Pittsburgh criminal defense attorneys know that despite the weight that is often given to the word of law enforcement officers, they don't always get it right.

In fact, those requiring a Pittsburgh criminal defense know that it actually happens much more frequently than you might think.

Now, police are human beings and honest mistakes are going to happen. The difference, though, between our mistakes and theirs is that when they get it wrong, an innocent person is in handcuffs.

It can be tough to prove your case when it's your word against that of sworn officers. That's why it's so essential to have an experienced Pittsburgh criminal defense attorney at your side.

Illustrating this fact is the recent lawsuit filed by a second man, alleging a false arrest in Pittsburgh back in 2010.

This involved a Pittsburgh drug case in which officers that summer conducted an undercover operation, trying to bust drug dealers who were allegedly working out of a car wash.

Police arrested two men in connection with the case.

However, Pittsburgh criminal defense attorneys took the time to carefully review video surveillance tapes that were available at the car wash. Those tapes proved definitively that the transactions that allegedly occurred - the transactions that police had sworn to - had in fact never occurred.

So of course, those charges were eventually dropped - but not before the two men involved suffered humiliation and anguish at having been arrested, hauled into jail, their mug shot published, and dragged into court - all for crimes they didn't commit.

So now, these two men are suing the department in a civil case filed in federal court.

And what's more, other Pittsburgh criminal cases that had involved these two officers were also dropped. Their credibility had been shot. The department is still in the process of reviewing other cases in which those two officers were involved. They know that if those officers are called to the stand to testify in unrelated cases, a Pittsburgh defense attorney will bring up this case in questioning their integrity and competence in law enforcement.

One of those officers has since transferred to a different division, while another has retired. The two of them, plus the city, have been named as defendants in the civil suit.

Not all criminal cases that involve false arrests have the luxury of video surveillance to back up their claims. That's why having a good Pittsburgh criminal defense attorney is so important.