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pleading not guilty

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turdferguson

Junior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? ms

so my court date is coming up in about a week and a half (feb. 4th). I will be pleading not guilty. My question is after pleading not guilty will i be scheduled another court date outside of municipal court or will my case most likely be settled in municipal court on that very same day? I forgot to bring this up the last time i met with my attorney. I'm ready to get this over with, i've been stressing out over this whole ordeal since i recieved my dui. I've heard from many different people that they will have to schedule another court date but i've also read thats not true. Anyone care to shed any light on this?
 


lenny71

Member
If you plead not guilty, in the very least it will go directly to trial which would be at another court date.
 

BigMistakeFl

Senior Member
Pleading

The courts are, as you can imagine, very busy. By pleading not guilty you may be pushing the case in the right direction. You are not likely to get a trial the same day. Your lawyer can now get the evidence the prosecution has against you, and you can build your case or have the time needed to assess your case more completely. You can change your plea later to no contest if you should decide that the offer is satisfactory, or proceed to trial.
 

turdferguson

Junior Member
so I know some people were interested in the developments of my case.

I had another meeting with my lawyer on Monday. We went over my police report and my video. The police report seems pretty standard from what my attorney said. He did seem puzzled when looking at how i did on my FST's. I took four tests, the walk and turn, balance on one leg, horizontal gaze, and counting 5-1 on each of my fingers. According to the tests i failed both the walk and turn and horizontal gaze miserably. The walk and turn i failed because i asked if i was suppose to pivot on one foot or if i could lift it up as i was turning back around ( i asked this mid way through the test). Most of you know that during this test, one of the things they are looking for is your ability to comprehend and remember instructions. It's a multitasking exercise. I wasn't quite aware of this when the test was being administered. This was mainly due to me being pretty nervous. The horizontal eye, as i said in one of my other posts, I think i failed because of the surgery i've had on my eyes. I just don't have the money to obtain all the documents and professional opinion as well as pay for my lawyer and court fees so I can't really do much about that in court. As for the other two tests, I passed perfectly according to the report. My lawyer said its unusual for someone to pass two tests and fail the other two. Most drunks fail all of them. Now note this is all from the police report, this is not my opinion of how i think i did.
The video showed that I wasn't stumbling around, My speech wasn't slurred and all of the body motions i made do not point to someone who was intoxicated. He thinks that this will definitely help in proving my innocence. According to my lawyer, we have a good shot at winning this. They don't have a BAC since i refused to blow and they didn't administer a blood test, i know that this is considered admissible guilt though. I was honest with the officer when i told her I had 3 bottles of of beer (new castle) each being 16 oz but it was in a period of about 4 hours plus there was an hour and a half between finishing my last drink and when i drove. So basically it seems like everything will be up to the judge to decide whether i am guilty or not. Regardless of what has happened, it's been exactly two months since i was pulled over and not one day has gone past where I haven't thought about and regretted what I did. I have learned a lot from this experience, from now on even after having one drink I won't be doing any driving. I haven't even had a beer since this incident occured. Thank you all for your advice, I have learned a lot from this forum and I now realize how serious drunk driving really is. I would never intentionally want to put any one else's life in danger and I expect the same from everyone else when driving. Thank you all for your time, I will update with my results next week after my trial which is on February 11th.
 

BigMistakeFl

Senior Member
Good luck with your case. In my own, I chose not to roll the dice, though my lawyer too felt I had a good shot at prevailing. The fees for going to trial would have been considerably more, and I did not feel strongly enough that we would win, so I ended up taking the first offer. You will have to choose also.

Thank you for the update. We appreciate it when someone comes back to post again, and hope to see another from you with the outcome.
 

turdferguson

Junior Member
out of all the things i was worried about, this was not one of them. I went to court at 4 pm today. My lawyer showed up at around 5 pm and we exchanged words. I wait for my name to be called and my trial to begin. Its now 6:45 so i've been sitting waiting patiently for about 2 hours and 45 minutes. well, around 5:30 my attorney walked outside with a few other cops so i figured they were just going to be talking or whatever. Well, once they call my name MY ATTORNEY IS NO WHERE TO BE FOUND!!! well I am outraged to say the least seeing as I have already paid the man over 1,000 dollars. This attorney who I thought was a respectable man, ditched me at my court case. I mean I did my research on attorneys and i received several recommendations to pick this guy. I haven't been able to contact him so i do not know what happened but i am furious. I've been waiting for two and a half months to finally go to court and finally get this monkey off my back, I thought I had everything covered. I THOUGHT I had a good attorney, my case looked promisingly in my favor...according to the lawyer that bailed on me anyway.

I am at a loss as to what to do now. I asked the Judge for a continuance when he asked if I wanted to proceed with the trial, he told me that was a wise decision and that he would respect my wishes. The judge was actually very nice and felt bad about what had happened, but I was very embarrassed and I really hope this doesn't reflect too much upon me. I filled out a form for a new court date and they said they would call me when they schedule it. Now I guess the next thing to do will be to get a hold of my lawyer in the morning and find out why he left me and didn't even let me know. After that, I will find a new lawyer. I feel like I've been made a fool, I deserved a proper trial especially since i've paid a supposedly respectable attorney to represent me. I really hope I can get my money back but I doubt that will happen.
 

BigMistakeFl

Senior Member
Something similar happened to me, in that my lawyer actually scheduled another something at roughly the same time. He was in another courtroom when my name was called, however, he'd instructed me to just answer that my lawyer had just stepped out and to please put me back in the list so he would be present. The judge accepted this like it happens everyday and I sat some more.
 

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