Georgia Criminal Defense Attorney

Within 48 hours of being arrested, you will go before a judge to learn your charges. The judge may or may not set a bond at that time. If you do not receive or cannot afford the bond set, an attorney can file a motion asking the judge to hold a hearing to set bond.

Bond or bail is an amount set by the judge to ensure that your presence throughout the case. For instance, if you receive a five-thousand-dollar bond and pay that money (plus some fees) to the Sheriff’s Office, you will be released and at the end of the case get your money back (except for fees they add on). People often use a bonding company, where you pay a smaller amount to the company and they pay your bond to the sheriff’s office, but you do not get that money back. This is referred to as “good,” “surety” or “straight” bond. Sometimes the judge may not require any money and permit a “signature bond,” “release on recognizance” or “unsecured judicial release” and you do not have to pay anything.

There are many possible reasons a judge might deny bond. Reasons range from the seriousness of the offense to not having a valid mailing address. Your attorney will discuss the factors with you and argue to the judge why you should receive bond. The four factors the judge is required to consider are:

1. The risk of fleeing the jurisdiction and not coming back to court;
2. The potential danger to the community, person and property;
3. The likelihood of committing crimes while out on bond;
4. The potential to intimidate or interfere with witnesses.

Not every guilty verdict or plea sends you to jail. The punishment for most crimes can be, in the judge’s discretion, served on probation. Probation is where you are supervised by the Department of Community Supervision or private probation agency for a set period of time and as long as you do not violate the terms imposed by the judge, you do not go to prison.

Prisons house people who are serving sentences, and not people awaiting trial. There are state run and private prisons all over the Georgia, run by the Department of Corrections. Jails are run by the county sheriff and house people who are awaiting trial, may be waiting to go to another jail or prison, who are awaiting a probation revocation hearing or who have been sentenced to months or days, not years, in custody. Nobody goes to prison until a case is resolved with the defendant being found guilty – either after a trial or plea.

There are only a few limited circumstances where the judge can dismiss a case. A lack of evidence is not one of those circumstances. The prosecutor decides whether to drop a case. Your attorney will be the one to try and convince the prosecutor to reduce or drop the charges, the judge cannot simply dismiss the case. If there is no evidence against you, your legal recourse is to go to trial and have a jury acquit you.

No. The consequence of the police interrogating you without advising of your rights is a violation of your constitutional rights. In that situation, any statements you made in response to such questions cannot be used against you, but the case will still move forward. If you did not say anything that they are trying to use against you, there is no impact on your case.

Georgia does not use the term “expunge.” A record can be sealed or restricted. Depending on how your case turns out, a judge may be able to restrict or seal the record, making it visible only to certain court or government agencies. Although the internet makes erasing all records related to any case practically impossible, an expungement action in the appropriate case can assure that there are no accessible court records concerning certain cases that ended favorably to the defendant.

Once the police get involved, the person who called 911 does not get to decide whether the case moves forward. While the prosecutor often asks for the victim’s input and the victim has a right to be informed about the status of the case, the victim’s wishes are not determinative.