California.
I'm writing a script, and it's hard to get answers from lawyers in person since they cost money to talk to and I can't get the full answers and full picture in one or two phone calls. So I did research by meeting a guy who was has a criminal record and been on trial, rather than talking to expensive lawyers. In my script the bad guy, needs to 'beat the system' and get away with murder. The person I asked said that he had a friend on trial and he payed the judge 40000 dollars to make the charges go away.
I talked to the that guy, and he confirmed it. He also says he knows to other guys who did the same thing. I asked him how a judge 'makes it go away'. He said they don't know but just do. He also says that those judges made his and his friends, criminal records disappear.
The first four people I interviewed three of them said that. So it seems it's quite common in today's legal system unfortunately. I could use it for my script though for the villain to get off. But I need to know how (in the real world, not the Hollywood world) do the judges do that exactly? I can think of a judge coming up with an excuse why he or she can't try the case... But then wouldn't they just get another judge who would? How do they make the crime and past records disappear? Not exactly a legal question but it still has to do with how the law works.
I'm writing a script, and it's hard to get answers from lawyers in person since they cost money to talk to and I can't get the full answers and full picture in one or two phone calls. So I did research by meeting a guy who was has a criminal record and been on trial, rather than talking to expensive lawyers. In my script the bad guy, needs to 'beat the system' and get away with murder. The person I asked said that he had a friend on trial and he payed the judge 40000 dollars to make the charges go away.
I talked to the that guy, and he confirmed it. He also says he knows to other guys who did the same thing. I asked him how a judge 'makes it go away'. He said they don't know but just do. He also says that those judges made his and his friends, criminal records disappear.
The first four people I interviewed three of them said that. So it seems it's quite common in today's legal system unfortunately. I could use it for my script though for the villain to get off. But I need to know how (in the real world, not the Hollywood world) do the judges do that exactly? I can think of a judge coming up with an excuse why he or she can't try the case... But then wouldn't they just get another judge who would? How do they make the crime and past records disappear? Not exactly a legal question but it still has to do with how the law works.