I’ve reproduced the section from NCGS 14-196 below for your information.

If you have any questions about this crime, feel free to call me, a Raleigh criminal lawyer, at (919) 352-9411 weekdays, evenings, weekends or Holidays.

I was shocked. I have always made it a practice to visit clients regularly in jail. When I was working for the Public Defender on felony cases, I made daily trips to the jail.

Why?

First, because people in jail need to get updated on the progress of their cases. They’re sitting in jail. They have no idea what’s going on. They may hear some rumors. But the truth of the matter is that unless the lawyer visits his client, the client can’t make an informed decision about how to proceed in the case.

Second, jail is an awful place. Now, I’m not in the business of hand-holding. But I do believe that clients ought to be treated with dignity and respect. Whether they’re private clients who are paying me for my services, or court appointed clients, they are people who deserve a bit of my time to make a visit, check on their condition, make sure they’re informed, and let them know about progress in their cases.

If you are being charged with a serious crime, you may spend some time in jail. It is crucially important that you find an attorney who will visit you in jail, who will work hard to get you out of jail, if that’s possible, and who will make sure that you are being treated properly in jail.

If you believe you may soon be arrested on charges that will land you in jail, give me a call at (919) 352-9411 weekdays, evenings, weekends or Holidays.

And do me a favor: do not discuss your matter on either the video terminals your family may use during their visits, or on the phone lines. Those are taped.

But the sheriff is prohibited from taping attorneys who visit their clients.

Call me, a Raleigh criminal lawyer, at (919) 352-9411 weekdays, evenings, weekends or Holidays.

What happens if your conscience or your beliefs will not allow you to stand up in court and admit guilt to something you didn’t do, but you just can’t risk going before a jury and being convicted?

The answer is the Alford Plea. An Alford plea is a plea in which the defendant does not admit to the crime, but is telling the court, “Look, the risk of going to trial is too much, and I can’t risk that to me or my family.”

Some Wake County judges do not accept Alford pleas. And the Wake County District Attorney must agree to the Alford Plea. But in many cases, Alford pleas are accepted. And since the case, North Carolina v. Alford, is a United States Supreme Court case that originated in North Carolina, North Carolina is one of those states that does accept Alford pleas.

Alford pleas can be a way for you to get a favorable plea agreement, or avoid very bad consequences if you lose at trial, without having to admit guilt for something you did not do. You still will face the consequences, whether it’s some jail time, or probation or fines. But you will avoid having to admit in court to something you did not do.

Talk about an Alford Plea with your Raleigh criminal lawyer. Call me at (919) 352-9411 if you want to find out more about how this applies in your case.

I work like this because I know that people expect high quality service, and because people who call me usually have very serious questions about serious traffic and criminal matters.

The same goes for Thanksgiving. If you need to talk to a Raleigh, Cary or Apex criminal lawyer on Thanksgiving, feel free to give me a call at (919) 352-9411 weekdays, evenings, weekends or Holidays.

There’s no reason for you to stress about a situation that we can discuss and figure out a plan to handle. So feel free to call.

Google is to the rescue, but expanding its search engine to include legal research.  You can find state and federal court opinions, laws, etc.  It’s fantastic, and will only get better with time!

It turns out, however, that studies show that eyewitnesses often are mistaken, confuse people they see, have trouble processing information when events happen quickly, and are biased.

I was involved in a case about a year ago where the eyewitness – a Raleigh convenience store manager – swore that our client had committed and armed robbery.  He was so convinced that when our client entered to the convenience store three weeks after the robbery to buy a drink, he and his son tackled our client and held him until police came.

Our client – who had nothing to do with the crime and was no where near the scene of the crime when it happened – was asked by police, “Where were you at 2:20 pm 22 days ago?”  Like most people, he couldn’t remember exactly where he was, so he guessed, and he guessed wrong.

He ended up in the Wake County Jail for months awaiting trial.  Finally, I located conclusive proof – medical records – that showed that he in fact had gone to the hospital on that day complaining of a fever.  He simply had forgotten where he was, and when he remembered, no one would listen to him.

Even when presented with the evidence that conclusively proved our client had nothing to do with the crime, the store owner insisted our client was one of the four men who robbed him. 

The jury of course believed the proof we provided, and our client went free.

But it was a lesson to me about how unreliable eyewitness testimony can be.  People like to think they can remember what happened, and juries like to believe witnesses who seem so sure.  But there’s good reason to doubt an eyewitness’ testimony.

Ironically, offering a defendant a very “sweet” or favorable plea deal can have the power to pressure the defendant into taking a plea offer because the risk of going to trial and being convicted is far too much to think about.

In some countries, the plea offers are limited so that they can not be too favorable.  This has the effect of forcing the prosecutor to present a realistic set of charges before the begins.  In the United States, too often the prosecutors pile up charge after charge after charge in the hopes that an avalanche of charges creates pressure on the defendant to accept a comparatively “sweet” or favorable plea offer.

It’s not uncommon in serious felonies for a defendant to face dozen felony charges, which stacked (which is how could be sentenced) would mean a life sentence.  Someone who’s 35, never in trouble before with the law, would effectively be put away for the rest of his life.

In such a situation, many defendants take such deals.

