Is there a time to plead guilty? Statistically, about 98% of criminal charges end up in a plea. So if we’re being honest, statistically, most people plead guilty.
People ask how often I win. I have to answer honestly. Once lawyers get involved, no one is winning the case. Already we’ve gone somewhere we don’t want to be.
So part of me hates pleading clients guilty in cases. I want to win, but sometimes you have to minimize damage. The right attorney will give you good advice on when that time is.
Sometimes it’s early in the case. I’ve had instances where the prosecutor has messed up and thought my client doesn’t have any criminal history, but in reality, it’s substantial. So I run my client in and plead guilty as soon as possible. If the prosecutor realized what all my client’s history was, I would never get a deal.
Sometimes you drag cases out, and you posture. You give the client time to prove they’re doing well in the community. That means I argue that the bad thing was an isolated incident.
Just look at all this time! It’s been a year since it happened, and he hasn’t even gotten so much as a speeding ticket!
It is all strategy.
Sometimes things change. Sometimes new information comes out, and I have to look at my client and say, we can’t win this trial. Those conversations are hard because I want to fight for my client. But sometimes, it’s not in my client’s best interest to fight. If they’ve got a confession and pictures and video and witnesses? Sometimes we can’t win, which means we have to enter a plea. Does that mean we have to agree to whatever the state wants? No. Luckily in our system, if we don’t agree to a resolution with the prosecutor, we can ask the judge for an appropriate sentence.
I don’t practice outside of Southwest Missouri because I want to know what that judge is thinking and what that judge will do. Sometimes we have to enter pleas where the judge will give us a sentence, and when we do that, I like to be able to predict what that will be, based on my knowledge of what that judge has done in the past.
So, is there a time to plead guilty? Yes. I don’t like it, but that’s how the game is played. But at MRD Lawyers, we have the knowledge to play it, and that’s why we’re here helping you.