How Long Will My Georgia Criminal Case Take?

From the time that you’re arrested until the time there’s some sort of an ending to your case can be anywhere from a couple of weeks to literally years. When you’re charged with a crime, you instantly start thinking, “What’s the end point going to be? Is it going to be a trial? Is it going to be a plea deal? Is it going to be dismissed?”

There’s advantages and disadvantages to each of those. Obviously, dismissal is the best. It means that there is no arrest. There’s no citation. There’s nothing on your record from this. Next would be a plea bargain. And that’s actually a negotiation between the prosecutor and myself as your defense attorney, where we try to come to some sort of agreement in order to close the case and let you move on, that this is the best outcome for you.

Third is trial. We are always ready to go to trial on all of our cases and there’s advantages and disadvantages to a trial. It’s 12 people that get to decide what actually happened. They will decide your guilt or innocence. And there’s an old expression that if you do enough trials, you win some you shouldn’t and you lose some you shouldn’t. So you never know what 12 people are going to do.

Well, what we do, is we prosecute your defense to give you the best chance at trial. From the very beginning we’re thinking of that ending, of taking this all the way through. To clear your name, to fight for you. And so from the very beginning, when we’re filing motions, when we’re going over discovery, when we’re talking to witnesses, even when we’re negotiating with the prosecutor, we are thinking that this is headed to trial.

When you’re thinking about who to hire to defend you on a criminal charge, you really want someone that sees the whole picture.