Case of Burglary Charges: A State point-of-view

(The content below was transcribed from an interview done with Acacia Law. We think you'll find it much easier
and more enjoyable to read this way.)

Interviewer: Well does the state tend to do that? Do they just throw in anything they can think of to make it hard for you to fight the case?

Acacia Law: Yes. They throw it in most any place that it is applicable because it is to their advantage to do so. The theory is that if you have somebody charged with a lot of felony charges, the more charges there are the better chances they have of getting a guilty verdict on at least one charge. In addition, the more charges they have, the more leverage they have against the individual because the individual's exposure is that much more enhanced by the addition of the burglary allegation.

So if you put the two together, the underlying alleged crime in conjunction with the burglary in the first or second degree, you've now created a situation where the person absolutely needs good preparation by counsel in order to prevail. Because if you can knock down the problem associated with what the state is arguing, then you get much more leverage in terms of negotiating with them to resolve the case in a fair and reasonable manner.

Interviewer: Does the state do it just to look good and win cases? Why does the state do it do you think? Or are you allowed to say?

Acacia Law: I'm absolutely allowed to say and I certainly don't mind saying. Essentially the way it works is this, I'm speaking predominately now of felony cases, when the state does an indictment or by either a) a grand jury or b) by direct complaint, they are essentially creating a set of charges against the person.

It is to their advantage to add these charges because every time you have prior felonies and some of these instances, if a day or so elapses between the time they go into a structure, now you've just doubled the number of charges that they have.

And the reason that they do it is because it's called, overcharging, the reason they overcharge people is so that they are hoping that they can meet somewhere in the middle with the defendant or his counsel or her counsel. And come up with some sort of resolution because the defense counsel does not think it's in the best interest of the client to go to trial with all those charges.

Now in our firm we don't go by that rule. The way the game is played is that the state may make all these charges, but from my perspective they must prove each of these charges. And the more investigation we usually do in these cases, the more frequently find that there are mistakes made, inaccurate statements made, pictures of the premises that established whatever was charged against them was not even possible.

And these are the types of things that the state uses to force the defense to come back and plead to something so that it's a win situation for the prosecutor, it may or may not be a win situation for the defendant.