Amador County Criminal Defense--Criminal Procedure

NOTE: Although the information presented below appears to be very detailed, it is only an outline of what generally happens in a felony case. There are many variations of the procedure that could happen in a felony case. Each case is different based on many different factors and circumstances. Additionally, the outline below is not complete. There are many different issues that can be raised which would require the procedure outlined below to be radically changed. Listen carefully to your attorney about your individual case and understand that it is important to be flexible in order to best advocate for you in your individual case.

Every person charged with a felony offense has the right to be represented by an attorney at all stages of the criminal proceedings. If you cannot afford to hire a private attorney the court will appoint an attorney from the Public Defender's Office. At the conclusion of the criminal proceedings you may be required to reimburse the County for the services of the Public Defender, depending upon your financial ability.

A felony is any criminal charge that can, upon conviction, result in a state prison commitment. The filing of a "complaint" by the District Attorney’s Office is how a felony case usually begins. The complaint is a paper listing the criminal charges filed against the defendant.

After a person has been arrested, he or she is either taken before the court or released from custody with a written promise to appear at a later date. This first appearance is called an “arraignment.” At arraignment, the court informs the person charged with a crime (the defendant) of the charges alleged, basic statutory and constitutional rights, the defendant is properly identified, a plea of not guilty is normally entered into the record, and bail is set.

In Amador County, there is a hearing set before the preliminary hearing, called superior court review. At superior court review, the district attorney’s office and the defense attorney discuss the case with the court to see if there is a possibility of settling the case before the preliminary hearing. If the defendant is willing to accept the offer agreed upon by the district attorney’s office and the court, the case will settle and proceed to sentencing without a preliminary hearing or a trial. If not, the case is scheduled for preliminary hearing.

In felony cases, the defendant has a right to have a preliminary hearing within ten court days after arraignment. This ten day period does not include weekends or court holidays. This date can be set out further, but only if you agree to waive, or give up, the statutory time limit. When you enter a time waiver, you still keep the right to “revoke” your time waiver at any time. If you later choose to revoke your time waiver, the court will then have to begin your preliminary hearing within ten court days after your revocation.

At the preliminary hearing the prosecution must establish that probable cause exists to believe that a crime was committed, and that the person who committed the crime is the one who is charged in the complaint. This is a very low standard and the prosecution usually proves this by calling a minimal number of witness, or just a police officer to testify as to the investigation. In the majority of cases the defense does not present any evidence at the preliminary hearing. If the magistrate finds probable cause, the charged individual is “held to answer.” This means that the court has found enough evidence that the defendant should have a trial on the alleged charges.

If you are held to answer, the next hearing is the arraignment on the “Information.” The Information is the paper that lists the charges against the defendant for which the magistrate found probable cause. The arraignment on the Information is generally set fifteen days after the preliminary hearing.

At this arraignment on the Information, you have the right to set a trial date within sixty days. You may waive this speedy trial right and set a trial date out more than sixty days from the date of your arraignment.

There are two types of time waivers accepted by the court. The first is a time waiver to a specific date beyond the sixty calendar days. The courts generally require such a time waiver to be accompanied by an additional ten days should no courts be available on the date set. The other is called a general time waiver. This allows the court to continue the trial to any date in the future. As with a time waiver for a preliminary hearing, if you have entered a general time waiver and later choose the revoke it, the court must then begin your trial within the statutory time. After the arraignment on the information, the statutory time would be sixty calendar days.

The next hearing after the arraignment on the Information is called “trial confirmation” or “trial readiness conference.” This hearing is set anywhere from ten days to four weeks before the trial date. Trial confirmation serves two purposes: (1) it ensures that both the prosecution and the defense are prepared to proceed to trial on the date already set, and (2) it ensures that the case cannot settle without a trial. To determine if the case can settle, the prosecution is required to submit an offer on all cases at the trial confirmation hearing.

Your attorney will discuss any offer made to you. It is important to remember that your attorney must discuss with you all offers made by the prosecution, even if it is an offer that is unreasonable or an offer that you are rejecting. This is because a defendant needs to know all available options. Your attorney is required to provide you with full, fair and effective representation; this includes presenting all offers of the prosecution.

A good defense attorney does not force you to plead guilty or force you to have a trial. At the same time, a good defense attorney keeps you fully informed of all your legal options, predicts the outcome of each of those options, recommends the best choice in his or her opinion, but then follows your directions. Regardless of whether you have hired a private attorney or the court has appointed an attorney to represent you, the attorney is “your” attorney in that case, and you make the ultimate decision of going to trial or accepting a plea agreement. Your attorney only is legally required to make sure you have all the information necessary so you can decide how to handle your case.

