Minneapolis, MN asked in Criminal Law and Federal Crimes for Minnesota

Q: I'm being accused of arson. I was signed in at a county library and my public defender said they weren't about to verify

Im being accused of arson. the exact time this allegedly occurred (which mind you-building is still there) I was signed in @ a county library & logged in on one of their computers. Directly before & after library I was @ adjacent building the county community action building meeting w/ a woman for public assistance. The police then detained me for an unnecessary amount of time without telling me why all while violating my rights. I was nieve enough to get into the vehicle w/ while my backpack went in another squad over to the "scene of the crime" & dropped me off right in the center of 50 people maybe to have me go back and forth between squad car detective car to ultimately get placed in handcuffs and taken to jail to be "booked in" for something that ultimately at 4am the judge never signed arrest warrant because insufficient reason to detain & I wasn't released until 11am. 2 years later I'm still going through court. Why didn't the state go verify my location @ the beginning?

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1 Lawyer Answer

A: Arson doesn’t require that you entirely burn down a building. Arson is intentionally setting the building on fire. Whether it burns down or not is immaterial.

The cops aren’t generally going to track down and verify every alleged alibi that a suspect tells them about. I’m not sure what you mean by “signed in” to a computer at the VA. Do you have an actual user name and password? If not, I’m not sure how they would verify that it was you signed into a computer. Presumably, your attorney could assign an investigator to follow up with the public assistance folks to see if there is any record that you went in to apply for public assistance on the date and time when the arson allegedly occurred.

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