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Biggest Mistakes to Avoid in Manassas Criminal Cases

If you have been charged with a criminal offense in Manassas, the following are the most common mistakes you should avoid according to a Manassas criminal defense attorney. For legal assistance with your case, call and schedule a consultation today.

Talking to Law Enforcement

The biggest mistake initially that a lot of people make is talking to the police. They really have no need to discuss any of the charges with the police, at least not without first consulting an attorney. If the police have already decided to charge you with a crime, you’re certainly not going to be able to talk them out of it. It’s always best to just keep your mouth quiet and let the system work with the assistance of an attorney.

This may result in a police officer getting irritated or agitated, but that should be of much less concern to a person who is potentially going to be charged with a crime. What they need to worry about is the big picture and what the judge or jury is going to think.

Going To Court Without An Attorney

That leads me to the second mistake, people who are charged with a crime but decide to go into court without the assistance of an attorney.

The criminal justice system can be very complicated and there are a lot of rights that are afforded to a defendant in a criminal case that he or she might not be aware of. Going into a case like that without the assistance of an attorney would essentially count as a waiver of those rights. You don’t actually waive them in a legal sense, but if you don’t know about them and you don’t exercise those rights, then you’re essentially waiving them. It’s always a bad idea—no matter what kind of crime you’re charged with—to go in without an attorney. Yet every single day that people try to go in without an attorney and try to make the best of it themselves and it almost always ends badly for those people.

Showing Up Late For Court

From a logistics standpoint, one of the biggest mistakes that people make is showing up late for court. It seems simple enough to tell people to get there early, but it’s difficult to get to the Manassas courthouse on time. There is parking there, but the parking is pretty spread out and on most days the allotted parking spaces for the Prince William County Courthouse tend to fill up. If they get there ten minutes before they’re supposed to be in court, they’re almost always going to be late because they’re going to have a hard time finding parking. Then once they get to the building, there’s only one door in and there’s only one security station to get into that building. Very often the lines are quite long and the security officers do a great job of making sure that nobody comes into the building with anything they’re not supposed to have, which would include cellphones and things of that nature.

It does take some time to actually get into the building and to that extent it’s usually a good idea to get there very early for your case, otherwise you could be late. If you’re late, the judge could actually issue a bench warrant for your arrest and that is not a situation anybody wants to find themselves in.