I paid 5g to a local attorney to eventually get my charges of two counts of assault with a firearm dismissed after almost a year. The last deal the DA offered was anger management classes and charges would be dropped. I, through my attorney, told the DA to fuck off and he dismissed the charges three days before the trial was to begin.
It can cost a lot of money, but that can be mitigated if you familiarize yourself with the law. After they pushed back various hearings and the trial date four times, I blew it and told my attorney that I wanted to exercise my right to a speedy trial. My lawyer told me that we could absolutely go in to the court room and do that and a trial would be set within days...but we weren't ready, which really means that he wasn't ready. If I had done that early on in the process and we would have prepared for a quick trial, it could have saved me a few thousand.
Just know this, on small crimes like that, the DA doesn't want to go to court..especially if the case is weak like mine. He doesn't want to spend the time preparing for it and doesn't want to spend the time in the court room. They especially don't want to spend the time on a case that they don't have a near 100% chance of a conviction.
My advice, if they have a weak case and it's not a violent felony, is to pressure them. Make them sweat. They'll do the most expeditious thing, which is to either drop the case, or offer a really sweet deal.
DAs are elected. Incumbents like to point to their conviction rate a as reason to re-elect them. These conviction rates are very high. My attorney told me that my county DA has a 99% conviction rate. It was at that point that I knew I would win. They don't take cases to trial unless they have a slam dunk case and mine was anything but.
First things first. Don't talk to the police. Just don't do it. Politely assert your right to remain silent and your right to have an attorney present during questioning. What appears like the most innocent of questions can be designed to get you to admit to something you think is innocent, but could be used against you in court. The cops are professionals at getting people to say incriminating things...you are not in their league. That's what a lawyer is for.
I did not talk to the police at all, even when they brought the LT to the scene to try and play bad cop/good cop. I asserted my right to remain silent and I asked for a lawyer. It helps if you have a law firm's card in your wallet or purse that you can show them. I did not, but my polite refusal to answer questions made the questioning stop fairly quickly. They arrested me and took me to jail where I bonded out in about 4 hours. The process was fairly painless even if it was quite inconvenient.
Second, be sure to get a good trial lawyer. Someone who isn't afraid of a court room and someone who isn't going to pressure you to take a plea deal. My lawyer never pressured me and was actually kind of eager to go to court. He thought we had a good chance at an acquittal. If you doubt your lawyer's advice, you can get a second opinion from another lawyer. This will cost a little bit of money and a little bit of time, but it might be worth it. Don't change lawyers unless it's necessary, that will slow the process down significantly.
Explain to your lawyer that you want this process to go quickly. Tell him that you might wish to exercise your right to a speedy trial. Tell him this early and tell him that you want to prepare for a trial early, even if the odds are that you wont go to trial.
If the DA starts to fuck around with delays and postponements, then exercise your rights and have your attorney request a speedy trial from the judge or at least threaten the DA with a speedy trial request. This will put tremendous pressure on the DA as he will have a full docket that now has to be shuffled around and passed off to others in the DA's office. They don't like this at all and if your charge is weak and there's a decent chance of you winning, this may be just the push the DA needs to dismiss it or offer a really good plea deal.
Be aware of plea deals. A plea deal is the same as a conviction at a trial. You can lose certain rights depending on what deal you take. You will also have a criminal record and all the inconveniences that comes with it. If the witnesses are trash and the evidence is shoddy and your lawyer thinks you can win it, then don't take any plea deal. Push for a trial as soon as possible. Make them sweat.
Pay attention to the preliminary hearing. Your lawyer will be able to ask your accusers questions. This is an excellent time to gauge how good he is in a court room.
You will not have to speak at any time in this entire legal process, not even at trial. You should never have to speak to the DA, or any other court officer except, maybe, the judge. Follow your lawyer's advice on this. If he thinks it's best that you take the stand and testify, then you should probably do it...but you don't have to if you don't want to.
I would also like to say, if they have great evidence and it's likely that you will be convicted, then you better plea, because if you go to trial the punishment will be much worse than if you had just plead guilty to some lesser crime. Judges and DA's hate it when lower felony offenses go to trial as they think it's a waste of the court's time.
There are two trial types. Trial by Jury and a trial where the judge can decide on the guilt (bench trial). I had the option to request either, I chose a jury trial, based off of the advice of my lawyer, but it wasn't a black and white decision. Your lawyer may advise a different path. One thing to know; in bench trials, there is no rout of appealing the decision. Once the judge decides, that's it, you can't appeal...at least in my state.
If you are being accused of a violent crime or some other big time felony, then you will almost assuredly get much different treatment from the DA and Judge than what I've laid out here. This essay is only intended for lower class felonies and misdemeanors.
It's important to look at this whole thing as a fight between you and the DA, not a fight between you and your accusers. This is a bloody, knock down, drag out fight against the grinding gears of the judicial system. You can make things right against your accusers after the trial in civil court if you think you have a case. In the mean time, forget about them. Forget about the police that arrested you. Forget about all that stuff. This is between you and the DA. The rest of that can be ironed out later, after you've walked free.
Get your mindset right. Don't be afraid of going to jail unless they have really good evidence. They play off this fear and that's how they get hundreds of thousands of people every year to plea to stuff they didn't do. Fuck them . That should be your mindset. You're going to beat that punk ass DA and show him who's the boss. Don't forget it.
DA's are not elected in my state. Nobody knows their names or the insane abuses they've handed down on lawful gun owners. There's no way to punish them.
There are only four states that don't elect them. Those four are appointed by the Governor. The governor doesn't want a DA working for him that has a low conviction rate. It looks bad at election time..
