Different Ways Your Case Can End
This is Oklahoma lawyer Stuart Ericson. We’ve been talking about jury trials, but I kind of want to talk about if you’re charged with a case, how it can go. How is this case going to end? How is a jury trial going to end? Not a jury trial, but how’s your case going to end?
So really, there’s only really, you know, a few ways for your case to end. Because once you have a case, the case is filed against you. So it’ll either be dismissed, that can happen. You’ll do a plea bargain, which is a deal or a plea bargain where you’ll plead guilty in exchange for knowing what your sentence will be, or there’ll be a jury trial.
Exceptions to Jury Trial and Plea Bargain
Now there’s a couple exceptions to jury trial. You could do a bench trial, forego the jury and say, hey judge, I’ll try this to you. You decide everything. You decide the facts, you decide guilt or not guilt. You know, that’s kind of a risky proposition.
And there’s also an exception to the plea bargain. Now the plea bargain is with the state of Oklahoma. So the prosecutor says, hey, if you plead guilty, I’ll give you five years probation, right? That certainly can happen. Now, sometimes they go, if you plead guilty, we’ll give you 20 years in prison. And you might go, well, that’s terrible. I might as well roll the dice for a jury trial.
And there is one other option and I’ve seen it used successfully and it can be kind of scary, but in certain times, and it’s called a blind plea where you don’t deal with the DA’s office. You plead guilty to the judge and the judge sentences you. Now, it could cut both ways. The judge could hammer a person and give them a big sentence or they could do better than the state of Oklahoma, which is of course what you’re hoping for.
Dismissing a Case
So, you know, again, but so I just want people to know when a case is filed, dismissals are hard to come by. They do happen and we’d always fight for them either at the conclusion of preliminary hearing, if the alleged victim doesn’t want to prosecute anymore or if some new set of facts just show, man, it just wasn’t what it seemed at the time. Let’s try to get a dismissal. Now, the only person that can dismiss it is the DA’s office or a judge after some sort of a hearing or a motion. So, you know, dismissals are tough to come by.
Pleading Guilty or Going to Trial
So then you’re stuck with plea bargains or jury trials. Jury trials are expensive and they’re a roll of the dice. Obviously they can go any which way. They can be guilty or not guilty. How could anybody predict that? So I try to do the risk reward method of, gosh, what’s the risk of trial versus the reward? What’s the reward of a plea bargain? Well, the certainty.
Now, again, it won’t be my decision as to what to take. I’ll give advice and what I’ve seen and what I think, but it’s ultimately going to be the client’s decision as to how they want their case to end. Usually it’s either going all the way to jury trial or entering into a plea bargain.
Contact Me for More Information
If you have any questions about how criminal cases, how they can end, once it is filed, reach out to me, a Wagoner criminal defense attorney, at wagonerlawyer.com.
