Dear emily1964-ga
Thank you for allowing me an opportunity to answer your interesting
question. The short answer to your question is, yes, absolutely.
Let me qualify my answer by saying that I have been in law enforcement
professionally for more than 20 years and I have been to trial more
times that I could ever accurately recount. While I am probably not in
your specific jurisdiction, let me generalize about the common
practice of lower courts with regard to misdemeanor offenders:
Until you do go to trial or until the court renders some irreversible
decision (by irreversible, I mean any decision that cannot be changed
unless a formal appeal process takes place) the matter is still open
and you are still presumed by the court to be innocent of the charges
against you. The person accusing you of the crime, and indeed the
members of the public, unless selected to serve as a jury of your
peers, are not held to the same presumption. They ?can? and often form
their own judgments and biases against defendants. The loss prevention
employee can say, report, testify and do whatever he pleases and in
some cases this can have an impact on the court, especially if his
reasoning behind ?trying to bust you for a while? is backed up by some
reasonable circumstantial evidence. People aren?t normally convicted
in circumstantial evidence alone, but we are all human and the bottom
line is that a convincing story is a convincing story.
Now, having said that, keep in mind that your attorney WORKS FOR YOU.
He is actually EMPLOYED by you to represent you in court. I noticed
that you said of your attorney that ?HE? pleaded guilty at your
arraignment. This is actually inaccurate. What really happened is he
spoke for YOU, relaying YOUR wishes to the court to enter a ?not
guilty? plea on your behalf. In effect, YOU pleaded ?not guilty? and
he merely verbalized it in open court. Why is this significant?
Because YOU, as a presumably innocent person at this point, can change
your mind. Believe me, people change their court pleas all the time
and decide at the last minute that their earlier decision was not in
their best interests.
You may, if you so choose, instruct your attorney to abandon the not
guilty plea and change your plea to ?no contest?. This may require you
to wait until your pre-trial hearing to formally enter the change of
plea, but in the meantime your lawyer can inform the prosecution of
your change of heart and your willingness to accept a lesser charge
without admitting guilt. Often times, since hearings take time and
time in money, the prosecutor will opt to accept the ?no contest? plea
in an effort to save taxpayer?s money and himself a bit of work.
Shoplifting (or petty theft) is a relatively minor offense and I
predict that your change of plea will be welcomed news to both the
court and the prosecution and in exchange they very well may be
willing to reduce the charge to a lesser offense (this has been my
experience).
We cannot offer legal advice here and so I cannot tell you what to do,
but if it were me, I?d take charge of my own fate AND my hired
attorney and insist that my wishes be carried out in a manner that was
best suited for ME given the circumstances.
Below you will find that I have carefully defined my search strategy
for you in the event that you need to search for more information. By
following the same type of searches that I did you may be able to
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questions about my research please post a clarification request prior
to rating the answer. Otherwise, I welcome your rating and your final
comments and I look forward to working with you again in the near
future. Thank you for bringing your question to us.
Best regards;
Tutuzdad ? Google Answers Researcher
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Based on 20+ years professional experience in law enforcement and local courts |