Discovery, or information pertaining to physical evidence and statements of witnesses, will be obtained by the attorney and reviewed with the client. This includes law enforcement reports, copies of any photographs the prosecution intends to use in its case, and any laboratory reports from the examination of physical evidence the prosecution intends to use at trial.

If the defense wants to have any physical evidence examined by its own expert or have something retested, your attorney will need to either get the district attorney’s permission or, if the district refuses, ask the court for an order to have evidence examined or retested.

It is not uncommon for the district attorney’s office to only turn over evidence to the defense that it has in its actual possession without asking the law enforcement agency that is in charge of the criminal investigation if there is more evidence that was not originally provided to the district attorney’s office. This creates a problem when the defense makes a decision to go to trial based on weak prosecution evidence, then have the law enforcement officer show up at trial with evidence that has never been produced to the defense.

For this reason, a good defense attorney will always submit a written request for discovery that lists every known kind of evidence that could exist, with a particularized request for any kind of evidence that the attorney would normally expect but that was not produced in the discovery. These kinds of potential evidence includes a copy of the 9-1-1 recordings, a copy of the radio communications recordings, radio dispatch logs, all the photographs and video recordings from the crime scene (not just the ones the prosecution intends to use at trial), recordings of all the witnesses interviewed (again, not just those the prosecution intends to use at trial), and any other evidence a well experienced defense attorney would normally expect to exist if the defendant actually committed the alleged crime.

If such evidence does not exist, a good defense attorney will point that out and argue to the jury that if the defendant had actually committed the alleged crime, the evidence would exist. Because the evidence does not exist, a good defense attorney will argue that the prosecution has not meet its burden of proving the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, as required under the United States Constitution.

Finally, a good defense attorney will make a motion at trial to exclude any evidence that has not been previously produced by the prosecution to make sure there is no surprise at trial with “newly discovered evidence” the district attorney’s office just found out the police had in their possession, but had not told them about.

As soon as possible, the defendant should tell his or her attorney about all possible witnesses to the alleged charges. A good defense attorney will have every potential witness interviewed to see if they can add anything helpful to the defense case. Additionally, it is important to attempt to interview all the prosecution witnesses. The defense attorney cannot force prosecution witnesses to give a statement to the defense investigator. However, if a prosecution witness refuses to give a statement to the defense investigator, the defense attorney can point that out to the jury and argue that the witness has a bias and is attempting to hide something, and therefore should not be believed as very truthful or honest.

Other investigation that should be conducted includes visiting the crime scene to make sure there are no unknown issues that need to be pointed out to a jury. Sometimes visiting a crime scene makes it obvious that one of the witnesses could not possibly have seen what they claim to have seen because of some large obstruction or lack of a clear view.

Depending on the kind of case, the defense investigation may include hiring expert witnesses to examine or re-examine the evidence, video-taping and photographing the crime scene, a more careful examination of the crime scene for evidence missed by law enforcement, following up on leads the police missed or ignored, checking into the background of prosecution witnesses, and other issues. Of course, not every case is the same and at times there is no additional investigation needed because of the nature of the case.

It is important to have a clear understanding of law enforcement procedures, routines, and capabilities. A well experienced criminal defense attorney will be able to point out serious gaps in the police investigation or failures to follow-up on obvious leads that may have identified someone other than the defendant as the actual offender. Using a former law enforcement officer as a defense investigator is very helpful in locating these kinds of weaknesses in the prosecution case.

Under both the United States Constitution and the California Constitution, every person is entitled to be free from unreasonable search and seizure by the government. Basically, this means that law enforcement officers cannot search your person or property without a search warrant that has been reviewed and authorized by a judge. Of course, there are many legal exceptions to the search warrant requirement. That is why it is always important to have an experienced criminal defense attorney carefully review the police reports and discuss the case in detail with the client—to see if there are any possible search and seizure issues to be raised in a motion to suppress.

A motion to suppress pursuant to California Penal Code section 1538.5 is basically the defendant asking the court to suppress evidence that has been illegally obtained or gathered by law enforcement officers. It is important to note that a motion to suppress only applies to evidence gathered by a law enforcement officer or other government agent working in furtherance of a law enforcement purpose. If a private citizen performs an illegal search, such as a private security guard who has no more right to search you or your private property than any other citizen, you cannot bring a motion to suppress evidence. You may be able to file a civil lawsuit against that individual for invasion of privacy or trespass, but that does not normally assist in excluding evidence from a criminal case.

