted. However, my experience tells me many people make such claims before trial, but not all of those claims come true.

In addition to the sound advice offered by the others, I'd suggest seeing if you can get the "victim" to sign one or more affidavits stating that the event did not happen. An affidavit is simply a sworn statement (usually sworn before a notary).

Unless you have one (or preferably two or three) affidavits stating that the offense never happened, chances are good that the victim's testimony at trial will be less than helpful to your friend's case.

Anyone can write up an affidavit to see if the "victim" will sign it, but the best person to do so is a lawyer who knows exactly the right words to use. The only way to know the right words is to 1) know the applicable law, and 2) talk to the "victim" and find out exactly what she is willing to swear to. You can't put words in the victim's mouth. It's got to be the victim's actual words, or the affidavit shouldn't be signed.

The reason I prefer multiple affidavits, sworn to at different times before different notaries, is to cut off the potential argument at trial that "I was pressured into signing it - that's not really what happened, or what I meant."

Best of luck to you!