Raleigh, Cary, Apex, and Fuquay-Varina criminal lawyers generally operate out of downtown Raleigh offices. That’s because in North Carolina, court systems are countywide. If you are charged with any kind of offense – misdemeanor, felony, or traffic, you will end up at the Wake County Courthouse in Raleigh. And if you are detained before trial,…
North Carolina has dozens of different kinds of assaults. Assaults are crimes that involve either violence or the threat of violence that case injury or intend to cause injury to a victim. Even if no touching occurs – the attacker misses, or the attacker stops short of hitting the victim – an assault may have…
Investigative reporter Radley Balko writes about Bernard Baran, a man convicted in the 1980s of child molestation charges. In 2006 he was released on bond after an appeals court ruled that his trial attorney had been incompetent and that the prosecution withheld exculpatory evidence. The problem with child molestation charges is that they’re difficult to…
Most people think that if you blow below a .08 on the breathalyzer, that you can’t be convicted of drunk driving. Not true. In North Carolina and, now, all states, a .08 blood alcohol level is per se drunk driving. That means that, provided the jury believes that you blew a .08, that the machine…
For years, lawyers have charged clients on an hourly rate. The rate was fixed, but the hours were not. So the case could take 2 hours, 202 hours, or 1002 hours, and the client would have to pay for all of those hours billed to the case. For years criminal lawyers have used flat-fee-billing. The…
Even if you’re eventually determined “indigent” and appointed a Public Defender to represent you during most of your case, it is important that you seek out a Raleigh, Apex, or Cary criminal lawyer before you are arrested. Why? One Word: Bail. Because the most crucial stage of your case is your First Appearance, you should…
You can be arrested in one of three scenarios: 1. You can be arrested if a judge or magistrate, upon presentation of allegations by the police, issues an arrest warrant that tells the police to take you into custody. 2. You can also be arrested without an arrest warrant if the police have reasonable grounds…
In North Carolina, generally defendants, after they have been arrested, are released under one of four scenarios. 1. Written Promise to Appear – In the movies, they call this “released on your own recognizance.” It simply means that the person arrested and jailed is released from jail and makes a written promise to appear at…
If you’re charged with a DUI in Wake County – Raleigh, Apex, Cary, or the other towns in the county – you have one of two options. To agree to plea to the DUI charge, and accept all of the consequences – license suspended for a year (with some possible limited driving privileges), alcohol or…
The feared speed camera: it’s all-watching eye will catch you day or night speeding down the highway. In Chevy Chase, Maryland (a suburb of Washington, DC), speed cameras have turned into money-making machines. The town has collected so many fines from speed cameras, that it now wants to use some of that money to purchase…