Video – Attorney Andrew Dósa Answers: How Often Does A Judge Change The Deal Between The District Attorney And A Criminal Defense Attorney?

Ray Hrdlicka – Host – Attorneys.Media

“How often does that happen? Where the District Attorney and the defense counsel, private counsel or public defender, they have a deal and then it is thrown out, changed, dramatically at times, by the Judge?”

Andrew Dósa – Criminal Defense Attorney – Alameda County, CA

“Generally, my experience is that is very unusual. In Alameda County, I’ve had only one case. My client had been in state prison. He had a prior strike. He had just gotten out of prison after 13 years. He was about 47 or 48, so he was middle-aged, and he was basically thinking ‘I’ve spent more than half my time in jail, and I’m not doing this anymore. I going to grow up’. So he comes out, fully committed to doing the right thing, and literally there was a person with some mental health issues who accused him of grabbing her newspaper and beating her with a newspaper. So the District Attorney took the case from the police, and charged it as an assault with a deadly weapon.”

Ray Hrdlicka – Host – Attorneys.Media

“The newspaper?”

Andrew Dósa – Criminal Defense Attorney – Alameda County, CA

“The newspaper. And I actually did some investigation and spoke with a couple of her neighbors who basically said, ‘she’s just a loose nut, and she just went off and wanted to mess him up’. Without probably being fully conscious of what she was doing. Her world was fuzzy. Lacked the clarity. So when we worked out a deal, it was an eight-month deal, and he was going to get a paper commitment. He would have had four and a half months in-custody.

We went before the Judge who felt because of his prior history, and that it sounded like an awful case with a deadly weapon, that he wanted to undo the deal. That he wanted to give him state prison. I stood in front of that Judge and argued for 25-30 minutes before he finally said, ‘well, okay. I’ll give you a six-month deal if he waives his credits’. So, my client said, ‘I don’t want to take a chance that I have to go to trial, I’ll take it’. So, he waived his four and a half months, did another three additional months and was out. But the Judge messed up his deal. For us to get the Judge to back down, I felt was good, but I was disappointed that we even had to be there.”