My point is that it is so common as to be pretty non-controversial that the disparities between plea offers and potential sentences are so great that in a very significant number of cases, defendants take pleas because they’ve spent extraordinary periods of time in jail awaiting trial, because the plea deal looks so good, and because the risks of going to trial even when there’s very real doubt that the prosecution could make its case are too great.

In fact, it helps the prosecution a great deal to keep defendants in jail awaiting trial for many months so that they have put time toward a plea sentence.  This is because North Carolina has no speedy trial statute, so unlike, say, NY, there’s only the federal constitutional right at stake, which kicks only after years into the process.

The United States Constitution says that defendants have the right to confront witnesses who testify against them.  This is the general constitutional rule that prevents hearsay in criminal cases.  Hearsay is, briefly, an out-of-court statement that a party (either the defendant or the prosecutor in a criminal case) wishes to introduce to prove the fact of the matter. 

In many cases, hearsay can be avoided by simply having the person come into court, be sworn, and testify.  But what happens when the person is “unavailable.”  For 20 years, the Supreme Court held that if the person is “unavailable,” but the out of court statement that a party wishes to introduce has “adequate indicia of reliability” or has “particularized guarantees of trustworthiness,” then the out of court statement may be introduced under a hearsay exception.

That meant that a lot of out-of-court statements were generally admitted into court where witnesses were unavailable at trial because courts frequenlty found that there was “adequate indicia of reliability.”

In 2004, the Supreme Court changed the rule in Crawford v. Washington.  It said, instead, that the Constitution guarantees a criminal defendant the right to confront witnesses against him.  Therefore, if the out of court statement was a “testimonial” statement, then it could not be admitted if the defendant did not have the opportunity to cross-examine the person.

But the Supreme Court did not define what were testimonial and what were non-testimonial statements.  In a subsequent case, Davis v. Washington, the Supreme Court said that statements made by a victim during a 911 call were not testimonial, and therefore could be admitted by the prosecutor against the defendant even though the defendant had had no prior opportunity to cross examine the victim.

This year the Supreme Court has decided another important Confrontation Clause case in Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts. The case involved Melendez-Diaz who was convicted of distributing and trafficking in crack cocaine.  He had been arrested in 2001.  At his trial, crime lab reports were admitted.  They dealt with substances taken from one of the men arrested at the scene and from the back seat of a police cruiser.  The trial judge told the jury that it could rely on the chemist’s reports as proof that the substance seized contained cocaine. However, no scientist or expert testified as to having performed the tests, or having written the report.

The Supreme Court ruled that such reports were testimonial, and as such were out-of-court statements inadmissible as hearsay unless the state provided the expert who had conducted the underlying test.

The result of this rule is two-fold.  First, it creates a requirement that the state provide the actual scientist to testify about the contents of the report.  Second, in lieu of that requirement, it allows the state to use a “notice-and-demand” statute that permits the state to alert the defendant that it intends to submit a lab report as evidence at trial. In that case, the defendant has the option to raise an objection to the admission of the report, which would allow the state time to bring the expert to court to testify.

North Carolina has applied the Supreme Court’s new rule in State v. Galindo (pdf).  The defendant in Galindo had been convicted of trafficking, but while the laboratory supervisor testified, the actual scientist who had weighed the cocaine did not testify.  As a result, the NC Court of Appeals has held the state violated the U.S. Constitution’s Confrontation Clause.

I explain in some detail the various sex offenses and sex assaults under North Carolina law.  It is particularly important if you are being accused of such crimes that you seek out an attorney early in the process.

Sex offenses are not like other offenses.  They are sometimes “he said, she said” types of cases, where there is little physical evidence and usually no witnesses.  Because admissions by a defendant may be damaging to his or her case, a defendant is well advised to consult with a lawyer before being interviewed by police about such allegations.

Even if you’ve done nothing wrong – even if you did not touch the alleged victim – it’s very important that you get the advice of an attorney early in the process. 

Or you’re really nervous and don’t know what to do, and anxious about going to court.

The first thing is: relax. Court may seem intimidating. Lots of people are intimidated about it. But going to court is not the end of the world. Except for minor traffic offenses, you may have to go two or three times to court. The first time you go to court, not much will happen.

And if you’ve not yet hired an attorney before your court date, you just need to explain to the judge that you plan to hire a Raleigh, Cary, or Apex criminal lawyer and he’ll give you a new court date.

But you DO NEED TO SHOW UP IN COURT. Or you need to have an attorney appear on your behalf!

If you don’t show up or have missed a court date at the Wake County Courthouse, you should call an attorney as soon as possible. Why? Because an attorney can make sure that you get a new court date, and can make sure that no Orders for Arrest have been issued for you.

You may have a good reason to miss your court date. Your kid could’ve gotten sick, the car could’ve broken down. Judges never like to hear, “Your Honor, I forgot.”

The important point, though, is to show the court that you really intend to appear for court, and you aren’t going to miss court dates again and again. An attorney may be able to make the case to the judge that he will make sure you will show up for court. That might help convince a judge to set a new court date, and strike any Orders for Arrest.

But here’s what you don’t want to happen: You don’t want to have an Order for Arrest issued so that the next Friday you get stopped for speeding, or a broken headlight or an expired registration, that the police officer checks his computer and sees that you have an Order out for your arrest, and locks you up in the Wake County Jail for a weekend.

If you have missed court dates and need a [#raleighlawyer#] to help straighten out the problem, call me at (919) 352-9411 weekdays, evenings, weekends or Holidays.