If you have not bonded out prior to the next morning’s court session, you will br brough before a judge. This is called First Appearance. At First Appearance, the judge will read the charges against you and inquire if you are going to get your own lawyer or if you want a public defender appointed (if you qualify). You can also enter a plea at this stage, the judge can also alter or set bond if no bond was previously set.

First Appearance is also the time the judge will review the arrest paperwork and determine if there is probable cause for the arrest, which allows you to continue to be held in jail. If the judge determines there is no probable cause you must be released.

At First Appearance it is important not to say anything that will incriminate you. The court session is recorded and even the most inexperience prosecutor knows how to get an audio recording of a courtroom confession.

If you appear at First Appearance, you should only say, “not guilty,” and either “I am going to hire my own lawyer,” or “I would like the public defender appointed.” First Appearance is not the time to tell a story or make excuses.

Arraignment is held as an opportunity to hear the charges against you and enter a plea. For those who bonded out prior to First Appearance, this will be their first opportunity to ask for a public defender if they qualify. For those who have already hired a private attorney, their attendance will almost certainly be excused by their lawyer.

In almost every criminal case where a private lawyer is hired, the lawyer files a notice to the court and state attorney telling them the Defendant has hired them as their lawyer. Additionally, a written plea of “not guilty” is filed along with a waiver of appearance at arraignment.

At Katz & Phillips, P.A. we do not automatically waive your appearance at arraignment. In some cases, after review of the case with the client at our initial consultation, we have found that appearing in person at arraignment will result in benefits to the client in resolving the case. Again, we have no one-size fits all strategy here.

Pre-Trial Conference dates go by many names throughout the state. In Lake County for instance, your case will have the following dates: PNC – Plea Negotiation Conference, Sentencing, Pre-Trial Conference, Trial.
In most other counties, the terms PTC – Pre-Trial Conference and Case Management Conference are used.

Plea-negotiation conference is an opportunity for your lawyer and the prosecutor to discuss the facts of the case and attempt to come to a resolution. Since it is in court, the judge may get involved and make suggestions to the parties or push one side or the other to the deal.

Sentencing – In front of some judges this date is optional, and the attorney and defendant need only appear if they are going to be entering a plea. Some judges require all Defendants and their attorneys to appear. Typically, those who do not enter a plea are warned by the court that if they do not resolve their case, the judge can sentence them to any legal sentence after trial.

Pre-trial Conference, Case Management Conference – these are really housekeeping type court dates. One by one, the attorneys approach the podium and inform the court about the status of the case. Your case will either get continued to give the parties more time to prepare or it will get set for trial if it does not resolve.

In addition to the dates above, your attorney may file “motions” in your case. These motions are typically designed to either suppress pieces of evidence against you, or make the state do something they have not, for instance produce the training manuals of the officers or the testing data for certifying the breath test machine you were tested on.

At Katz & Phillips, P.A. our motion practice is another thing that sets us apart from other DUI Defense attorneys.

We remember that the state has the burden of proving you guilty with admissible evidence. Therefore, we test the admissibility of every piece of evidence against you from the initial observations of your driving pattern, to the stop of you car, to the officer’s observations of you when they approach.

Further, if you perform field sobriety exercises, we test the legality of the officer requiring you to perform them, the manner in which you were instructed to perform the exercises and the officer’s interpretation of the results.

Finally, if you are required to perform a breath, blood, or urine test or refuse to do so, we test the legality and admissibility of the test.

Frequently, the officers do not perform their investigations as required by law. In many cases they do not meet the necessary legal standard of reasonable suspicion to perform an investigation, or probable cause to make an arrest.

If your attorney does not fight and make the state prove each element of the case against and test the evidence, they are giving up an important opportunity to get evidence suppressed and weaken the state’s case prior to trial.

Frequently, the inexperienced state attorney does not know the correct questions to ask or understand the issue in the case well enough to know the proper arguments to make.

Hiring the Board Certified DUI Defense Experts at Katz & Phillips, P.A. can really make a difference to the results in your case. Our experience, knowledge and drive to win make a huge

You must find a lawyer willing to take your case to trial if necessary. Prosecutors learn very quickly which lawyers never go to trial, but plea their clients to DUIs. All of the attorneys at Katz & Phillips, P.A. love to try cases. Prosecutors know that if we do not get what we want, we will fight them every step of the way and are unlikely to recommend to a client to plea to a DUI (in some rare instances it may be in your best interest to accept a DUI plea and we will advise you if we believe that is the case).

The expert DUI defense attorneys at Katz & Phillips P.A. have tried cases throughout the state of Florida and never back down from the challenge of taking a case to trial.