The period between arrest and conviction is one of the most uncertain and stressful phases of the entire criminal justice experience. Cases can drag on for months or years. Plea negotiations, pretrial hearings, continuances, and evidence reviews all happen while a person sits in county jail or on bail waiting for a resolution. This section covers how the pretrial process works, what the difference is between a felony and a misdemeanor, how plea deals are negotiated and what the risks are, what happens at a preliminary hearing versus a trial, how defense investigators can help build a case, and what families can do to support their loved one through the uncertainty of pending charges. The guidance here is written for families encountering the criminal justice system for the first time who need to understand what is happening without being overwhelmed by legal complexity. See also our sections on Law Questions and Legal Terms, Bail and Bond Questions, and Sentencing Questions.
Subject: Pending criminal charges
Yes, and the law treats the attempt seriously even when no one was physically injured.
Attempted murder requires two elements that prosecutors look at together. The first is intent, meaning the person deliberately tried to cause death or serious bodily harm. The second is a substantial step toward carrying out that intent. Deliberately using a vehicle as a weapon by driving at someone qualifies as both. The fact that she missed does not eliminate the criminal act. It simply changes the...
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A fugitive warrant means that a court in another jurisdiction, in this case Indiana, has issued a formal arrest warrant for your person based on charges filed there. When a warrant is entered into the National Crime Information Center database, which is the federal system that law enforcement agencies across the country share, it becomes visible to any officer who runs a name check anywhere in the United States.
When your person was booked in Louisiana, the sheriff's department ran his...
Read moreSubject: Pending criminal charges
He is going back to Copiah County to stand in front of the judge who signed that warrant, and that conversation is not going to start from a friendly place.
Drug court is an alternative to incarceration specifically designed for people whose criminal behavior is driven by substance abuse. A judge who offered someone drug court was extending a significant act of trust, choosing treatment and supervision over a prison sentence. A warrant issued from that program three years later tells...
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Do not go. This is one of the clearest situations where the risk to you is immediate and serious.
When you enter a correctional facility for visitation, your identification is run through law enforcement databases as part of the check-in process. That search surfaces outstanding warrants, pending charges, and any active law enforcement flags associated with your name. If anything comes back, the facility has an obligation to act on it, and you could be detained on the spot before you...
Read moreSubject: Pending criminal charges
This sounds like attempted murder, which would be a very serious charge.
Subject: Pending criminal charges
If the case is still pending, and the warrant is currently in effect you will definitely be detained.
Subject: Pending criminal charges
InmateAid does not have access to court calendars, pretrial orders, or case-specific information, so that is not something that can be answered from here. But the information you are looking for is public record and accessible through the right channels.
The Miami-Dade Clerk of the Court is your first call. The clerk's office maintains the court calendar and can tell you whether a hearing is scheduled, what the next court date is, and what the current status of the case looks...
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You have to call the Clerk of the Court where the charges were filed. This is public information, this is where attorneys go to get the facts of the indictment, nature of the charges, etc.
Subject: Pending criminal charges
The timing of when charges are filed has no legal relationship to when the alleged offense occurred. Prosecutors can file charges days, months, or even years after an incident as long as the statute of limitations for that specific offense has not expired. No rule says everything connected to a period of time has to be charged at once or charged immediately.
What drives a new charge coming after the fact is almost always an affidavit from a law enforcement officer...
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My guess is that the inmate got into a violent fight where someone got hurt really bad - it could certainly be something else. He was probably taken to the SHU where they held a Disciplinary Hearing with a single Officer (the DHO) presiding. The DHO evidently found him guilty. Now, the punishment would include more time added to the sentence, plus a change of institution (to a higher security level with less privileges). Here are some examples of Class B...
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You can, but there is a high likelihood that you will be picked up
Subject: Pending criminal charges
The day to day risk of being actively hunted down is low, but the warrant does not expire and it does not care where she lives.
Law enforcement agencies are not going to dispatch marshals across state lines to track down someone for failure to pay fines. The resources required for that kind of active pursuit are reserved for violent offenders and serious fugitives. An unpaid fine warrant, even one classified as a felony, is not going to trigger that response.
What...
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Are we talking arraignment, bond hearing, pleadings? You are entitled to a speedy trial but that is not generaly defined to a time frame. We know some defendants that could not make bail sit in county jail for 6-9 months before anything happened on the case.
Subject: Pending criminal charges
For a first offense involving marijuana and paraphernalia, the outlook is generally about as good as it gets in the criminal justice system, and incarceration is often not part of the picture at all.
Many jurisdictions have moved toward diversion programs for exactly this type of first-time, low-level drug offense. The most common is a pre-sentence intervention or pretrial diversion program, where the defendant agrees to pay a fine, complete a drug education class over a few days, and stay out...
Read moreSubject: Pending criminal charges
Any honest answer here is a rough estimate because the outcome depends on factors that vary case by case, and we are not lawyers. That said, experience with these situations over many years points in a consistent direction.
The four things that drive the outcome most heavily are her criminal history, whether anyone was hurt, whether any property was damaged or lost, and the specific circumstances of the arrest. A small quantity of a Schedule 2 substance and a public intoxication...
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