The Sentencing – It all Comes Down to This

By Jeffrey Randa

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Drunk Driving , DUI , DUI 1st offense , DUI 2nd offense

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Published on Oct 08, 2025

When you’re standing in front of the judge to be sentenced for a criminal or DUI offense, what he or she says (and, often enough, what isn’t said) is critically important. We explore this a bit in the section entitled “The Importance of the Voice of your Lawyer.” While there is no need to repeat what is posted there, that concept of the lawyer as a persuader of opinion is what can make the difference between getting hammered – or not.

In every criminal or DUI case, success is best measured by what does NOT happen to you.

Throughout the various articles on our  blog articles, we examine every aspect of criminal and DUI cases, from the moment of initial police contact, to what happens from the first court date right up through the final outcome. Good or bad, that final outcome of any case, and what matters most, is the result.

Thus, if a person goes to court for a suspended license charge and gets locked up for 10 days, then that’s a bad result.

On the other hand, if someone goes to court on a possession of cocaine charge, and they whole thing is kept off their record and all they have to do is pay a fine, that’s a good result.

The outcome in any criminal or DUI case aren’t random, nor do they just “appear” out of nowhere, or without reason. Intelligent strategies must be used to produce the best results possible. One of the most important is to be thoroughly prepared to do well on the pre-sentence investigation, or PSI. The PSI (in DUI cases, this is often called a “screening”) involves you providing background information about yourself, including your alcohol and substance use history.

The probation officer completing the PSI will also gather all the facts surrounding the offense itself. Even in non-alcohol and non-drug related cases, a substance abuse assessment is often required. The PSI process always concludes with you being interviewed by a probation officer.

The end result of the PSI process is a written sentencing recommendation drafted by the probation officer and provided to the judge, who must read and consider its recommendations before deciding what happens to you.

This recommendation is BEYOND important in criminal and DUI cases. In simple terms, the PSI’s recommendation is basically the blueprint for what the judge will do at your sentencing.

The ONLY thing that stands between you, the Judge, and the recommendation in his or her hand is your lawyer. After all the legal wrangling and negotiating, it falls to the skill of the lawyer in addressing and persuading the court to take it easy on you.

What will happen to you all comes down to how well (or not) your lawyer can make a speech. In a very real way, it all comes down to this.

If you think about it, this really focuses on the essence of what a lawyer is, or at least is supposed to be.

Unfortunately, the traditional image of the lawyer as a charismatic, persuasive and well-spoken changer of opinions has taken a beating over the last few decades. Too many of today’s real-life attorneys do little to change that. Nowadays, lawyers are portrayed in movies and in TV shows as marginally intelligent smart alecks, whose best talent is the well-placed, witty quip.

The only thing these characters do is reinforce the idea that lawyers are rather unlikeable. Forget about having any charisma. However, when you’re standing in front of the judge, charisma is EXACTLY the trait your lawyer needs most.

When someone hires a lawyer for a criminal or DUI case, it better be someone who could talk the spots off of a leopard. If not, then they hired the wrong lawyer.

At the sentencing, your lawyer has a very brief window to get the J\judge’s attention. Within moments, your judge’s attention will either have been grabbed, or lost. And that’s the point of this section, and the real “point” in a criminal case; it all comes down to this.

When your lawyer stands at the podium at sentencing, it’s time to make that judge look up and captivate him or her. In the world of persuasive speaking, you must first capture the listener’s attention. Once that has been accomplished, you must begin persuading the listener to see things your way. A persuasive speaker will captivate the listener, and will then influence his or her opinion.

In a criminal or DUI case, that means your lawyer needs to talk the Judge into going easy on you. This is what my team and I do best.

This kind of persuasive speaking defines us, both as people, and as lawyers. Having these skills in top form is required if you’re going to take people’s money and try and make things better for them in a criminal or DUI case. Beyond just having the right skill set, any professional, in any endeavor, needs to continually practice and refine them, and we do.

It is, admittedly, a bit unconventional for this kind of information to show up on a legal website. Yet in the search for a lawyer, things like the lawyer’s voice, and temperament, and how they present information and explain things are precisely those attributes that distinguish one from another.

Do you really think that some “special” lawyer is hiding behind an otherwise boring website?

If you want an idea of how a particular lawyer talks, read what he or she has written. Their “voice” should be every bit as discernible from their writings as it would be if you were sitting across the desk from them.

I know ours is.

In the final analysis, you either hire a lawyer who is charismatic, effervescent, memorable and persuasive – or not. Whatever else, you don’t want to walk into court and be represented by “or not.”