Court Hearing Process for DUI Cases
When you got out of jail, either you bailed out or they just let you out, you got a piece of paper. That piece of paper gave you a court date. That court date is called your arraignment. You don’t need to know the word. It’s just a big fancy word. All it means is it’s your first court date.
What happens on my first DUI court date?
At the arraignment, three things happen. Number one: You have an opportunity to see the charges against you. It’s called a complaint. That’s the name of the document. Number two: You have an opportunity to plead guilty or not guilty. If you hire me, chances are very good we’re going to be pleading not guilty.
Number three: You have an opportunity to schedule another court date, perhaps a jury trial, perhaps a pretrial readiness conference. We’ll get into that a little more.
Do I have to be in court for my DUI case?
Assuming you’re being charged with a misdemeanor and not a felony, then you do not even have to go to court. I’ll go to court for you in your place. That’s even true if you got bailed out. Your bail bondsman will be okay if your lawyer goes to court for you, and you can keep going to work or school or whatever it is you do.
At the arraignment, we’ll schedule the next court date. That next court date can be two weeks away. It can be a month away. It just depends. It will be different in every case and every situation. That’s something that you and I will talk about and figure out what timing works best for you.
What happens after the arraignment?
The next court date after the arraignment is called a readiness conference or sometimes a pretrial conference. That court date is the time I sit down and talk with the prosecutor about your case. We’re talking about a number of different things. We’re talking about the law, and whether or not they have sufficient evidence to meet their legal burden. We’re talking about facts. If we were to go to trial, what facts would a jury hear? What evidence would a jury not hear? We’re talking about equitable issues, fairness issues. Is there some reason why the prosecutor should be lenient with you even if they have all the evidence they could possibly need to convict you of a DU?
How can I beat my San Diego DUI case?
Between that arraignment, the first court date, and the second court date, a lot is going to happen. That’s when you and I are going to be doing a lot of work together. There’s going to be some client homework that I’m going to have you complete and turn into me. I know nobody likes school. Nobody likes homework, but this is something that has to happen if we’re going to have the best opportunity to get your case dismissed.
I’m going to ask you for a statement of facts, which is where you write down everything that happened. You need to write it down because as time passes, your memory will start fading. It’s got to be written down. There will be eight more homework assignments that I’m going to have you complete. Ideally, by the time that second court appearance comes around, you will have given me all of those homework assignments, and I will be very familiar with your case, with the facts, with everything happening with your case, so that when I sit down and talk with the prosecutor I will know more about your case than the prosecutor will.
At the second court date, the readiness conference or the pretrial conference, one of the things we’re trying to do is convince the prosecutor to dismiss your charges, to dismiss your case. If there’s some reason that the prosecutor and I can’t come to terms as to how this case should be resolved, we’ll reschedule another court date. We’ll set that out anywhere from two weeks to maybe five weeks. During that time, we’ll have an opportunity to get more evidence from the prosecutors. Maybe we will have more evidence that we want to gather. It just depends on our particular strategy in your case.
Can I get my DUI charges dismissed?
Our goal throughout this whole process is to try to get your case dismissed. That is our number one priority. If that doesn’t happen, we will talk about how we will keep fighting your case and whether or not we go to trial. Our number two priority (if we decide against going to trial) is to get your case reduced to some other offense less than the DUI charges. Another priority, if we can’t get the case dismissed and we decide against going to trial, would be to have the sentence minimized or the punishment minimized as much as possible.
What will happen in court on my DUI charges?
Ultimately, there are only three ways that a case can be resolved. Number one: It’s dismissed. It goes away. Again, that’s our number one priority.
The second way it could be resolved, if we can’t convince the prosecutors or the judge to dismiss the case, is by you pleading guilty, to a lesser offense perhaps or just to a DUI. Whatever it is, if they don’t dismiss the case you could plead guilty. That’s one possible result.
The third way it could be resolved is, if they won’t dismiss it, and you won’t plead guilty, is you have to go to trial. That is the only other way it could be resolved is by having a jury decide whether or not you are guilty.
As the case proceeds, you and I will discuss what the best option for you is, given your situation. Whether or not you end up going to trial is 100% your decision. Nobody can prevent you from going to trial if you want to go to trial. At the same time, if you don’t want to go to trial, nobody can force you to go to trial. Whether or not you go to trial is something that you and I will be discussing at length. You don’t need to worry about that right now.
How long will my DUI case take to resolve?
How long your case takes will depend on a lot of different factors, including how many times we have to go to court. There could be one readiness conference or pretrial conference, or there could be five theoretically. There’s no set answer of how long this is going to take.
That pretty much tells you everything you need to know about what you’re going to see happening in the next few months.
Learn more:
Field Sobriety Tests in DUI Cases