One must remember that crime and criminal are arbitrary classifications: they are what the legislatures say they are. One is not classified as a criminal unless one has been caught committing a crime. Committing crimes undetected allows one to not be classified as a criminal: you have to be caught to be a criminal.
If you are charged with a crime and the case is dismissed or you are acquitted at trial, you are still considered a criminal because the police arrested you and charged you with a crime; they certainly would not have done that if you hadn't both committed the crime and been stupid enough to be caught at it. Sometimes one has to think that the actual classification as a criminal, the detention, and the jail time are by themselves enough to classify one as a criminal. Courts, lawyers, trials, are really not relevant to whether a person is considered a criminal.
If one is arrested and taken to jail, one has been punished without any input from a judge or prosecutor or other person involved in what we call the criminal justice system. You can't tell me that being taken to jail is not a punishment. And if you can not make bond, and sit in jail for an extended period of time, you probably lose your job, your apartment, and more than likely your wife and kids who have been kicked out into the streets, or moved back in with her parents as the only place she has to go.
As a criminal defense attorney, my practice is, when first looking at a case, to determine one thing: Can they prove you did it? If it doesn't look like they can prove it, or their case is iffy at best, I say "Go to trial." What do you have to lose? The answer to that is nothing. You have nothing to lose by going to trial.
I often say to my clients, or I should say in a form of a question, "Why do you want to make it easy for them to put you in jail or prison?" "Why would you agree to plead guilty in return for a recommendation of probation, a probation you can't possibly make. "Screw that--go to trial." Defendants should realize that prosecutors are busy people; they have a lot of cases. Trials are work; they really don't want to spend their time and energy preparing for trial and then actually trying a case which is stressful and uncertain. That's not how they want to operate.
If every defendant on one court service day would say "I'm not pleading, I want to go to trial, the whole system would break down in one day; the system would implode; it couldn't handle it. The only way that our "criminal justice system" functions is if 99% of the people charged with a crime plead guilty. This is why we call it "the administration of justice". Justice is being administered. You are charged with a crime, the police will be supported by prosecuting every case they bring before the court and given to the prosecutors and there you have it. There is not independent evaluation of whether you did the crime charged, or whether there is any proof that you did the crime charged, or that they will be able to find any of their witnesses needed to prove the charges. Usually the witnesses hate the police as much as you do and don't want any part of a trial whether as defendant or witness,
I had two cases dismissed today. In one case, the witnesses who we deposed couldn't identify the defendant which was necessary to prosecute the case. The second case involved a victim from out-of-state who basically disappeared and would not respond to communications from the prosecutor. Without a victim it was going to be very difficult to prosecute. It may have been possible to put on a case with the witness, but not much sympathy would apply to the victim if he didn't show up and tell the jury his version of the events. In both cases we had scheduled a trial and they would have gone to trial if the prosecutor had persisted. I can't tell you if either defendant would have been acquitted, but it was likely.
If you are charged with a crime and the case is dismissed or you are acquitted at trial, you are still considered a criminal because the police arrested you and charged you with a crime; they certainly would not have done that if you hadn't both committed the crime and been stupid enough to be caught at it. Sometimes one has to think that the actual classification as a criminal, the detention, and the jail time are by themselves enough to classify one as a criminal. Courts, lawyers, trials, are really not relevant to whether a person is considered a criminal.
If one is arrested and taken to jail, one has been punished without any input from a judge or prosecutor or other person involved in what we call the criminal justice system. You can't tell me that being taken to jail is not a punishment. And if you can not make bond, and sit in jail for an extended period of time, you probably lose your job, your apartment, and more than likely your wife and kids who have been kicked out into the streets, or moved back in with her parents as the only place she has to go.
As a criminal defense attorney, my practice is, when first looking at a case, to determine one thing: Can they prove you did it? If it doesn't look like they can prove it, or their case is iffy at best, I say "Go to trial." What do you have to lose? The answer to that is nothing. You have nothing to lose by going to trial.
I often say to my clients, or I should say in a form of a question, "Why do you want to make it easy for them to put you in jail or prison?" "Why would you agree to plead guilty in return for a recommendation of probation, a probation you can't possibly make. "Screw that--go to trial." Defendants should realize that prosecutors are busy people; they have a lot of cases. Trials are work; they really don't want to spend their time and energy preparing for trial and then actually trying a case which is stressful and uncertain. That's not how they want to operate.
If every defendant on one court service day would say "I'm not pleading, I want to go to trial, the whole system would break down in one day; the system would implode; it couldn't handle it. The only way that our "criminal justice system" functions is if 99% of the people charged with a crime plead guilty. This is why we call it "the administration of justice". Justice is being administered. You are charged with a crime, the police will be supported by prosecuting every case they bring before the court and given to the prosecutors and there you have it. There is not independent evaluation of whether you did the crime charged, or whether there is any proof that you did the crime charged, or that they will be able to find any of their witnesses needed to prove the charges. Usually the witnesses hate the police as much as you do and don't want any part of a trial whether as defendant or witness,
I had two cases dismissed today. In one case, the witnesses who we deposed couldn't identify the defendant which was necessary to prosecute the case. The second case involved a victim from out-of-state who basically disappeared and would not respond to communications from the prosecutor. Without a victim it was going to be very difficult to prosecute. It may have been possible to put on a case with the witness, but not much sympathy would apply to the victim if he didn't show up and tell the jury his version of the events. In both cases we had scheduled a trial and they would have gone to trial if the prosecutor had persisted. I can't tell you if either defendant would have been acquitted, but it was likely.
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