BEST POSSIBLE DEALS ON FIRST TIME MISDEMEANOR CASES.

Have you recently been arrested and charged with a misdemeanor? Is this your first time to be arrested and charged with a crime? Is your misdemeanor charge a non-violent, victimless crime? If you have a clean record, you may be eligible for one of the best plea bargain deals available. It may be important to you to:

• Stay out of jail
• Avoid a criminal conviction
• Avoid reporting in person to a probation officer each month
• Have your arrest record sealed or erased

If these things are important to you, you should be very interested in one of the following dispositions of your case. Keep in mind that each one of these dispositions is only available to you at the discretion of the prosecutor or judge. Your attorney will work hard to persuade the state to agree to a very favorable deal for you. However, no attorney can guarantee a result on a criminal case. If you have a clean criminal record and are charged with a first time misdemeanor offense, the lawyers of Yañez | McGee | Kuhner, P.C. will work hard to get you one of the following deals. Availability of each of these deals will vary from case to case and from county to county.

(If your first-time misdemeanor is a driving while intoxicated or DUI case, this section does NOT apply to you. Texas law treats DWI differently from other misdemeanor criminal offenses. If you are charged with DWI, please refer to “Frequently Asked Question About DWI in Texas” on this website.)

DEFERRED ADJUDICATION PROBATION

“Deferred adjudication” is a special kind of probation where you are not convicted. You plead guilty but the judge does not find you guilty. Instead he “defers a finding of guilt” and places you on probation for a minimum of 6 months or a maximum of 2 years. If you complete the probation without any violations, the case is dismissed and you do not receive a final conviction. If anybody ever asks you if you were convicted of the offense, you can truthfully tell them no.

If you complete a deferred adjudication probation, your case is dismissed, but the case history will still appear on your criminal record. This record cannot be “expunged” (erased). However, if you complete a deferred adjudication probation, in most cases you will be eligible to petition the court for a “non-disclosure” order, effectively sealing your record from the public. If the court orders non-disclosure of your case, the government agencies who keep record of your arrest would be forbidden from disclosing your record to members of the public. This is almost as good as an expunction.

Generally, a prosecutor will only consider offering you deferred adjudication if you have a clean record and you are charged with your first criminal offense. Dallas County prosecutors do not offer deferred adjudication probation to defendants charged with prostitution, public lewdness, indecent exposure, unlawful carrying of a weapon, burglary of a motor vehicle or theft from an employer, according to Dallas County District Attorney office policy. A defendant with a clean record charged with one of these offenses in Dallas County can still get deferred adjudication if he “pleads open” to the court and asks the judge to decide his sentence.

Getting a deferred adjudication probation for a client with an otherwise clean record is usually a fairly easy, straightforward matter. Although a deferred adjudication probation is a good deal, a client who accepts a deal for deferred adjudication must still complete the terms of probation. Terms of probation include reporting in person to a probation officer once per month. Terms of probation also include paying fines, court costs and probation fees, completing anywhere from 24 to 120 hours of community service, submitting to random drug tests, and attending classes as instructed by your probation officer.

If you have a clean record and you are charged with your first misdemeanor, we might be able to get you an even better deal than deferred adjudication probation.

DEFERRED PRO-FORMA (NON-REPORTING PROBATION)

Everyone agrees that deferred adjudication is a good deal, because you do not receive a final conviction and you are usually able to get a non-disclosure order after your probation is complete. However, most people are inconvenienced by having to report in person to a probation officer once per month. Most people find that their employers are less than sympathetic about them taking time off during the week once per month for several hours to sit in a crowded room and wait for their probation officer to see them. Also, some people who choose to enjoy marijuana as a lifestyle decision find themselves inconvenienced by having to submit random drug tests to a probation officer.

There is a way to enjoy the benefits of deferred adjudication without having to endure the hassles of reporting. It called “deferred pro forma”, and it means non-reporting deferred adjudication probation. Only the judge can order that a probation be “pro forma”, or non-reporting. In order to get one of our clients a non-reporting probation, we must first reach an agreement with the prosecutor for a plea bargain for deferred adjudication. Then, when we bring our client in front of the judge to enter his plea, we ask the judge for pro-forma probation at the time of sentencing.

