The Criminal Court Process
Preliminary Hearing – Criminal Court Process Step #1
Your preliminary hearing can be the most crucial part of the criminal court process in your case. The principal function of a preliminary hearing is to protect an individual’s right against unlawful arrest and/or detention. This is assured by requiring the government to show at least a prima facie case. A prima facie case requires evidence showing a crime was committed and the Defendant is probably the one who committed it. The preliminary hearing is not a determination of guilt or innocence, so the prosecution is not required to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt at this stage. A magisterial district judge presides over the hearing. For a list of Montgomery County Magisterial District Judges, click here. For a list of Bucks County Magisterial District Judges, click here.
You have several options at your preliminary hearing. You can have a hearing at which the Commonwealth must present a prima facie case, you can waive your right to a hearing thereby acknowledging that a prima facie case exists, or you may be able to plead guilty if you are charged with no higher than a misdemeanor of the third degree. The decision whether to have a hearing, waive your right to a hearing, or plead guilty is a critical one so it is important to have the representation of a skilled lawyer at your preliminary hearing. There are certain strategic advantages to each of these options. At your preliminary hearing an experienced criminal defense attorney can dramatically improve the odds of a favorable resolution of your case.
It is important to know that there are many unique rules at a Preliminary Hearing. The Judge is not allowed to make rulings on credibility against the prosecution, hearsay can be admitted with certain restrictions, charges can be added at the Preliminary Hearing, and even if the case is dismissed the prosecution is sometimes permitted to refile them.
Formal Arraignment – Criminal Court Process Step #2
Next in the criminal court process is the Formal Arraignment. This is the next date set after your preliminary hearing. Normally the Court will schedule formal arraignment about 30 to 90 days after your hearing. If you have an attorney who files a signed waiver you do not have to appear. Practically, no one ever goes to the arraignment unless it is a First Degree Murder case or they don’t have an attorney. This is the hearing wherein the judge advises what charges are filed against you and requests a plea to be entered on your behalf. In the counties surrounding Philadelphia you can only enter a plea of “not guilty” at the arraignment, even if you would prefer to plead guilty. Since there is no choice in the plea entered I am always mystified as I read the newspaper articles about a criminal defendant entering a plea of “not guilty.” There is no other choice at all, so it hardly seems newsworthy. After arraignment we file for discovery to obtain the complaint, police report and all other Commonwealth evidence related to your case.
Pre-trial Conference – Criminal Court Process Step #3
In Montgomery County and Bucks County the next court appearance in the criminal court process is known as a pre-trial conference. A pretrial conference is a conference prior to trial wherein a number of issues will be resolved such as evidence being requested and provided, negotiation of strengths and weakness of the case, scheduling of future court appearances, etc. Your attorney will discuss your case with the District Attorney and hopefully negotiate the best possible plea bargain. If the discovery requests have not yet been complied with we work on that. This process varies widely but can take several appearances and a number of months before we secure all the significant items of evidence so that we may be able to give an informed opinion regarding the strength of your case. We will be exploring resolution of your case at these pre-trial conferences. In terms of the number of pretrial conferences, there may be one or more depending on a variety of factors. If you choose not to accept the plea bargain then the case is listed for trial at a later date. Many people end up taking plea deals at the pre-trial conference.
Pre-Trial Hearings – Criminal Court Process Step #4
In certain cases, it may benefit the defense to file pre-trial motions, which can request many different forms of relief. This stage of the criminal court process occurs after the Pre-Trial Conference. Sometimes the pre-trial motion hearing gets its own date in advance of the trial date.
Some pre-trial motions are so significant that if the court grants them, it may be the end of your case. Sometimes the charges can be dismissed. Other times they weaken the prosecution’s case to the point of getting a great plea offer that they didn’t offer before. If the defense pre-trial motions are denied, the case usually proceeds to a trial or a plea, sometimes on the same day, sometimes at a future date.