At a motion to suppress evidence, the court must decide if the government overstepped its bounds in searching or seizing the evidence at issue. Remember, the law does not protect you from all searches and seizures by the government, only “unreasonable” ones.

Here is an example: A police officer stops you driving down the highway and states that someone driving a vehicle just like yours just stole a twenty-five inch screen television from a store down the street, and he would like to search your vehicle to make sure you are not the thief. You agree to the search because you did not steal the television. The officer starts searching your car and opens up the center console, finding a small amount of marijuana. The officer then arrests you for possession of marijuana and possibly for transportation of marijuana. At a motion to suppress evidence, your attorney should argue that you gave the officer permission to search your vehicle for a stolen television, not a full-blown search for anything illegal. Because there is no possibility of finding a twenty-five inch television in the center console, the officer overstepped the permission given and any evidence he found as a result of the illegal search should be suppressed. If the court grants the motion to suppress—which it should in this example—the marijuana will be ruled excluded from any trial and the prosecution will most likely dismiss the case, unless there is some other lawfully gathered evidence they can present to prove their case.

A motion to dismiss after a preliminary hearing is done when the defense feels that the court order to hold the defendant to answer was improper because it either missed some critical procedural step, or because there was insufficient evidence to find probable cause that the defendant committed the alleged offenses. (See California Penal Code section 995.)

Normally, this means the prosecution failed to present some evidence on a necessary element of the charged offenses. An experience criminal defense attorney will get a copy of the transcript from the preliminary hearing and write a motion to show the court that the preliminary hearing judge mistakenly held the defendant to answer. In this motion, the attorney points out the critical part of the transcripts and cites the statutory and case law which supports the defense position. If the reviewing court agrees, the motion to dismiss is granted as to that charge. If there are no other charges still pending, the defendant is released and the entire case dismissed.

Another issue that can be addressed in a motion to dismiss is when the defense believes the prior court ruling on a motion to suppress evidence was wrongly decided. In essence, the defense can use a Penal Code section 995 motion to “appeal” a motion to dismiss prior to a jury verdict. If the reviewing court agrees the motion was wrongly decided, it can order the evidence excluded. At that point, the prosecution must decide if it still has enough legal evidence to proceed to trial or to dismiss the charges or the entire case.

Once the case gets to trial, the prosecution must prove the allegations are true “beyond a reasonable doubt.” Each element of the charge must be proven to this standard of proof. For more information about elements of different charges, see Proof of Crimes.

The defendant has the choice of having the trial heard and decided by a jury of twelve citizens in the community where the court sits, or waiving the right to a jury and allowing the judge to decide the case without a jury. There are many strategic reasons to waive a jury and allow a judge to hear the case. It is important that this decision be made by both the defendant and his or her attorney. However, the prosecution also has a right to a jury trial, and even if the defendant agrees to waive a jury, the prosecution is not required to join in that waiver and may demand a jury trial over the defendant’s objection.

The superior criminal defense attorney will be well prepared for trial, and will have a central “theme” that everything in the case revolves around. Sometimes the only theme available is reasonable doubt—that the prosecution cannot prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. In the right hands, reasonable doubt is a powerful tool that allows many successful defense attorneys to win cases that less experienced attorneys would lose.

What exactly does proof “beyond a reasonable doubt” mean? That is something many scholars and attorneys have been debating for centuries. Any good criminal defense attorney has an extensive arsenal of examples of how to show the prosecution has not met its burden of proving its case beyond a reasonable doubt. But, an excellent criminal defense attorney will spend a significant amount of time educating the jury exactly what that term means.

The jury instruction (CALJIC 2.90) normally read to a jury defining “reasonable doubt” is as follows:

A defendant in a criminal action is presumed to be innocent until the contrary is proved, and in case of a reasonable doubt whether his guilt is satisfactorily shown, he is entitled to a verdict of not guilty. This presumption places upon the People the burden of proving him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Reasonable doubt is defined as follows: It is not a mere possible doubt because everything relating to human affairs is open to some possible or imaginary doubt. Rather, it is that state of the case which after the entire comparison and consideration of all the evidence leaves the minds of jurors in that condition that they cannot say they feel an abiding conviction of the truth of the charge.

