It is worthwhile to hire a criminal defense attorney because most individuals do not the process; their main issue is with not knowing what they to do. They are not going to represented by the judge and the prosecutor as the defendant; they have nobody to stand for them, or nobody to explain to them, or simply they go into the case without knowing. There are quite a number of advantages of hiring a criminal defense attorney and one of them is the fact that the attorney has knowledge of the procedures. They know whether or not the plea is legal or not. They are capable of answering most of the many questions that you may have, and will greatly reduce the stress levels that a defendant will go through.

In other words, DUI and criminal cases are not the same especially when it comes to warrantless searches. Of course, in DUI cases if they do not have a warrant there is usually consent and if you do not consent to the breath or blood test then you will lose your license for one year and they will just get a search warrant anyway. In criminal cases do not agree to be searched without warrant; make them come for warrant instead. It’s your right to do not let them enter your house and do not let them search your car. They may look polite, but they fully realize that you have no idea of what is going on, so they will just request you to let them search. In regards to anything criminal, there is one rule to live by; don’t consent to a search without a warrant.

Misdemeanors are therefore less serious crimes as compared to felonies. Usually, it has a number-based system of explaining the nature of the crime that is alleged to have been committed. Well therefore misdemeanors are grouped as class 1, class 2 and class 3 misdemeanor, and they have different ranges of the penalties. And for instance, class 1 misdemeanor, the time that a convict can spend behind the bar cannot exceed six months whereas, for class 3 misdemeanor, the time is not more than 30 days. It is important to understand that felonies are more grave in comparison to misdemeanors, and the latter is also sorted by this number-based system. Therefore, they are categorized into class 1, class 2, class 3, class 4, class 5, class 6 and felony. While class 6 felony is being referred to as the least serious; class 1 felony is regarded as the most serious, thus guaranteeing the most penalty – as far as sentencing is concerned.

The first thing that I advise those who expect a call from a police officer or a detective, is to try to get legal counsel before that time and all should be done through their lawyer. This means that the police or the detective’s aren’t directly going to the person involved and actually the attorney has to be present whenever they are speaking to that person. If they are not having that option, and are going to approach the police officer or detective, I will always advise people to be careful on what they say and do – don’t disclose all the details. Tell them that you would like to hiring counsel, & he/she would be present for any type of discussion.

It can be explained by the fact that court-appointed attorneys usually deal with numerous cases. And if they are given a day depending on their stage and if it is on the initial stages and you are going through the initial process in the court then the court appointed attorney can have 8-10 cases on any given day. As soon as it gets posted in the trial group, the attorneys may have from twenty to fifty cases – it is quite a lot, which will become hinder to give attention to your case. However, when you hire your private attorney, what you mostly get is private approach of your case. The caseloads themselves aren’t as heavy so there’s more time to devote in doing the more detailed case work, visiting the officers, if necessary, meeting whatever specialists are required – there is just more time that the court assign public defender attorneys do not always have.

Well, therefore diversion is one of those things that the State can provide as an alternative to jail or even develop a case, prosecute a case, and probably argue a case before the honorable commissioner’s court. That is where the state will agree to dismiss the proceedings to the extent that the person cannot be prosecuted for some length of time in order that he or she can go for necessary counseling. If they meet all those requirements of that program then the charges can be dismissed – After that. Also, the prosecutor can decide in lieu of jail that the person should just do probation in a case. If they’re just given probation – and no imprisonment – what they would only have to follow is the conditions laid down by probation. Other ways of not going to jail include home detention programs which may be sometimes given to those who have violated the misdemeanor or house arrest.