Here are some of the more common examples of pre-trial motions our attorneys have seen litigated at this stage of the criminal court process:
Habeas Corpus
When charges are held for court after a preliminary hearing is conducted, we can basically appeal the MDJ’s decision if we think they got it wrong based on the evidence that was presented. The filing of a Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus asks a judge at the higher court, the Common Pleas Court, to dismiss or modify certain charges that the MDJ held for court. We typically would argue that they didn’t have enough evidence to prove that crimes were committed, or that they didn’t prove that the crimes were probably committed by our client. It’s important that we record the testimony at the preliminary hearing so we can make specific allegations of what errors were made.
Then, at the hearing, the Commonwealth can choose to either present additional evidence to prove a prima facie case, or they can just re-submit the same exact evidence that the MDJ heard and make legal argument as to why the evidence was enough. After the hearing, the Common Pleas judge issues a decision, either dismissing the charges that were challenged, or denying the motion and scheduling the charges for trial. If the defense loses, we cannot appeal until after trial, if a conviction is the result. If the Commonwealth loses, they have the opportunity to appeal within 30 days and ask a higher court to reinstate the charges.
Suppression of Evidence
Depending on the facts of your case, prior to trial we may choose to file one or more motions to suppress certain evidence against you. The Court will then hold a hearing on the suppression motion. Evidence subject to suppression includes but is not limited to physical items obtained through unlawful search and seizure and adverse statements you made to police under circumstances that violate your rights against certain types of interrogation. Motions to suppress are especially common in drug cases where drugs have been found through an unlawful search and in DUI cases where the initial traffic stop was unconstitutional or where BAC results of a blood or breath test have been unlawfully obtained.
When a court rules that evidence has been unlawfully obtained and grants a motion to suppress, the prosecution cannot use that evidence at trial. An effective suppression motion can compel the prosecution to make a low plea bargain offer due to the prospect of not being able to use the evidence that is subject to suppression. This may end the criminal court process for you. It is therefore crucial to identify and act upon potential suppression issues in the early stages of your case. At Fairlie & Lippy our attorneys have successfully litigated hundreds of suppression issues.
Motion in Limine (to admit or exclude certain evidence)
To minimize the amount of interruptions and “sidebar” discussions that throw a wrench into a jury trial, or to eliminate the risk of triggering a mistrial due to inadmissible evidence, the Commonwealth and defense will often file motions to get a determination from the trial judge ahead of time whether certain evidence is admissible or not. This way, everybody is on the same page going into the trial, and there should be no surprises or mid-trial arguments about evidence coming in or staying out. It’s also usually a good idea to keep your jurors happy by not wasting their time by objecting a lot during trial to things you could’ve handled before trial!
Sometimes, the court’s ruling is so significant that it may end the criminal court process for you. This is another reason why it is so important for you to have a skilled attorney represent you throughout the criminal court process.
Motion to Dismiss – Violation of Rule 600 (Speedy Trial)
Once you are charged, the Commonwealth must bring you to trial within 365 days of the date the charges were filed. Many things can and do extend that time period, like when the defendant gets a continuance, or when both sides agree to a continuance, or when the police are actively trying to locate the defendant on an arrest warrant, or when a global pandemic shuts the court system down. If you are not brought to trial within the permissible time period, the charges will be dismissed, no matter how serious. This would of course end the criminal court process.
If you are held pre-trial because you cannot post bail, you can sometimes be released on $1 bail if you are not brought to trial within 180 days of the date the charges were filed. It is tough to “stop the clock” for this rule; time keeps running for everything except a defense continuance or mutual continuance.
To address the COVID pandemic, each Court in each county in Pennsylvania issued an order that suspended Rule 600 for a period of time. However, depending on the way the order was written in a particular county, you may still be entitled to have your case thrown out if certain factors are present.
The older your case is, the better chance you typically have at presenting a good Rule 600 issue that could either get your case dismissed or get the prosecutor to make a good plea offer. Contact our criminal defense attorneys to evaluate whether a violation of Rule 600 could exist in your case.
