TV lawyers are always taking their cases to trial. Those emotional courtroom scenes make for high drama and good TV. What TV doesn't often show you are the long hours lawyers spend preparing for trial while their clients sit in limbo, often behind bars, awaiting the big day. They also don't show you the repeated delays and continuances that can drag a defendant's right to a speedy trial out into months of anxious waiting and needless expense. They don't usually show you when critical testimony or evidence is thrown out by the judge, evidence the defendant may have been counting on to prove his innocence.
Because TV likes to deal in heroes and villains, courtroom dramas rarely show you when a jury of allows their emotions to get in the way of a fair judgment and convicts someone unjustly. And TV doesn't show judges with their own personal ax to grind imposing overly harsh sentences on offenders. These things may not happen every time; but they do happen. Justice isn't always just. If it were, scores of jailed convicts wouldn't be exonerated and freed by DNA tests every year.
The truth of the matter is trials are a crap shoot. Most of the time, justice is served and the guilty are sentenced to serve reasonable sentences. But as a defendant, you can't count on it. Plea bargaining is a way to not only manage your criminal defense costs -- and for the state to manage prosecutors' costs -- but it also allows defendants to negotiate their sentence ahead of time.
Whether you're innocent or guilty, a plea bargain may be a defendant's cheapest and most effective way to settle a legal matter; but only if you are represented by an aggressive and experienced criminal defense attorney. Chose the wrong attorney, and you could find your rights bargained away. An expert criminal defense lawyer like Stephen Rodriguez who has considerable experience negotiating plea bargains with the Los Angeles prosecutor's office and the court has the knowledge and skills to aggressively negotiate a favorable plea bargain for his client. An experienced criminal defense attorney may be able to have the charges reduced or keep the defendant out of jail by negotiating alternative sentencing.
To find out more about plea bargaining and alternative sentencing, contact the Law Offices of Stephen R. Rodriguez in Los Angeles.
Criminal law is changing every day in California and one of the most important decisions you need to make when you or your love one charged with a criminal offense is, The selection of your Criminal Defense Lawyer.