If you’ve accepted a plea agreement in your criminal misdemeanor case, such as your domestic
violence,
DUI or shoplifting case, your matter will be set for what’s called a Change of Plea
Judgment and
Sentencing hearing.
And you’re probably wondering what’s going to happen at the Change of Plea.
Hi, I’m Shawn Hamp.
I’m a Trial Attorney and Criminal Defense Lawyer practicing law here in Mohave
County, Arizona.
When you change your plea, you’re basically pleading guilty because at your initial appearance
or
arraignment, when you gave a plea to the court, it was a not guilty plea.
So, you’re essentially changing
your plea from not guilty to guilty when you do a change of plea.
And you change your plea because the
State has given you a plea agreement.
The plea agreement basically tells the court what your pleading guilty to and what the
State is giving in
exchange for that guilty plea.
So, usually a prosecutor may be dropping some charges.
They may be
limiting how much punishment you can get, maybe limiting how much jail time you could
face or limiting
how much the fine is going to be but it’s a bargain.
It’s a deal.
This agreement has to be reduced in
writing.
And this agreement has to be done on the record.
It has to be done before a Judge.
That is why
the change of plea hearing is set.
So, you’ll go to the hearing.
You’ll get the plea agreement in writing.
A copy and the original will be given
to the Judge and the Judge will go over it with you.
The Judge will go over the terms of the plea agreement
with you.
The Judge will advise you about what the plea agreement means.
The Judge will try to
determine if you understand it.
The Court has to determine that the plea agreement is knowingly made, it’s
intelligently made and that it’s voluntary.
So, the Judge has to make sure that those things happen.
That
you know what the plea agreement is, that you understand the plea agreement and that
this is something
that you want to do.
That nobody is threatening you to change your plea.
So, once you’ve done the change of plea, in a misdemeanor case, the court will go right
away to
sentencing and will do the judgement and sentence.
The judgment and sentence is based on those terms
in the plea agreement.
And, if there’s some terms that are still at the court’s discretion, you or your lawyer
will argue the court, obviously to exercise the most lenient discretion that the court
can give.
Sometimes
there may be issues about how long the probation should be, whether it should be supervised
or summary.
Maybe the plea agreement still allows the Judge to sentence a defendant to a certain
range of jail time.
So, these things are argued to the Judge at that time.
Then the Judge makes the ruling, what the sentence
is, reduces it to writing, gives the defendant the terms of that sentence and the terms of
probation and the
hearing is concluded.
So, if you or someone you know is going to change their plea or go to a judgement of
sentence in a criminal
case and you have questions about it, please give my office a call.
Let’s find out if your case is something
we can help you with.
Call my office at 928-753-6868 or visit my website at HampLaw.com.