Criminal Defense Attorney in Alexandria, Virginia
When do you advise clients to enter into a plea deal?
When do you advise clients to enter into a plea deal?
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you know everybody has different a
different outlook on this but the way I
see it is when someone chooses to hire a
lawyer they’re choosing someone to be
the leader of this
situation and when you do that you have
to make the
decisions that you make for the whole
picture so for example someone might
think that they would never enter a plea
in a case and that might be right and
you should never push someone to that
too hard or anything however it is part
of the job not only under the
Constitution but in my view ethically
and to be a a good leader to that person
to explore every idea so they have all
the different angles before them I mean
it’s very important never to be afraid
to go to trial never to not want to do
the work to go to trial because that’s
what we do and you and we like it
however if someone’s grounded to the
position that no matter what they have
to fight it they might be making that
decision for all kinds of reasons what
other people think not wanting to appear
to back down or maybe not wanting to
admit something that’s difficult to
admit but that decision might be the
wrong one again all that matters is
their life their overall picture and so
you have to explore every idea with your
client to make sure they’re getting the
right thing you see it happening all the
time I mean people might be going to a
trial and you can and you sort of figure
out along the way maybe someone else’s
case or maybe your own you know what
they don’t really want to do this they
really don’t um they recognize that the
penalty is going to be way higher if
they lose they recognize the percentage
chances and really people should be
looking at it more like a business deal
when the government attacks you with a
criminal charge this is like a disease
and you can’t fight a disease with
emotion you have to make the right
choices so that you get rid of it right
and so I think sometimes and many times
that is to fight it other times it’s not
when should that a person take a plea
well if the evidence is completely
overwhelming and the penalty is going to
be substantially higher for going to
trial then they should take a plea that
should probably be the decision but
usually it’s not quite like that it’s
somewhere maybe in the middle and you
just have to navigate through that and
figure it out but one thing I definitely
believe in is you have to be the leader
of bringing those decision points to the
table for them they decide it but you
can’t allow your trajectory to be chosen
by the person who’s under this stress
who’s got all these kind of competing
interests going on of course they decide
in the end but you need to do the work
to present them with the choice so they
can make the right one
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Alexandria, VA criminal defense attorney Chris Leibig talks about when you advise clients to enter into a plea deal.
