Witness Interviews

Sexual assault cases are often about the credibility of an allegation and any supporting evidence to support or refute the accusation. In our most recent sexual assault case, MJI contacted witnesses on behalf of our client as soon as we learned about the case. We conducted interviews with over a dozen civilian and military witnesses, who were assigned everywhere from California to Bahrain and Japan. We worked with them to create written affidavits to record information for use during the case proceedings In many cases, like in this case, we beat the law enforcement investigators to those witnesses and prepared more completely for the Article 32 hearing and trial.

Although the nature of sexual assault allegations is such that there are generally few witnesses to the alleged conduct, there are often witnesses who can add details of prior statements made by an alleged victim or offer possible motives for an allegation that can be further developed. As in this case, initial government investigations can focus on a very limited part of the evidence and gave give too much credence to the accusation by the alleged victim. Early witness contact by the defense is critical