Our role as your criminal defense lawyer is to protect your rights and seek to get unfair charges and penalties reduced. We can work to keep you out of jail on first-time offenses, reduce DUI sentences, and challenge unfair prosecutions.
We can represent you during police interrogations, advise you on your rights, field plea bargains from the prosecution, and even fight your case at trial. Our lawyers represent defendants in a wide range of criminal charges, and we offer free case evaluations to help you understand our services.
For a free case review, call Overson & Bugden’s criminal defense lawyers today at (801) 758-2287 to get started.
When Do I Need a Lawyer?
While you technically can proceed “pro se” (without a lawyer), you never should. You should work with a lawyer to protect your rights and avoid being taken advantage of by police and prosecutors.
Whether you are facing misdemeanor, felony, or even the lightest charges – traffic offenses and infractions – you could face jail time and fines for what you are accused of doing. We can work to minimize the penalties and even get the charges dismissed or dropped.
What is a Plea Bargain?
The courts and DA’s offices often have a lot of cases to get through, and the system would move very slowly if every case went to trial. Instead, they will often discuss plea agreements with defendants, where the defendant can plead guilty to a crime in exchange for some benefit.
What Can a Plea Bargain Do?
This typically comes with at least one of the following benefits:
- The prosecution can agree to drop certain charges, potentially leaving only lighter offenses or removing multiple lighter or “add-on” offenses.
- The prosecution can agree to recommend a lighter sentence – e.g., one that includes probation and no jail time – to the judge. However, prosecutors cannot promise or ensure sentences; it is always up to the judge.
- The prosecution can agree not to seek certain optional penalties (e.g., the death penalty).
- The prosecution can agree to immunity on other charges in exchange for testimony.
Agreements can also be made to drop charges after completion of community service, counseling, or other programs.
When to Accept a Plea Bargain
Never accept a plea bargain or plead guilty to a crime without your criminal defense lawyer’s advice. Sometimes the benefits the prosecution promises are quite hollow or involve something they cannot guarantee.
You should also never plead guilty in hopes you will get a lighter sentence; a plea bargain should always be in writing.
Can I Get a Plea Deal?
Prosecutors do not offer plea agreements in every case, and you should always have your lawyer negotiate on your behalf.
Defense Strategies
Our lawyers can employ a few different defense strategies. What is best for your case will depend on the facts of your case, what charges you face, and what evidence the prosecution has against you. In broad strokes, the following are common strategies we use:
Deny Evidence
If there is evidence the prosecution wants to use against you, but they obtained it through illegal searches or seizures, we can fight to have it suppressed. If they did not have probable cause to arrest or search you, or they did not have reasonable suspicion to stop you, the police are not allowed to use the evidence those stops and searches turned up.
This error also spreads to any evidence obtained down the line because of that bad evidence and can even block things like confessions from being admitted.
Argue for Alibis
If you were not there when the crime happened, you often cannot be the one who did it. If we can provide good evidence that you were somewhere else, the charges can often be beaten quite quickly.
Identification Challenges
The prosecution often relies on eyewitness identifications to prove that you were the one who committed the alleged crime. If the victim or witness was not able to see your face clearly, their ID might be incorrect. The following issues are commonly used to challenge witness IDs:
- Brief time window
- Blocked or obstructed view
- Witness was focused on a weapon, not the suspect’s face
- Witness identified a defendant of a different race inaccurately (cross-racial identifications).
Problems with police procedure in line-ups, photo arrays, and other identification procedures can also bring bias into the identification or potentially suggest the “right” defendant to the witness, all contaminating the ID.
Other Grounds for Reasonable Doubt
The prosecution needs to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt, so any reasonable doubt we can introduce will help win your case. This can be anything from a bad ID to an alternative suspect to a good argument that you did not have the motive to commit the crime.
FAQs for Criminal Cases in West Haven, UT
Will I Go to Jail for My First Offense?
Sentences always depend on the crime you are charged with and your criminal history. First-time offenders rarely see jail time for low-level offenses, but you could still face probation, fines, and other restrictions on your freedom. For severe charges, prison is always a possibility.
Can You Help with Warrants?
If you have a bench warrant for a previous failure to appear, our lawyers can help you clear the warrant. However, you may have a pending case, so once we get you a new court date, you will still have to show up to court and face those pending charges, which we can also help with.
Can You Help with DUIs and Traffic Tickets?
Our defense attorneys frequently take DUI cases. Other, less severe traffic ticket cases can lead to bench warrants and license suspensions, which we also help with.
Can I Hire a Criminal Defense Attorney for Someone Else?
Our lawyers are often hired by concerned parents and grandparents for adult and college-aged defendants. However, it is important to understand that we work for the defendant, even if you are paying; we cannot listen to your case strategy or disclose anything about the case unless our client gives us permission.
We can also help your family with juvenile charges.
Call Our Criminal Defense Lawyers in West Haven, UT Today
If you or a loved one needs a lawyer, call our criminal defense attorneys at Overson & Bugden today: (801) 758-2287.