Appellate courts in California see nothing erroneous, vague or misleading about CALJIC 2.90 in its current form either when viewed in isolation or with all instructions given. Yet, the with CALJIC 2.90 is that the concept of reasonable doubt (the very high degree of probability required under the U.S. Constitution to sustain a conviction) has been diluted below constitutional minimums, especially when all the “probability based” jury instructions normally given in criminal cases are added. A standard of proof is an effort at instructing the jury on the degree of confidence our society thinks it should have in the correctness of its factual conclusions

Not long ago, this instruction required a jury to “feel an abiding conviction, to a moral certainty, of the truth of the charge.” When the concept of “moral certainty” was criticized by the U.S. Supreme Court as misleading, the court stated that what reasonable doubt meant was evidentiary certainty. That forceful concept stands as the restraining wall against the many criminal jury instructions emphasizing preponderance of evidence (more likely than not) standards – e.g., jury should not believe the defendant to be more likely guilty than not guilty based solely on his arrest, charge and standing trial (CALJIC 1.00); if one interpretation of the evidence is reasonable and another unreasonable, the jury must accept the reasonable (CALJIC 2.01); jury may reject a witness’s testimony if false in part unless it finds the probability of truth favors the witness’s version. (CALJIC 2.21.2.) Also, prosecutors in their closing argument typically argue for guilt as the “only reasonable” verdict.

The United States Supreme Court recently removed the phrase “to a moral certainty” because it felt such a term could be interpreted to mean “something less than the very high level of probability required by the Constitution in criminal cases.” (Victor v. Nebraska (1994) 511 U.S. 1, 14.) What the Supreme Court wanted the jury instruction to mean was that the jury must find that “subjective state of near certitude of the guilt of the accused.” (Id., at p. 15; emphasis added.)

The current criminal jury instruction given in California is so vague and low-probability oriented that many jurors interpret it as requiring only a preponderance of evidence to convict. In fact, in the September/October 1999 magazine, The Sciences (p. 18), a survey of mid-level business executives was done to see what level of probability they interpreted California’s reasonable doubt instruction required. The figures were alarming:

In other words, there was wide ranging disagreement and one-third of this “relatively sophisticated and homogeneous population of businesspeople” (id., at p. 20) thought that probabilities ranging for 50% to 80% were good enough to convict.

For this reason, the criminal defense attorney needs to spend significant time educating the jury on exactly what that instruction means, and then point out how the evidence in the case does not meet that standard. It is one of the biggest mistakes of inexperienced defense attorneys to gloss over this instruction and expect the normal juror to have a clear understanding of the true meaning of the reasonable doubt standard.

At the beginning of a jury trial, a panel of potential jurors is called into the courtroom, and the attorneys and the court question them to see if they qualify to be jurors in the case. If any of the jurors are able to convince the court that serving on the jury would be a legal hardship, the court will excuse that person. When the attorneys question the potential jurors, they are allowed to ask questions that would cause the court to excuse the juror “for cause.”

For cause basically means the juror admits they have a bias so strong toward either party that they could not be fair. This often happens when the potential juror has been a victim of a crime similar to the one the defendant is being accused of, or when the juror has been the victim of police misconduct.

Once each attorney passes the potential jurors “for cause,” each side gets to excuse potential jurors without stating any reason for the challenge. Each side gets the same number of challenges, depending on the seriousness of the charged offenses.

Experienced criminal defense attorneys focus on the theme of their case during jury selection. If the defense is going to be “self-defense,” the attorney will ask potential jurors how they feel about self-defense and the law on self-defense. If the defense is “reasonable doubt,” the attorney will ask how jurors feel about the law of reasonable doubt.

One of the most famous criminal defense attorneys in the

United States

, Gerry Spence, believes it is possible to win the trial in jury selection.

Opening statement is where each side gets to tell the jury what to expect in the case. Most prosecutors tell the jury what they expect the evidence to prove. This is a tried and true method that works very well for the prosecution. However, when criminal defense attorneys try the same method, it falls flat with a jury.

The defense in a criminal case has to overcome the prejudice of a person on trial for a criminal act. The truth is that when the court reads the charges to the jury, the first thing they do is look at the defendant to see what kind of person would commit such a crime. In other words, they have already convicted the defendant and are just waiting for the evidence to formalize the matter.

