You should speak with a criminal defense attorney before you please guilt to a crime, even if you committed the crime.  You may feel that pleading guilty to a crime is the right thing to do and that you deserve whatever punishment a court of law hands out to you as a result, but you may be getting more than you bargained for.  Depending on the crime and specific circumstances under which it was committed, such as if you have been found guilty in other criminal cases, pleading guilty to a crime could result in a significant jail sentence or perhaps even the death penalty.

Before pleading guilty on your own, you should consider the following ways a criminal defense attorney may be able to help with your criminal case.

Review the prosecuting attorney’s case and evidence against you.  From your perspective, it may appear that the prosecuting attorney has enough evidence against you that a court of law finding you guilty is a foregone conclusion.  In fact, the police and prosecuting attorney may tell you that you are likely to be found guilty in an attempt to scare you into pleading guilty.  However, things may not always be as clear cut as they first appear.

A criminal defense attorney will have years of training and experience in reviewing criminal cases like yours.  By speaking with a criminal defense attorney and having him review the evidence against you, he may find that the evidence against you is not as strong as you first believed.  In fact, it may be possible that there is not enough evidence for the prosecuting attorney to obtain a guilty verdict in a court of law or to even bring your case to trial.

This may be different than the impression you have been given by the police or the prosecuting attorney.  The job of the police and prosecuting attorney is to solve criminal cases.  They do this by finding the person who they believe committed a crime, gathering evidence to prove the person committed the crime, and presenting that evidence in a court of law to obtain a guilty verdict.  However, when a case is based purely on evidence, the prosecuting attorney knows that there is still a chance that the court of law will not find the defendant guilty.  Prosecuting attorneys simply have a better chance of obtaining a guilty verdict in criminal cases when the defendant pleads guilty to the crime; therefore, they want you to plead guilty.

Regardless of how strong the prosecuting attorney’s case is against you, they will try to convince you that you should plead guilty.  But you should not do so until you have spoken with a criminal defense attorney.

Negotiate a plea bargain.  A plea bargain is when a criminal defense attorney negotiates with the prosecuting attorney that the defendant will plead guilty in exchange to the guilty plea being for a lesser crime than what the prosecuting attorney originally charged the defendant with.  A plea bargain is not unusual in criminal cases, because even if the prosecuting attorney has a strong case against a defendant based on the evidence, going through the process to prove the case may be a long, expensive, and difficult process.  Therefore, the prosecuting attorney may be willing to accept a guilty plea for a lesser crime.

In addition, the plea bargain will also include a sentence that has been negotiated by the defense attorney.  This means that even though you have to plead guilty, you will not receive as harsh of punishment as if you had pleaded guilty to the original crime.

Because of the reasons noted above, you should speak with a criminal defense attorney before you decide on your own to plead guilty to any crime.

How can I speak with a criminal defense attorney?

By completing the short form found at http://www.criminaldefensehome.com/eval_bar.php, a criminal defense attorney can review your case to start helping you make the best decision.  This initial discussion with a criminal defense attorney is free of charge, completely confidential from the police, and does not obligate you to anything further.  Therefore, take this opportunity to start getting help today in determining the best way to handle criminal charges against you.

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by Mark Johnston

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