Jacksonville Criminal Defense Lawyer

Before anyone is charged with a felony, law enforcement is required to investigate the case and gather evidence. If you are being investigated by law enforcement, now is the time to hire us. Hiring us at an early stage of the process can save you thousands of dollars, may prevent law enforcement from charging you with a crime, may help ensure a low bond if you are charged with a crime, and may even prevent you from being placed in jail.

Many people do not think they need an attorney at this stage because they do not believe they have done anything wrong. While that may be true, you do not know what the evidence against you might be. Perhaps some disgruntled ex has decided to set you up. Perhaps you were on a brisk walk, inadvertently dropped your wallet in close proximity to a recent crime scene, and the person who found your wallet believes you were fleeing from the scene.

The point is that law enforcement is going to want to talk to you and you need to know how to handle the situation in the best way possible. In some cases, you do not want to talk to law enforcement and in others, you may find that it is in your best interest to speak with law enforcement while we are present. If you have an attorney by your side, he/she can tell you when to answer and when to stay quiet. He/she can also gather information that will be necessary for a future defense.

No matter what happens, law enforcement is going to investigate the case until they are satisfied that either you committed the crime or that it was committed by someone else. That means that you are going to be investigated until they can find someone else who is more likely the culprit. If they don’t find someone else, you are likely to be charged.

In order to be charged, the officer will have to detail the evidence against you to a magistrate. If the magistrate believes the officer (which they almost always do) and the magistrate believes a crime was committed, the magistrate will allow the officer to swear out a felony warrant.

When the officer has received a felony warrant from the magistrate, you will be entered into a law enforcement data network. That means everyone in law enforcement will know to arrest you on sight. Moreover, a warrant squad will be assembled and sent out to find you.

A warrant squad is a group of law enforcement officers that have been duly sworn and commissioned with the primary responsibility of executing arrest warrants. In some situations, law enforcement agencies will work together on a warrant squad. If the charge is serious enough, you can guarantee law enforcement is going to be highly aggressive and you will be put in a very dangerous situation (guns drawn, tasers and mace out).

Believe it or not, all of this may be avoidable if you hire an attorney. If you hire us, we can work with law enforcement to allow you to turn yourself in. We can also be present to ensure your safety, protect your constitutional rights, and seek a low or unsecured bond. You will also benefit from avoiding an embarrassing arrest in a public forum such as a church, a wedding, or the supermarket.

When you turn yourself in, or you are arrested, you will be taken to the Magistrate’s Office. The magistrate will inform you of your charges and set your bond. If we are present, we can negotiate with the magistrate for a low or unsecured bond. The type of bond and, obviously, the amount of the bond will have a direct impact on whether you spend your time in pre-trial confinement (jail) or in the comfort of your own home.

After being charged with a felony, you will have to appear in District Court for what is known as a first appearance. Your first appearance is a very anticlimactic hearing in which your attorney situation is addressed (whether you will be appointed an attorney, whether you will represent yourself, or whether you will hire your own attorney), the charges are read to you, the judge confirms you were given copies of your paperwork, tells you the amount and type of bond, and lets you know your next court date in district court. In many situations, and for a variety of reasons, we can waive your first appearance and skip the embarrassing aspect of this process (you will be in front of a crowd of people).

There are a variety of different bonds and almost infinite bond conditions. For the purposes of this section, we will discuss the main bonds that are likely to be utilized: cash, secured, and unsecured. A cash bond is exactly what it sounds like; someone has to pay the cash value of the bond. If the bond is $5,000.00 cash, someone has to pay $5,000.00 in cash to get you out of jail. As long as you do not miss your court dates, this money will be returned after the charges are disposed of (regardless of guilt or innocence).

If the bond is secured, you can utilize a bondsman to post your bond. Bondsmen charge 15% or less to post your bond. For example, if your bond is $10,000.00 secured, a bondsman will charge you $1,500.00 or less to post the bond and get you out of jail. The money you pay a bondsman is a fee; you are paying the bondsman to post your bond and accept the liability of possibly losing much more money. You will not get this money back (even if the case is dismissed).

An unsecured bond requires no money to get out of jail. Regardless of whether you have a $10,000.00 or $5.00 unsecured bond, you do not have to pay any money to get out of jail. Your signature is your bond.

This is the first thing on the mind of anyone that is in jail. We know that our clients who are in jail want their bonds reduced. However, the Constitution only requires that you have a reasonable bond set, not that the bond be something you can afford. If you cannot afford your bond, get comfortable because you are going to be in jail for a very long time.

