(281) 546-6428
Select Page

013When the State Attorney’s situation filing section decides about the charges, a written Info is filed using the Clerk in the actual Court file. At this time, these are the actual formal charges how the attorney will end up being fighting on their client’s behalf. The actual Court will arranged an Arraignment, that is the first Courtroom hearing. The formal charges might be read aloud within open Court unless of course the accused chooses to waive the actual reading. Next the accused must make a decision between two feasible pleas. The attorney may inform the Court when the accused intends in order to plead guilty [meaning a jury trial is not wanted and the Court can pronounce sentence right away], or the charged can plead simple [meaning a jury trial is desired and none of the Constitutional rights will be waived].

If the lawyer selects to document a Written Plea of Simple and Demand with regard to Jury Trial using the Court before the date of the actual Arraignment, the Court may waive the presence from the defendant and his/her attorney and also the reading of the charges can also be waived. This procedure may save the defendant a visit to the courthouse. This is actually the only Court hearing in which the presence of the defendant could be automatically waived. [If a defendant lives out of state or has some particular impediment to appearing in Court personally, the attorney can file a written motion for the Court to waive his/her appearance and obtain an Order to that affect. This is beyond the scope of this article.]

If the defendant appears with regard to formal Arraignment or even waives it through Written Plea submitted by his/her lawyer beforehand, the attorney may always ask the actual Court for 15 days for that filing of Protection motions. The rules associated with Court generally set time for making movements to dismiss during the time of Arraignment. It is rare how the lawyer could be ready so soon within the representation to state grounds for disregarding the charges on paper including case info of law. For this reason the attorney requests more time to research whether there tend to be viable grounds with regard to filing a Movement to Dismiss and also to perform the correct legal research. If the reasons for dismissal provide fundamental rights [i.e., rights that arise under the U.S. Constitution] they may be raised at whenever during the pre-trial process.