Giving Yourself a Chance to Win Your Georgia Criminal Case

By Ben Sessions on October 4th, 2014 in Uncategorized

You can’t win if you don’t play, but in our criminal justice system and here in Georgia, very few people actually engage in jury trials. (If you think that jury trials are infrequent in the criminal defense practice area, consider the car accident and personal injury areas.) Therefore, most people do not give themselves a chance to win their Georgia criminal case. The percentage of criminal cases that actually proceed to a jury trial is astoundingly low. There are numerous factors that lead to the low percentage of trials:

• Most criminal cases are handled by public defenders who are exceptionally overloaded, particularly in Georgia, and simply do not have the time to commit to discovering the issues that would form the basis for a good trial defense.
• Many criminal defendants are dissuaded from trying cases as a result of projected sentences post-trial, if a verdict is adverse to them.
• Finally, criminal defense attorneys engage in efforts to dissuade their clients from presenting their cases to juries.

CRIMINAL DEFENSE LAWYERS NEED TO BE MORE DISCRIMINATE ABOUT DISCOURAGING CLIENTS FROM JURY TRYING THEIR CASES: WILL YOU GIVE YOURSELF A CHANCE TO WIN YOUR GEORGIA CRIMINAL CASE?

The most disturbing thing that I hear from lawyers is that they can “control” their clients and dictate whether their clients ultimately present the case to a jury. There are certainly cases where criminal defense attorneys must be willing to tell their whether a trial might subject their client to substantial risk. However, there are a substantial number of cases in which the downside risk of giving their client a chance to win is very minimal and those cases should be decided by a jury.

Blog Post Provided By:

The Sessions Law Firm, LLC
115 M.L.K., Jr., Dr., SW, #410
Atlanta, Georgia 30305
Phone: (470) 225-7710