As a long time criminal defense lawyer, I get a lot of panicked calls from people who find themselves arrested and accused of a crime.
Sometimes in comes in the form of an odd legal question: What is the difference between a misdemeanor and a felony? Which am I facing? (Most charges are misdemeanors, and usually only felonies must be disclosed on a job application.)
Very often people call in terror after making a mistake, perhaps accidentally hitting another car and driving away without thinking. Am I going to jail??
What is the absolute worst case scenario?
On the morning of your first court date, you could wake up, take a shower, start getting dressed, and your house could be hit by a meteor, killing you instantly.
Could that happen? Yes. Will that happen? It is very unlikely.
Most people have fears about what could happen to them that are wildly out of proportion. And that is understandable. Very few of our clients have had any previous experience with the criminal justice system. If you’ve never been arrested before, as is the case with almost all of our clients, there is no reason that you would know what happens to people accused of a relatively minor crime.
And most websites, even mine, can be a little scary to read. While for the sake of completeness, I do include the sentencing and penalty ranges for most crimes, even though the worst case basically never happens.
It is like if you are having stomach pain, and you look on Web MD. You may find that one of the things that causes pain could be stomach cancer. While this is factually true, it is also extremely unlikely that you have stomach cancer just because you woke up this morning with a little pain.
Similarly, if you are accused of keying a car, it is theoretically possible that you could be charged and convicted with a felony offense of malicious damage to a motor vehicle, and face 15 years in prison. But this is realistically not what is going to happen to you, and isn’t something you should worry about.
Relax. Let Me Tell You What I Actually Think Will Happen.
I’ve been practicing criminal law for a long time, I’ve had probably a thousand clients, been in every district court across the Commonwealth, and had a ton of good results for many, many clients. So you can trust me that I know how these things basically go.
When I talk to you, I can tell you about any similar cases I’ve had to yours, what outcomes we ended up with, what the judge or magistrates or likely to do in any given court, and so on.
Got a quick question?
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Just call me. I’ll listen to your story, and the facts about you and what happened. Then I can tell you about a realistic range of things that are most likely, and what I can do to help you.
It isn’t nearly as scary as you probably think.
How I Can Help
We can go over the facts of your case together. I’ll review your history, and any serious concerns you have. And then we’ll make a plan to solve your problem.
Even when you are “guilty”, you may be surprised how often we can make minor charges completely go away.
In many other cases, we can work out a deal that avoids any serious life complications, and gets you back to what you want to be focusing on – your life and your family.
Our criminal justice system is far from perfect. There are at least a few extremely tough district court judges, and there are always police officers and some prosecutors who are unfair (and some frankly unsuited for their job. And we’ve had some serious scandals of rank incompetence and malfeasance in state crime labs, and other serious miscarriages of justice. It can happen.
But by and large, our system here is not operated or designed to be cruel and punitive.
We don’t have a for-profit prison industry in Massachusetts to feed. We don’t have elected judges, competing to be “tough on crime” to get re-elected. We have one of the best high courts in the nation, that provides us with much better civil liberties protections than most of the rest of the country.
And there are a lot of very decent and fair people who are judges, clerk magistrates, and even prosecutors.
So you really can often get a fair shake. No, not always, and there are no guarantees.
But for most people, facing a fairly minor criminal offense for the first time, we can very often work out a resolution that won’t ruin your life.