Legal Issues

Juan A. Mateo focuses his practice on criminal law, civil rights, and appellate matters in Detroit, Wayne County, and throughout the State of Michigan. Defendants regularly seek out Mr. Mateo’s AV-rated representation because of his distinguished reputation in the legal community and his successful track record in state and federal courts, at both the trial and appellate levels.

Preeminent Representation for Criminal Defense, Civil Rights, and Appeals

Mr. Mateo is recognized throughout Michigan for his ability to aggressively pursue evidentiary exclusions, acquittals, and outright dismissals for his clients, applying creative legal strategies and addressing problematic and novel areas of constitutional law. Mr. Mateo also has extensive appellate experience, including criminal appeals and civil appeals of wrongful death judgments. His constitutional knowledge enables him to be a versatile advocate, representing defendants whose trials were marred by constitutional violations and defending public officials accused of constitutional violations. Whether a case involves a First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, or Eighth Amendment violation, Mr. Mateo has the constitutional expertise necessary to provide compelling, effective representation and bring an authoritative and innovative approach to the case.

Along with his devotion to civil rights matters, Mr. Mateo is an experienced white collar criminal defense attorney. Criminal fraud can involve both state and federal charges in a wide range of business and public matters, including securities fraud, insurance fraud, voting or election fraud, bribery, extortion, computer crimes, and embezzlement. These charges are often classified as felonies under the Michigan Penal Code and federal criminal law, and carry significant fines and potential prison sentences. Mr. Mateo has earned a prestigious representation in the Michigan legal community for his ability to defend prominent businessmen and public officials facing these serious charges, preserving their livelihoods and restoring their reputations.

Representative Cases

In a case beginning in 2009 and still currently underway, Mr. Mateo and two other attorneys are representing a former Wayne County judge and prosecutor facing criminal misconduct charges for permitting perjury in a 2005 conviction. The judge was charged with allowing testimony when she had been privately informed that the statements were false. With his co-counselors, Mr. Mateo has argued that such a charge against the judge was improper because judges should not be criminally liable for a ruling made during trial, even if the ruling was erroneous. The case is still in the pretrial stage as of December 2010.

In 2000, Mr. Mateo represented a private security guard for a large department store who was accused of involuntary manslaughter. Responding to a shoplifting incident, the defendant subdued the alleged shoplifter with a choke hold after the man threw a punch. The prosecution alleged that this restraint was unreasonable and caused the man’s death by asphyxiation. Mr. Mateo argued that his client did not cause the death and therefore did not commit manslaughter. The judge agreed, dismissing the case because evidence of asphyxiation was inconclusive, since the man also suffered from heart problems that may have caused his death.

Mr. Mateo sued the City of Detroit in a wrongful death action in U.S. District Court. In this case, the plaintiff sued the city for the death of her son, who was shot by a Detroit police officer. The plaintiff alleged that the city was deliberately indifferent to the rights of citizens by failing to properly train and discipline its officers, thereby proximately causing the death. At trial, the district court found for the plaintiff and ordered the city to pay a $6 million dollar verdict.

In a 1991 case, Mr. Mateo represented one defendant before the Sixth Circuit to appeal their convictions for drug trafficking. At trial, the district court allowed the prosecution to introduce the grand jury testimony of two alleged co-conspirators who had not been cross-examined over the defendants’ Confrontation Clause objection. Mr. Mateo appealed the convictions, arguing that the introduction of this testimony violated the defendants’ Sixth Amendment right of confrontation and the requirements of a residual exception to the hearsay rule under the Federal Rules of Evidence. The U.S. Court of Appeals agreed with the District Court and reversed the conviction