On Sep 21, 6:34 am, "Robert M. Gary" <N70...@gmail.com> wrote:
> So today I went to court and my
> attorney told me as I walked in that the DA decided to drop the case.
> Apparently they made this decision based on reviewing my declaration
> from the written trial.
This is an excellent outcome for you, but you don't sound glad about it.
> So my question is, should my attorney have
> known the DA wasn't going to continue with this case before today?
Only if he's a mindreader. The DA probably made the decision figuratively "on the courthouse steps" as he was preparing for trial that morning. You don't think the state's attorney sat there contemplating your piddly little ticket file for a whole week before the trial date, do you? He's got 300 other cases at a time to worry about. It takes him probably all of a minute to decide what to do with your file, but typically he's not going to do that until the morning of trial, for a number of reasons: you could withdraw your trial request and just pay the fine; you could die in the meantime, abating the ticket; you could not show up, in which case his decision would be to ask the judge to issue a bench warrant for your arrest, or to enter a show cause order of contempt; the cop could not show up, which may be the reason he decided he couldn't prove a case against you; or any of a number of other things that he wouldn't know until right before trial. If he tried to review all the minor ticket files on his docket a week early, he would just be wasting huge amounts of time (he has probably 30 or more of them a day, even if each of them would only take a short time to review) and moreover if he did so a week early he would have to do it all over again anyway the day of trial because, things could change between now and then.
Bottom line is, if you're accused of a serious felony you've got a better chance of getting your case dismissed at an early stage than for a minor traffic ticket. In a ticket trial, they basically compress all the required proceedings (plea, arraignment, pretrial motions hearings, trial) into a single, short, court appearance at a "cattle call" docket with 30 or 50 other schmoes who also got minor tickets. That's about the only way they could do this efficiently. Your "trial by letter" option in CA is another attempt at streamlining the procedure and saving time for the courts, cops, and DAs, and not incidentally, for you the accused.
> Should I have needed to go to court and pay the attorney to be in
> court if the DA has already decided to drop the case?
Don't begrudge your attorney the fee you paid him. Perhaps the fact that you hired an attorney and were going to seriously contest the case is what made the DA decide to drop the charge. In any event, neither you nor your attorney could have known about the decision before the DA made it. If the DA had made that decision earlier, he most certainly would have communicated it to your attorney, who would have told you. The DA has no interest in making you and your attorney waste a commute to court and clog up their docket and take up space in the crowded spectators' benches in the tiny courtroom if he's already decided he's not going to prosecute your case.
You got a good result. Your attorney helped you get that result. Be happy.
--
This posting is for discussion purposes, not professional advice.
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Mike Jacobs
LAW OFFICE OF W. MICHAEL JACOBS
10440 Little Patuxent Pkwy #300
Columbia, MD 21044
(tel) 410-740-5685 (fax) 410-740-4300
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