Category: Criminal Defense

A person is “subject to” a Court Order when that Court has Jurisdiction over them. The subject of Jurisdiction could fill a small Law Library in and of itself, but for our purposes, we’re talking about a person having some relationship to a case pending in a particular Court. That...

However, the fact that a person was fingerprinted and booked does not go away, and the Court does not destroy or seal its’ file. Thus, there is a Public Record of this transaction, but the person winds up without a conviction. This can be a little problematic where someone has their record...

The actual name of the law, Holmes Youthful Trainee Act, may conjure up some image of “trainees” in boot-camp regalia, but in truth, there’s nothing like that. A person who has been granted HYTA (also called YTA) by a Court must, at a minimum, be placed on Probation. A Judge cannot order...

The Judge, at Sentencing, then tells the person how long they will serve on Probation, and further advise them that if they complete that period of Probation without any problems, the whole case will be dismissed and there will be no Public Record of it. The exact terms and length of any...

Unfortunately, not all callers have such a clean record and a predictably easy case. In many cases, the caller is worried about getting more points on their driving record because they already have a few (or, in some cases, a lot!). Remember the two questions I’m going to ask, and I’ll explain...

Charges are brought by the Prosecutor, not any individual person. Accordingly, only the Prosecutor can “drop” the charges. Usually, the person who called the Police (in most cases the (alleged) victim, or, in some cases, an independent witness, who can sometimes be the investigating Police Officer) is designated as the “Complaining Witness.”

Possession of Controlled Substances like cocaine and heroin is prohibited by a law that makes it a crime to possess any amount. Thus, the lowest possession charge a person can face is “Possession of Less Than 25 Grams.” The next level up covers Possession of 25 up to less than 50 grams. A person...