Seattle Criminal Defense Attorney | (206) 624-1662

STAY OUT OF JAIL FOR ASSAULT, THEFT, SHOPLIFTING, DUI, RECKLESS DRIVING, NCO & DV ORDER VIOLATIONS & OTHER CRIMES

Seattle courts house prisoners in spaces rented from the King County Jail system, usually at the King County in Seattle or in the Kent King County Jail, at RJC. These facilities are overcrowded, run-down, and doubles as the de-facto largest mental health facility in the state. You do not want to stay there. Turn to Phil Weinberg for effective, no-jail defense strategies. Phil has been creatively resolving clients’ legal problems in Seattle and its surrounding area for 29+ years

In addition to obtaining the standard no-jail dispositions of SOC’s (Stipulated Order of Continuance), Deferred Prosecutions, deferred sentences, dispositional continuances, bail forfeitures and court monitored diversions (CMD’s), Phil was one of the first attorneys in this area to introduce (in 1992) a combined mental-health and chemical dependency approach to Criminal Defense, utilizing the help of a renowned Johns Hopkins University psychiatry professor, John A. Liebert, MD, who specialized in diagnosing and treating patients with complex psychiatric problems. Phil also utilized the input of former Seattle attorney Mike Frost, a pioneer on diminished capacity, to break ground with this unique, powerful approach to criminal defense, when it fits the particular client.

If one of Phil’s clients has some physical condition that cannot be well managed in the jail setting, he’ll try to pursue that to avoid jail time. Those cases are tough to avoid jail time on, as the jails do have ‘health care’ on staff, though it’s usually not very good. But, Phil has kept hundreds of his clients from going to jail with documentation from forensic mental-health professionals he routinely works with, including psychiatrists, psychologists, and licensed mental health counselors, depending on your budget, and what special expertise your case and condition requires.

If incarceration would impose a substantial risk to your mental well-being, Phil is highly successful at presenting those risks to the courts to keep you out of jail. Often, these clients didn’t realize that they suffer from mental issues, usually low-level ones such as depression or panic anxiety disorders, until it finally impacts their lives, resulting in legal problems. Many self-medicate with alcohol and drugs to alleviate untreated depression, etc.

This defense approach is clearly not for everyone. It’s just one example of Phil’s creative defense approaches, but hundreds have benefited from it. You will probably not see other lawyers using this defense strategy as effectively or with such impressive results. It is a very effective approach to a case that is otherwise not winnable for a client with mental health issues.

For other clients who do not fit this defense, Phil keeps up on the constant changes in the laws to develop new arguments and strategies to deal with these changes, to relentlessly challenge the probable cause for the arrest, fight to suppress as much of the state’s evidence and police statements as possible, and to effectively, tactfully and effectively advocate for his clients.