A good criminal defense attorney recognizes that trials are unpredictable to the point that in most cases, the defendant will want to avoid going to trial. There are too many intangible factors invovled in trials: the judge, the jury, witness testimony, and the behavior of your own client including how the client comes across to the jury. A trial attorney can have the facts in his favor. However, if the jury doesn't sympathize or like the defendant, you have a huge problem at trial.
In one case I had a few years ago, my client was originally charged with auto burglary. After the victim's deposition, the prosecutor decided to amend the charge to armed burglary. The alleged victim in this case had testified during his deposition that he remembered having a gun in his vehicle prior to the robbery. Given the testimony of the alleged victim, the prosecutor was proper in amending the charges against my client to armed burglary which, in this case, carried a life sentence.
As we approached trial, I had two major problems in defending my client. First, I had to deal with the gun issue. Second, I had to explain how my client's fingerprints were found at the scene. Essentially, I dealt with the gun issue by attacking the motivation of the victim. Why did he all of a sudden six months after the fact remember that a gun was in the car at the time of the alleged crime. I proposed to the jury that perhaps the alleged victim was going to make an insurance claim for the stolen gun. However, his "convenient memory recall" could cost my client life in prison.
Secondly, I instructed my client to admit that he was indeed a career criminal drug dealer. He also admitted he was there at the scene of the crime. However, when he came upon the crime scene, he found glass in the parking lot next to the vehicle. My client explained that he was concerned about damaging his own vehicle so he moved the glass away from his vehicle. That would explain how the his fingerprints appeared on the vehicle glass.
The jury found my client not guilty in spite of the fact that he had had nine felony convictions prior to this trial. The jury knew all of this from his own testimony yet he was able to walk away from charges that would have sent him to prison for life.
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