Connecticut Criminal Lawyer Blog
Over 28 years of practice in criminal law a lot of clients have told me that they don’t want to participate in a diversionary program because they “don’t want to admit guilt of a crime they didn’t do.” I’m writing this blog article to let people know that applying for a diversionary program is not an admission of guilt and does not mean that you are guilty. In Connecticut there are a lot of diversionary programs for all sorts of things. Over the years the main diversionary program – the Accelerated Rehabilitation Program has been joined by an ever expanding list of diversionary programs. Top Connecticut criminal lawyers will tell you that in most cases it is usually a better idea to use a diversionary program than take your case to trial. Over the years a lot of my clients have resisted the idea of participating in a diversioary program because they feel that applying for a program is an admission of guilt. We are going to explore this in greater detail.
> What is a Diversionary Program?
The normal progression of a criminal case involves an arraignment, pre-trial negotiations, and a jury or bench trial where a determination of guilt or innocence is made. This all assumes that a plea bargain is not made where the accused agrees to plead guilty to a lesser offense in exchange for a reduced charge or an favorable agreed upon disposition. In practice 99% of criminal cases in Connecticut are resolved without trials either through diversionary programs or plea bargains. A diversionary program takes a crminal case off the trial path and diverts it into a special program that can result in a dismissal of all charges upon successuful completion of the program. If you apply for a diversionary program you will never have a trial and no one will ever determine if the charges against you were valid or not.
Many of my clients are terrified for obvious reasons when they are contacted by the Police and then often try to “talk their way out” of the situation. My objective in writing this blog post is to give some quick advice on what to do if you are the subject of a police investigation or a road side stop. Often, the Police have no case they can prove against you, only suspicion and conjecture which is not going to make a case stick in Court. They use manipulation, scare tactics and coercive methods to induce you to talk and give them admissions which will give them a solid case out of nothing. DO NOT fall for this trick. I am going to give you 3 easy to remember and simple rules to follow when dealing with the police that will help you avoid letting your own mouth seal the case against you. After 27 years of criminal defense I can’t count how many times I have been contacted by someone who is the subject of a police investigation and after I told the police that my client would not cooperate that was the last thing we ever heard about that case. The reason is because the police never had enough evidence to file for a warrant and were just hoping to bring my client in and get them to make an admission.