Getting to the point, however, a bond reduction is not something that is easy to accomplish. The process is complex and can involve everything from negotiating with prosecutors to appealing to the Superior Court and arguing before a judge. In some cases, however, a reduction is a moot point because the individual may not have any money to pay toward their bond. Also, if the prosecutor is not on board with the reduction, there is always a risk that the bond could be increased.

Addressing a bond reduction should be accomplished through a frank conversation. We need to know the maximum amount of money that can be raised to post your bond. That will let us know the amount of reduction that is necessary to post the bond. For example, if the maximum amount of money that you can put toward your bond is $1,500.00, we know that we will have to have your bond reduced to the range of approximately $10,000.00 – $25,000.00. In other words, if you are facing a $100,000.00 bond, a reduction to $50,000.00 will serve no real purpose (assuming the maximum amount of money you can post is $1,500.00).

We handle these situations by placing our client’s money in a trust account. We evaluate the current bond amount and make an experienced opinion as to the realistic amount of reduction that will take place. We contact the prosecutor and determine the lowest bond they are willing to agree upon. We then contact the bondsman and determine the highest bond they will post based on the amount of money our client has in trust. This is a waxing and waning process and will continue until the numbers work out. Once the numbers work out, we file a consent modification, head to court, have a judge order the agreed-upon reduction, send a bondsman in, and post your bond.

If you find yourself in jail without money to post a bond, you are going to need to get comfortable with your situation. It varies from county to county, but the average felony disposition time ranges from around 4 months (for low level felonies) to 2 years or more (for serious felony charges).

The length of time is directly dependent on the complexity of the case, the required chemical/DNA/blood analysis, and the severity of the charge. Complex cases take a long time to put together because you have to be able to present the case and defense to the jury in a manner they will understand. If the case involves scientific analysis, you are going to have to wait for the State Bureau of Investigation to complete testing (they have about a 12-month backlog without a rush order). If the case is serious, it is going to require an ongoing investigation and, in turn, the continuing delivery of discoverable evidence to our office.

Your constitutional right to a speedy trial is not what most people believe it is. Waiting a year or more to go to trial is not a per se violation of your constitutional rights. In order to comply with a motion for a speeding trial, in a simplistic and general view, the State must calendar your case for trial at least once every 6 months. This does not mean your case will actually be called for trial. The prosecutor, in most situations, determines the order of cases for trial. In other words, if the prosecutor places your case on the trial docket and decides that your case is number 100 for trial, there is almost no realistic possibility that your case will be heard by a jury during that term. However, by placing your case on the trial docket, the prosecutor has complied with any motion for a speedy trial. . . even if the case is never reached.

With a few exceptions, the District Court in the Fifth Prosecutorial District (Onslow, Duplin, Jones, and Sampson Counties) does not have jurisdiction to handle a felony charge. Jurisdiction, in an almost incorrect and very generic sense, means the legal authority to enter a verdict in a case. Because this District Court lacks jurisdiction over felony charges, very little work is done on felony cases during these trial sessions. Nevertheless, your case may appear on many District Court calendars and your presence is required (unless you are in jail or have hired an attorney).

If it is unlikely that anything of substance will be done in the District Court, the obvious question regards the purpose of district court dates. The answer is that these court dates can be used to determine probable cause for arrest, argue pretrial motions, reduce and plea certain charges, comply with your right to a speedy trial, verifying a person has not fled from justice, etc.

If you find yourself in jail, you will undoubtedly hear the inmates talking about your “motion.” The inmates are referring to a Motion for Discovery. This is the document that demands the prosecutor disclose the evidence against you. It is also one of the first motions that we file in a felony case. Filing this motion does not mean that there is going to be an immediate response from the State. In many cases, the prosecutor may not have anything in his possession to turn over for a very long time.

The Constitution and case law (published cases that interpret the law) require the prosecution to disclose the evidence against you. As former Superior Court Prosecutors, the following is a description of how this is accomplished: law enforcement will investigate a case and usually write down notes as they are investigating. These notes typically get typed and memorialized as police reports or incident reports. Physical evidence will be collected in a specific manner and sent for testing (if necessary).

Once the reports are completed, they will be sent to the officer’s supervisor for review. If the report is satisfactory, the charging agency will send the reports to the District Attorney’s Office along with photos and descriptions of other evidence. If evidence has been submitted for testing, the prosecutor will wait for the results to be returned. As reports and results trickle into the District Attorney’s Office, legal assistants will compile the information into a file jacket and present it to the prosecutor assigned to the case. The prosecutor will then review the case and determine the identity of the defense attorney. The prosecutor will then begin sending copies of all the evidence to the defense attorney. Once we receive these documents, a copy will be prepared and delivered to the client. In some cases, we will only be able to show you the evidence as opposed to giving you a copy (cases where it would be illegal to provide you with the actual evidence, ie illegal controlled substances, child pornography, etc. In these situations, we can have independent analysts evaluate the evidence on your behalf and provide us with their findings).