The defense attorney has to turn the tables and tell the jury the true story. People are hardwired to listen to stories. When an experience criminal defense attorney tells his or her client’s story, it starts like a story you might have heard while sitting around a campfire. The story needs a hero (the client). The attorney has to give a little background about the hero. Where is he or she from, what kind of person is the hero, do people love him or her (family)? There has to be a beginning, a middle, and an end. The story must be easy to follow and clearly point to the conclusion that the defendant is an innocent person caught up in a horrible situation that only the jury can remedy.

When handled properly, the opening statement convinces the jury the defendant is actually innocent and they look for evidence to support that position.

After opening statements, the prosecution has the burden of proving its case. The prosecution will call witnesses and present any physical evidence to the jury. The prosecutor calls a witness to testify and asks questions about what happened. After the prosecution has asked its questions, the defense attorney gets to cross-examine.

During cross-examination, an experienced criminal defense attorney will only ask questions that supports the defense theory of his or her client. There is no reason to go over all the witnesses testimony unless it helps the defense case. Rehashing everything the witness said so it looks like you have no questions to ask is the mistake of the inexperienced attorney. There is absolutely nothing wrong with stating “no questions” when a witness has nothing to offer to the defense. Why distract the jury from your defense with meaningless questions that wastes everyone’s time?

At the end of the prosecution’s case, the defense can ask the court to direct a verdict of not guilty because the prosecution failed to prove some element of one of the charges. If the court agrees that no evidence has been presented on some element, the court will grant the motion on that charge. If there are no remaining charges, the case is then dismissed and the defendant discharged.

Many attorneys, both experienced and inexperienced, forget this very simple procedural step and miss an opportunity to win a case.

After the prosecution has rested (they have no more evidence to present), and the court has ruled on any motions, the defense has the opportunity to present its own evidence. This is where defense witnesses testify, experts present their opinion and the client has an opportunity to testify. In a criminal case, the client has the choice of testifying or remaining silent. Even if the defense attorney does not agree on the client testifying or remaining silent, the right to do so or not belongs to the client and cannot be interfered with.

The decision to testify is something that needs to be thoroughly explored with your attorney. There are many reasons not to testify. If you and your attorney believe the prosecution has not proven its case, testifying often simply gives the prosecution the opportunity to force you to make a misstatement and lose the case. Many prosecutors will ask criminal defendants very argumentative and inflammatory questions that are extremely improper. However, once the question is asked, it is impossible to “unring the bell.”

Many clients are simply not good public speakers and the fright of speaking in front of a group of strangers is terrifying. Exhibiting fright will often be mistaken by jurors as evidence of guilt—what do you have to be afraid of if you are innocent? Along the same lines, many people simply do not present well. Lots of people always think about an answer for an unusually long amount of time that mistakenly gives the appearance of thinking about a lie to make sure you are not being caught in the lie.

At the same time, there are some kinds of defenses that need the client to testify. In many self-defense cases, the only way to prove the client was in fear of serious harm or death at the time of the alleged crime is to take the stand and testify.

After all the evidence has been presented, the court and the attorneys meet to discuss the jury instructions. The jury instructions are the law that is read to the jury to explain how they need to go about reaching a verdict. During the jury instruction conference, the defense attorney can argue that some law applies and some does not. This is also where special jury instructions are worked out that are helpful to the jury in finding the defense that has been presented.

Good defense attorneys are prepared with special jury instructions and supporting law to show the court that it should give the special instructions. Without being prepared to support special instructions with unimpeachable case law, few courts are willing to deviate from the pattern instructions requested by the prosecution.

Once the court and the attorneys have agreed on the jury instructions, each attorney gets to argue to the jury how the evidence shows either guilt or innocence. The prosecution gets to argue first. After the prosecution is done, the defense gets to argue the other side. After the defense argument, the prosecution has one last opportunity to argue in rebuttal of the defense.

The defense is not allowed to get up and argue a second time. The prosecution is allowed to rebut the defense argument because it has the burden of proof. However, closing argument is where experience really counts. An experienced defense attorney can anticipate the prosecution’s rebuttal argument and point them out in the closing argument—giving the defense’s rebuttal and taking the wind out of their sails!

It is critical for the defense to point out the important law to be applied in the case, summarize the defense evidence, and then show how when the jury applies the law to the defense evidence, the resulting verdict is not guilty.

After all the evidence has been presented, each side gives its closing argument, and the court reads the law to the jury, the jury goes into the jury room to deliberate. During deliberations, the jury has the opportunity to examine any physical evidence, have testimony read back by the court reporter, review the written jury instructions, and discuss the case as a group.