I paid 5g to a local attorney to eventually get my charges of two counts of assault with a firearm dismissed after almost a year. The last deal the DA offered was anger management classes and charges would be dropped. I, through my attorney, told the DA to fuck off and he dismissed the charges three days before the trial was to begin.
It can cost a lot of money, but that can be mitigated if you familiarize yourself with the law. After they pushed back various hearings and the trial date four times, I blew it and told my attorney that I wanted to exercise my right to a speedy trial. My lawyer told me that we could absolutely go in to the court room and do that and a trial would be set within days...but we weren't ready, which really means that he wasn't ready. If I had done that early on in the process and we would have prepared for a quick trial, it could have saved me a few thousand.
Just know this, on small crimes like that, the DA doesn't want to go to court..especially if the case is weak like mine. He doesn't want to spend the time preparing for it and doesn't want to spend the time in the court room. They especially don't want to spend the time on a case that they don't have a near 100% chance of a conviction.
My advice, if they have a weak case and it's not a violent felony, is to pressure them. Make them sweat. They'll do the most expeditious thing, which is to either drop the case, or offer a really sweet deal.
I want to make a few things clear.
DAs are elected. Incumbents like to point to their conviction rate a as reason to re-elect them. These conviction rates are very high. My attorney told me that my county DA has a 99% conviction rate. It was at that point that I knew I would win. They don't take cases to trial unless they have a slam dunk case and mine was anything but.
First things first. Don't talk to the police. Just don't do it. Politely assert your right to remain silent and your right to have an attorney present during questioning. What appears like the most innocent of questions can be designed to get you to admit to something you think is innocent, but could be used against you in court. The cops are professionals at getting people to say incriminating things...you are not in their league. That's what a lawyer is for.
I did not talk to the police at all, even when they brought the LT to the scene to try and play bad cop/good cop. I asserted my right to remain silent and I asked for a lawyer. It helps if you have a law firm's card in your wallet or purse that you can show them. I did not, but my polite refusal to answer questions made the questioning stop fairly quickly. They arrested me and took me to jail where I bonded out in about 4 hours. The process was fairly painless even if it was quite inconvenient.
Second, be sure to get a good trial lawyer. Someone who isn't afraid of a court room and someone who isn't going to pressure you to take a plea deal. My lawyer never pressured me and was actually kind of eager to go to court. He thought we had a good chance at an acquittal. If you doubt your lawyer's advice, you can get a second opinion from another lawyer. This will cost a little bit of money and a little bit of time, but it might be worth it. Don't change lawyers unless it's necessary, that will slow the process down significantly.
Explain to your lawyer that you want this process to go quickly. Tell him that you might wish to exercise your right to a speedy trial. Tell him this early and tell him that you want to prepare for a trial early, even if the odds are that you wont go to trial.
If the DA starts to fuck around with delays and postponements, then exercise your rights and have your attorney request a speedy trial from the judge or at least threaten the DA with a speedy trial request. This will put tremendous pressure on the DA as he will have a full docket that now has to be shuffled around and passed off to others in the DA's office. They don't like this at all and if your charge is weak and there's a decent chance of you winning, this may be just the push the DA needs to dismiss it or offer a really good plea deal.
Be aware of plea deals. A plea deal is the same as a conviction at a trial. You can lose certain rights depending on what deal you take. You will also have a criminal record and all the inconveniences that comes with it. If the witnesses are trash and the evidence is shoddy and your lawyer thinks you can win it, then don't take any plea deal. Push for a trial as soon as possible. Make them sweat.
Pay attention to the preliminary hearing. Your lawyer will be able to ask your accusers questions. This is an excellent time to gauge how good he is in a court room.
You will not have to speak at any time in this entire legal process, not even at trial. You should never have to speak to the DA, or any other court officer except, maybe, the judge. Follow your lawyer's advice on this. If he thinks it's best that you take the stand and testify, then you should probably do it...but you don't have to if you don't want to.
I would also like to say, if they have great evidence and it's likely that you will be convicted, then you better plea, because if you go to trial the punishment will be much worse than if you had just plead guilty to some lesser crime. Judges and DA's hate it when lower felony offenses go to trial as they think it's a waste of the court's time.
There are two trial types. Trial by Jury and a trial where the judge can decide on the guilt (bench trial). I had the option to request either, I chose a jury trial, based off of the advice of my lawyer, but it wasn't a black and white decision. Your lawyer may advise a different path. One thing to know; in bench trials, there is no rout of appealing the decision. Once the judge decides, that's it, you can't appeal...at least in my state.
If you are being accused of a violent crime or some other big time felony, then you will almost assuredly get much different treatment from the DA and Judge than what I've laid out here. This essay is only intended for lower class felonies and misdemeanors.
It's important to look at this whole thing as a fight between you and the DA, not a fight between you and your accusers. This is a bloody, knock down, drag out fight against the grinding gears of the judicial system. You can make things right against your accusers after the trial in civil court if you think you have a case. In the mean time, forget about them. Forget about the police that arrested you. Forget about all that stuff. This is between you and the DA. The rest of that can be ironed out later, after you've walked free.
Get your mindset right. Don't be afraid of going to jail unless they have really good evidence. They play off this fear and that's how they get hundreds of thousands of people every year to plea to stuff they didn't do. Fuck them . That should be your mindset. You're going to beat that punk ass DA and show him who's the boss. Don't forget it.
That all seems like fantastic advice I hope I'll never have to use.
DA's are not elected in my state. Nobody knows their names or the insane abuses they've handed down on lawful gun owners. There's no way to punish them.
There are only four states that don't elect them. Those four are appointed by the Governor. The governor doesn't want a DA working for him that has a low conviction rate. It looks bad at election time..
Great write up.