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The Criminal Process
in a Nutshell
Frequently Asked Questions
Every criminal case starts one of three ways. One, a person is arrested by the police based on the police officer's conclusion, at the time of the arrest, that there is probable cause to believe that a crime has been committed and the person arrested did it. Two, in response to the police or a private citizen going to court and applying for the issuance of criminal complaint, the court sends a summons to the person accused telling him or her to come to court for a show cause hearing. If the court decides, after the show cause hearing that there is probable cause to believe that a crime has been committed and the person accused did it the court will issue a complaint and another summons or an arrest warrant to bring the accused person to court to answer the charges. Or three, a grand jury produces an indictment accusing a person of a crime. The court then issues a summons or arrest warrant to bring the accused person to court to answer the charge or charges in the indictment.
If a person has been arrested or summonsed to court after the issuance of a complaint or indictment, this court event is called arraignment. At the arraignment the charges (crimes) supposedly done by the accused, now referred to as the defendant, are read into the record and not guilty pleas are entered in behalf of the defendant to all of the charges. The District Attorney may request bail at the time of the arraignment, which is the posting of money that will be forfeited to the court if the defendant does not come back to court when told. If the defendant cannot afford to hire a lawyer, the judge may appoint a public defender to represent the defendant, if the defendant is eligible.
The next steps of the process will vary somewhat depending on the particular court and the nature of the case against the defendant. Usually there will be a meeting between the defendant and/or his or her lawyer and an assistant district attorney to make sure that the defense has received all the information the law requires the defendant to receive and to discuss possible plea bargains. Sometimes there are questions about whether there is enough evidence to prove all the elements of the crime charged or some the evidence relied upon by the police to prove the case at trial might not be usable under the rules of evidence. In those situations, the defendant's lawyer will bring motions (requests) that the court dismiss the case or decide whether or not some of the evidence can or cannot be used at trial. If the defendant's lawyer wins on any of these motions, the case against the defendant might be severely weakened or ended completely.
Most cases are resolved prior to trial. In those cases the next step is some sort of plea bargain. A plea bargain is a negotiated agreement between the defendant and the district attorney in which the defendant admits in some way to some or all of the charges in exchange for a recommendation from the district attorney to the court for a lesser sentence than might be imposed by the court after losing at trial. The decision to, as we say, plead the case out, is one of the most important decision a defendant has to make. If the defendant, after thorough consultation with his or her lawyer and much careful thought, decides to consider a plea bargain, it is critically important to understand the consequences of the plea bargain (jail time, criminal record, loss of driver's license, et cetera) and how those consequences compare to what might happen if a trial resulted in a verdict of guilty. Nowhere in the progress of a case is the advice of an experienced lawyer more important than in deciding whether or not to negotiate a plea bargain.
If the case is not "plead out" or dismissed, there will be a trial. Criminal trials are similar to what you may have seen on television or at the movies. A jury of people from the community decide whether the defendant is guilty of each charge after hearing from witnesses, looking at papers and objects introduced into evidence during the trial (exhibits), listening to statements made by the district attorney and the defendant's lawyer and being instructed on the applicable law by the judge. If the jury finds the defendant guilty on any of the charges, the judge will, usually right then, sentence the defendant on each guilty verdict.
If the defendant, again after thorough and careful discussion with his or her lawyer, concludes that there was a serious error in how the trial was run, so serious that the outcome of the trial was affected, an appeal can be filed. An appeal asks a special type of court (the Appeals Court or the Supreme Judicial Court here in Massachusetts, for example) to review the conduct of the trial. If such a special court agrees that there was something wrong with the trial, so much so that the outcome was affected, the guilty verdicts could be cancelled and a new trial will be ordered. Sometimes the guilty verdicts are cancelled and the case is dismissed, although that is very rare.
The above is a general outline only. How any particular case progresses through the system and the outcome of any particular case is dependent on the unique facts and circumstance of each case.
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