The jury is also provided with a set of verdict forms. For each charge, there will be one form for guilty and one form for not guilty. When the jury reaches unanimous agreement on any of the charges, the jury foreperson will sign the appropriate form and set it aside. After the jury comes to an agreement on every count, the jury returns to the courtroom with a verdict.

If the jury cannot reach a unanimous verdict for either side, the court will declare a mistrial and discharge the jury. In that case, the prosecution has to decide if it is going to try the case again or dismiss.

If the jury finds the defendant guilty on any of the charges, the case proceeds to sentencing. If the jury finds the defendant not guilty on all the charges, the defendant is discharged.

If a defendant is found guilty at trial or pleads either guilty or no contest, the case goes to sentencing. In felony cases, this normally takes at least twenty court days, or about four weeks. If the defendant is out of custody, the defendant will often waive time to give his or her attorney time to prepare information and present evidence that shows the defendant should be granted probation and not sent to prison, or that the court should impose the least amount of prison time.

In several kinds of cases, a psychological report is helpful or even necessary to show the court that probation is appropriate. For example, in many kinds of sex offense cases, the law requires a psychological report before the court can even consider whether to grant probation.

Knowledgeable defense attorneys will have several different kinds of experts in reserve for such instances and will be able to fashion terms and conditions of probation to show the court that it will be safe to grant probation to his or her client, if the circumstances are right.

Of course, some cases require a prison sentence. In fact, there are a number of crimes that are statutorily ineligible for probation. In these cases, the court is prohibited from granting probation. In these case, the defense attorney needs to be prepared to keep the amount of prison time to a minimum.

After the court imposes sentence, the client has the right to appeal the case. Depending on how the case was handled procedurally, the appeal may challenge the sufficiency of the evidence, the denial of motions, or errors of law by the court.

If the clients decides to file an appeal, the defense attorney files a notice of appeal with the court. The court then causes a transcript of the case to be prepared, collects all the necessary court paperwork, such as minute orders and copies of any motions filed in the case, and sends the entire record to the appropriate court of appeal. From Amador County, any appeal would be filed in the Third District Court of Appeal in Sacramento.

If the client cannot afford to hire a private attorney to represent him or her in the appeal, the Court of Appeal will appoint an experienced appellate attorney.

A review of the court record is then conducted by the appellate attorney and an opening brief is filed. After the opening brief is filed, the prosecution, normally through the California Attorney General’s Office, files a responding brief arguing that no error occurred. Finally, the defense attorney gets to file one more brief, a reply brief, rebutting the prosecution’s argument. Because the appealing party (usually the defendant) has the burden of showing some kind of reversible error, they get two chances to file briefs.

After all the briefs are filed, the appellate court decides if it needs to hear oral argument. Oral argument is actually rare in criminal appeals. Most courts decide the case on the briefs alone. Once the time for oral argument has passed, the court has a specified amount of time in which to render its decision. In most case, the entire process of filing a notice of appeal, all the briefing and the court issuing an opinion takes approximately a year or more, depending on how complex the issues are in the case and how much evidence was presented at trial

After the appellate court issues an opinion, the losing party can appeal that court’s decision to the California Supreme Court where the entire process happens all over again if the Supreme Court agrees to hear the case. If the California Supreme Court agrees to hear the case and issues an opinion, the losing party has one last opportunity to appeal that decision to the United States Supreme Court.

The United States Supreme Court is the final court for all fifty states and only accepts about one hundred cases a year. Because of this, it is very rare for a case to even be accepted for appeal.

The reality is that very few of the millions of criminal cases decided each year are overturned on appeal. Put every effort into winning your case before an appeal.

NOTE: I believe in keeping my clients fully informed about their case. I have provided this information for that purpose—to help you understand what is happening in your case and that there is a specified time and a place to raise certain issues. Anytime you have a question about what is going on in your case, ask your attorney! You have a right to know what is happening and why.

Arraignment	Jury Selection
Superior Court Review	Burden of Proof
Preliminary Hearing	Opening Statement
Arraignment on Information	Prosecution Evidence
Time Waiver	Directed Verdict
Trial Confirmation	Defense Evidence
Discovery	Jury Instructions
Investigation	Closing Argument
Motion to Suppress	Jury Deliberations
Motion to Dismiss	Sentencing
Trial	Appeal