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Transcript
Okay Mike, what is a plea agreement?
A plea agreement is something in a case that is often advisable for some of our clients. Let me give you an example, when we get any sort of criminal case or serious traffic case, the first thing we do after talking to the client about the facts of the case, is assess the quality of the evidence. That ultimately means, do we think that the State can provide the allegations against the client.
Often that is the case, may be inescapable despite our best efforts, it appears that the State may be able to make the case against our client. Often, if that is the situation we’re facing, we would suggest to the client that it may be advisable to allow us to consider negotiating with the State Attorney, the prosecutor in the case, the viability of resolving the case, short of having a trial. Often that means that we would go to the State’s attorney, present mitigating factors that are things that our clients are doing well, things that we would tend to mitigate against like any untoward behavior that the state thinks the client may have done.
And ask the state’s attorney, if they’re willing to, for instance, to drop some of the more serious charges in exchange for our client pleading guilty to a lesser charge and often that is in our clients best interest, we can assure to the client that there is a particular outcome, that the client is in favor for, it will take a lot of variables out of the formula.
Those variables that are usually associated with a trial and we say “Listen, if you want to go to trial, you have to understand that it’s a roll of the dice.” What I mean by that, is that after practicing law after 38 years, I’ve certainly have been involved in cases that I knew I was going to win and didn’t and I knew I was going to Lose some cases but the jury has come back with a non-guilty verdict.
So there are all kinds of things that are associated with a trial that are out of our control and we gain some of that control by way of plea agreement, that really is the key, It does take away some of the variable sin the formula and reduces some of the anxiety and stress with handling these charges and assures you of a definite outcome. I think the old cliche would be “ a bird in hand is worth 2 in the bush” and that is probably no more important and certainly advisable in any business, any law business.
Anytime you can regain some type of control, and you can certainly do that by way of plea agreement, it will be advised to do that sometimes. That’s why it’s important to call our office, we all have had years, decades of experience with trying cases, with resolving cases by way of plea agreement, and that is often in our clients best interests but we won’t know until we sit down and talk to you about how we are going to handle it so that’s important for you to give us a call and we will make sure that whatever we do is in your best interest and your family best interest.