Motion to Dismiss for Violation of IAD (Interstate Agreement on Detainers)
When a person is serving a sentence in state prison in another state, but still has open charges in Pennsylvania, they can make a request to Pennsylvania to come get them and bring them to PA to address their case. When this happens, the Commonwealth has 180 days to bring the person to trial. When the Commonwealth makes the request to bring the person to PA to face trial, they only have 120 days to bring the person to trial. The clock keeps running unless a continuance is granted by a court, for good cause shown, and is made on the record in open court (as opposed to just via email with an administrative office). Any violation of this rule results in the entire case being dismissed, and the reasoning is that it isn’t fair to an inmate to miss out on programs and possible parole in the other state while he’s sitting in PA awaiting trial. This would of course also end the criminal court process.
Motion to Dismiss for Violation of Rule 519 (Delay in Charging)
When you are arrested without a warrant and then released without immediately being charged, which typically only happens in misdemeanor cases, the police typically have 5 days to charge you. However, we often see delays longer than that, especially where they need to wait for lab test results to come back (like in DUI or drug cases). If the delay is long enough (months or years later) with no good excuse, or if we can show that the delay in charging it has hurt your ability to present a defense because some exculpatory evidence is no longer available, a judge may agree to dismiss the case. However, this is an extreme remedy, and the defense can rarely assert that they delay actually put the defense at a real disadvantage. This is one of many reasons why it is important to call our criminal defense attorneys immediately after having police contact where you believe you may be charged. This, too, would end the criminal court process, but the prosecution can appeal the dismissal.
Motion to Transfer Venue (to send the case to another county)
Common Pleas judges have the legal authority to preside over criminal cases that occurred anywhere in Pennsylvania; this is known as “jurisdiction.” However, charges can usually only proceed in the county where the criminal activity occurred, or sometimes where the victim (if any) lives. If crimes were committed as a longer course of conduct that happened in more than one county, the Commonwealth can usually pick which county to proceed in, and the defense can’t object. However, even when there’s a course of conduct across more than one county, the defense can still sometimes argue successfully for a change of venue if the connection to another county far outweighs the connection to the county where the case was charged.
Because each county has its own elected District Attorney with his or her own individual policies, it may sometimes be advantageous to have a case moved to another county, depending on the county and the type of case. While this would not necessarily end the criminal court process for your case, it may provide the prosecution a reason to make a better plea offer on your case for the sake of resolving the case instead of dragging it out.
Trial – Criminal Court Process Step #5
At this stage of the criminal court process, Pennsylvania trials can be heard before a Judge or a Jury depending on the maximum penalty involved in the case and election of the defendant or prosecutor. First offense and some second offense DUI cases may not be eligible for a jury trial. Jury selection in serious cases can sometimes take even longer than the trial itself. After jury selection the lawyers give opening statements and then the prosecutor calls the first witness. The defense has the opportunity to cross examine each witness and then ultimately to call its own witnesses. The defendant never has to testify if he doesn’t want to. In Pennsylvania cases must be brought to trial within 6 months or the defendant must be released from prison pursuant to Rule 600 and Speedy Trial considerations, and if trial has not commenced within one year then the charges must be dismissed, absent delay attributable to the defendant.
Sentencing – Criminal Court Process Step #6
The Court imposes a sentence after a conviction at trial or after a guilty plea is accepted. No sentence may be imposed if the defendant is found Not Guilty. Sentences may include jail time, house arrest, community service, alcohol classes and/or fines. Pennsylvania requires that sentences for misdemeanors and felonies include both a minimum and a maximum. In some cases the legislature requires the court to impose a mandatory minimum sentence.
Sentences can be served in county prison or state prison. They can involve incentive programs like RRRI, boot camp or good time, which reduce the time spent in prison. They can involve sentencing alternatives like house arrest, inpatient rehab programs, or work release. Sometimes shorter sentences like those served in DUI cases can be served on weekends or college breaks, or even in your home. Although sentencing is usually the end the criminal court process, there are times that our attorneys can take a second look at your case to see if your case would benefit from any post-sentence motions or appeals. Give us a call if you have questions about specific sentencing options.
- Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas
- Montgomery County Magisterial District Judges
- Bucks County Court of Common Pleas
- Bucks County Magisterial District Judges