At some point, the prosecutor is likely going to send an indictment to the grand jury. An indictment is the name of the document that formally charges a person with a felony and establishes jurisdiction in the Superior Court. Something that might come as a surprise is the fact that the prosecutor can change the charges, charge additional crimes, or allege factors in the indictment that will cause you to face more serious punishment.

As stated, once the prosecutor has created an indictment, the document is sent to the grand jury. The grand jury is a group of citizens, selected randomly, to serve for a period of one year. In essence, these are the people who decide whether there is “probable cause” to believe you committed a crime. If the grand jury finds probable cause, they will sign the indictment and return what is known as a “true bill of indictment.”

Obtaining a true bill is not a difficult feat for the prosecution. First of all, we are not allowed to participate in the hearing before the grand jury. Secondly the grand jury really only has to answer two questions in the affirmative: did the officer tell us a plausible story regarding the commission of a crime? If we believe the officer, was a crime committed by the person charged? If the answer to these questions is yes (which it almost always is), they will return a true bill.

As former Superior Court Prosecutors, our partners sent the grand jury in excess of 8,000 indictments and never had one declined (a non-true bill). There were times when an indictment was held over to the next session because the officer didn’t show up, but we cannot recall an instance where the grand jury dismissed the case. This is only to reemphasize the point that an indictment does not mean your case has taken a turn for the worse but has merely followed the path of nearly all others before it.

By the time the indictment is returned by the grand jury as a true bill, we should have been provided discovery (the evidence against you) and a plea offer. Once we have received discovery, a plea offer, and an indictment, your case will start moving at a much faster pace. For example, for the first time (in most cases) you will have to appear in Superior Court during the Administrative Session.

Within 60 days of being indicted, you will be scheduled for an Administrative Session of the Superior Court (Admin). During Admin, we will meet with the prosecutor assigned to your case and the judge in the judges’ chambers. The purpose of this meeting is to discuss your case. The prosecutor will explain to the judge the plea deal that has been offered and we will either accept or reject the plea deal (assuming we have the discovery and have spoken with you about the plea deal). If we have your authority to accept the plea deal, your case will be scheduled for a specific time and day during Admin. If the plea is rejected, a trial date will be selected. If some evidence is missing from the discovery packet, or there is more evidence that we need, your case will be continued to the next administrative session.

Simply because you have been scheduled for trial on a particular term of the Superior Court does not mean you will actually go to trial. The prosecutor is required to create a docket of cases intended for trial and publish the order in which they will be tried. The trial order is known (in this district) as a priority list.

The trial docket and priority list are almost completely up to the discretion of the prosecutor. If the prosecutor puts your case on the docket, we will have to be present and ready for trial even if you are the last person on the priority list.

Generally, prosecutors create a priority list by considering many factors. Serious cases like murder, rape, and deadly assaults are going to take priority over most cases. Burglary and Drug Trafficking cases are going to be more important than simple drug crimes or frauds.

The prosecutor will also consider the age of a case. If the case is really old, it needs to be moved before newer but similar cases. This is because the older a case gets, the less likely the prosecutor will be able to prevail. As time passes, witnesses move away or forget what they saw, the probability of losing evidence increases, etc.

After taking into consideration the severity and age of the case, a prosecutor will consider how long a case will take to try. If the trial is going to last two weeks, it should be something that is on the top of the list to limit the time a particular jury has to serve (the prosecutor doesn’t want to start a two-week trial after the jury has already sat in court for four days of what is supposed to be a week-long obligation). Conversely, if the trial can be completed in one day, a prosecutor will want the case to be toward the bottom of the priority list.

At the end of all the evidence in a trial, the judge will give the jury what is known as the Final Mandate. The Final Mandate is composed of instructions for the jury regarding the alleged crimes. The jury will then be sent to deliberate (or discuss) the case and render a verdict. Verdicts must be unanimous and cannot be by majority vote. There must be 12 votes to convict or 12 votes to acquit.

In North Carolina, we do not have “hung juries,” we only have mistrials. If the jury cannot reach a unanimous verdict, the judge will have to declare a mistrial. Mistrials can sometimes result in a better plea offer from the prosecution, but generally, a mistrial is not a victory for either side.

All a mistrial means is that the prosecutor has to try your case all over again. If you have retained an attorney, this means you are going to have to rehire the attorney to handle another trial. This can be an incredibly difficult situation for you and we will work to accommodate your financial constraints.