How Long Do Criminal Cases Take to Resolve?
There are a lot of variations regarding how long a case can take to resolve. Western Maryland has a rocket-docket kind of system where cases move very quickly, so we usually expect to see a trial date within 3 months for first trial date. More often than not, most cases would not go off on the first court case for one procedural reason or another, but because of the speedy trial rule in Maryland, a person could usually expect to be at trial within 4 to 5 months.
How Often Would Someone Have To Go To Court After They Got Out Of Jail?
This would really depend on what happened at the disposition or sentencing. In certain cases, the person would be done after they got out of jail, although more often than not, there would be a period of probation. Some of this probation would be unsupervised, meaning there would be no checking in with the person but there would be someone who was monitoring the court systems to make sure they had not gotten in trouble again.
Supervised probation would be where the person actually had a probation agent and they were required to stay in contact with them and meet with them. The schedule would vary from one probation officer to another, but in that case the person would be done once their probationary period ended.
Sometimes the court would require the person to complete additional things such as community service or some kind of treatment regiment, whether alcohol classes, counseling, drug classes, or anger management.
What Do People Do Once Their Case Is Over To Return To Normal Life As Quickly As Possible?
Most people have one experience with the criminal justice system and that is enough for them, because they would have been burned and seen how bad it is. The reality of the criminal justice system is much worse than what is portrayed on TV so they tend to never get in trouble again. They go on to work and have a family life and put the whole process in the rearview. The people who have the really lasting problems are the recidivists, because they tend to get in trouble time and time again.
What Should Someone Do While Waiting For The Trial To Finish?
The biggest thing would be to not get into anymore trouble. It sounds like common sense, but it is human nature that people tend to do self-destructive things, because of the stress of having a pending criminal case. They might go to a bar and then get caught for a DUI, or they might get in the fight with their spouse and end up in a domestic violence situation. It would be important for the person to not get in anymore trouble.
In certain cases people can do productive things because we can sometimes have clients help us gather evidence. People are often more receptive to talking with and cooperating with a layperson than they would be during a scary phone call from an attorney they did not know. There are also cases where we suggest for people to do some community service before we go to court, because some of the prosecutors and judges like seeing that.
In certain drunk driving cases, we know that if we get people to have the evaluation, so that if we need it and it is in place, then the judges would like to see that because it would mean that the person had at least gotten an evaluation and in certain extreme cases, a lot of people would have started some treatment. We would work to get the person into an inpatient facility if there was a serious alcohol or drug problem.
For more information on Criminal Case Timeframes,a free initial consultation is your next best step. Get the information and legal answers you are seeking talk Arnold F. Phillips by calling today.