Is It Wise for Your Criminal Lawyer West Palm Beach to Advise Pleading Guilty to DUI?

| Wednesday, October 17, 2012
By Shelly Pearson


The gut instinct to shield oneself from punishment is partly what drives people to instantly reject DUI charges thrown at them. The primary gut instinct is to scream "not guilty" at the accuser. Nonetheless, a guilty plea may in fact be the wiser option sometimes.

This is something your defense lawyer might tell you after reviewing your case. Guilty pleas are in fact quite effective for managing tricky DUI charges. A good legal counselor shall be able to evaluate the situation properly and give you an honest assessment as to when pleading guilty may or may not be the smartest thing to do.

Generally, this advice inspires quite a bit of anger, though. It is not surprising that they do so. It can seem to people like an unmerited surrender being pushed by the person they had trusted to fight for them.

If this happens to you, give a bit of thought to the fact that your legal counselor has earned his title for a reason before you fly off the handle. They know when the circumstances of a case are weighted so heavily in the prosecution's favor that contesting the charges entirely would likely lead to a worse defeat. It is your legal counselor's task to evaluate the situation and have the courage to tell you when your case is best given up, in order to spare you worse punishments that may arise from a futile attempt at getting off in a trial.

Furthermore, keep in mind the truth about DUI cases. Ask any criminal lawyer West Palm Beach practitioner. The fact of the matter is that more DUI cases end with the defendant being pronounced guilty than otherwise.

DUI defendants do not exactly have an easy time of it. The hope with your lawyer is that he can give you the best chance at getting off. When your lawyer tells you to plead guilty, that typically means going to court is not your best bet and that he can work the odds better in a different scenario.

He might suggest that you plea bargain, for instance. The plea bargain is also know as the sentence bargain. This refers to the procedure whereby a lawyer attempts to make a deal with a prosecuting attorney to lower the penalties for his client.

The prosecutor's side benefits in that it gets the chance of a conviction without a lengthy trial process. The trade-off is that he must make the sentence less heavy and far more palatable to the defendant. In some cases, he may even be persuaded to drop the charges to much lighter ones.

This spares both parties a lot of trouble, you might say. The prosecution's side achieves a technical win without the hassle of actual courtroom appearances. The defender is spared the effort of trying to win something that cannot be won and walks away with a lighter slap than would have been the case had the trial gone on.

That might be how your Criminal Attorney West Palm Beach plans to handle your case. This shows you how it could actually be the smart move sometimes. It is crucial that you ask what your attorney is planning to do before you fire him for even advising such a thing.




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