Your Right to an Attorney

When you're arrested and charged with a criminal offense you are considered innocence until proven guilty in a court of law. To supports this belief system you are guaranteed the right to an attorney and as most people know if you cannot afford one the courts will appoint one for you in criminal matters. Once you have been assigned or hired an attorney your case moves further into the judicial system towards a court date. This means within 24 hours of your arrest on a weekday you will be standing before a judge to determine if there is enough probable cause to detain you for the crime you are being charged with.

If the judge deems there is a not probable cause to hold you the next step will be to begin setting the series of trial dates that precede your actual court trial. At this point your criminal attorney will be working behind the scenes to accomplish a few things. Your criminal attorney will either try to prove that you are innocent, or create enough doubt with a jury of your guilt that they cannot convict, or work to show mitigating circumstances to help reduce the level of culpability the courts hold you to.

However, most defendants never make it to court, since most defendants plead out their cases instead of going into a trial. Plea deals are struck for a variety of reasons,but the most common reason is resources. Most defendants don't have the resources to retain a criminal attorney for trial. And prosecuting a defendant can be extremely expensive for the state. Most of the time the prosecution and criminal defense attorney can come to an agreement that the defendant signs off on in lieu of rolling the dice with a trial.

However as we have seen from the recent media frenzy in the news even those defendants accused of crimes and deemed guilty by the majority of the public, can win in a court battle. This is a gamble that you are free to take, however bear in mind that for most defendants there is no such thing as a speedy trial. Although you are guaranteed a speedy trial in the Constitution, in reality your attorney will likely waive that right in order to have the time to build your case.

You may end up waiting out the duration before your trial even starts in a county holding cell. If your found guilty after your trial, the time you served waiting will be reduced from your overall sentence. However if you are innocent you will have lost that time in jail and there is no compensation for that.
This is why many defendants choose to strike a plea deal, especially if they feel they won't win based on the evidence, which can be entirely circumstantial and yet strong enough to convict. However as we have seen, even the most guilty looking defendants can be found innocent, so it's a gamble that may be worth taking with the right criminal attorney.