The judge will usually agree to give a client with an otherwise clean record a non-reporting probation if the client completes certain terms of his probation before entering his plea. When we are seeking a non-reporting probation for one of our clients, we will always have the client perform his community service hours on his own before the date of the plea. We supply our clients with a list of non-profit organizations for whom they may perform community service, and timesheets to log their community service hours. We will also have our client take whatever class is appropriate for his offense. If our client is charged with possession of marijuana, we have him take the Texas Drug Offender’s Education Class (“Tx Doep”). If our client is charged with theft, we have him attend the Theft Intervention and Prevention School (“TIPS”). Almost every misdemeanor offense has an appropriate class. Usually a defendant who is sentenced to probation will have to take the class as a condition of probation anyway. We simply have the client take the class first. We also have our clients submit two clean UA’s (drug tests) 30 days apart. We also instruct our client to be prepared to pay fines and court costs on the day of his plea.

At the time of the plea, we present the court with the community service time sheets, the class attendance certificate, and the drug test results. Although we can never guarantee that a judge will allow one of our clients to serve his probation “pro-forma”, most local judges will allow a first-time misdemeanor offender serve his probation on “pro-forma”, or non-reporting status, if he completes community service hours, takes a class, and passes two drug tests prior to the date of his plea. There are, of course, many exceptions. When you come in to our office for a free consultation, we will explore whether we think deferred pro-forma is an option for you and your case.

MEMORANDUM AGREEMENTS

If a client is charged with a first time misdemeanor offense and has no prior criminal record, occasionally a Tarrant or Dallas County prosecutor will agree to dismiss the client's case if the client completes certain conditions first. This agreement is referred to as a "memorandum agreement." A client who enters into a memorandum agreement to have his case dismissed will typically be required to perform community service hours, attend a class, and submit two clean UA’s before the prosecutor will dismiss his case. Once the client completes the terms of the memorandum agreement, the prosecutor will file a motion to dismiss. The court will order that the case be dismissed. The client will be released from bond and will not have to report to a probation officer. His case will be completely dismissed! Once the statute of limitations runs out (the statute of limitations is two years for most misdemeanor cases), the client can file a petition to have his record expunged. This means he can get his criminal record completely erased! Short of an unconditional dismissal, a memorandum agreement is the best possible deal that a client charged with a misdemeanor can get.

A prosecutor will not always agree to offer a client a memorandum agreement. Some prosecutors do not like to offer memorandum agreements for theft cases or weapon cases. Some prosecutors do not like to offer memorandum agreements to anybody. Also, prosecutors will not generally offer memorandum agreements to clients charged with assault/family violence unless the victim of the assault schedules an appointment with a district attorney investigator and fills out an “affidavit of non-prosecution”. It is entirely up to the discretion of an individual prosecutor whether or not to offer a memorandum agreement to a client. If a prosecutor tells us “no” to a memorandum agreement, often we will advise our client to do the community service and take the class anyway. When the client completes the hours and the class, we show the proof to the prosecutor and ask him for the memorandum agreement again. Sometimes the prosecutor will say “yes”. If the prosecutor still says no, we can usually get our client a non-reporting deferred adjudication from the judge by pleading open to the court.

Although we can never guarantee that the prosecutor in your case will offer you a memorandum agreement, we can give you a good idea of how realistic it is to expect that a memorandum agreement may be forthcoming when you come in to our office for a free consultation.

LESSER INCLUDED CLASS “C” MISDEMEANORS

A lesser included offense is an offense that has many of the same elements as a higher class offense. Many class A and class B misdemeanors have lesser-included offenses that are class “C” misdemeanors. For instance, theft under 50 is a lesser-included offense to theft 50-500. Assault by contact is a lesser-included offense to assault bodily injury. Possession of drug paraphernalia is a lesser-included offense to possession of marijuana.

Class “C” misdemeanors are unique in that they are punishable by fine only. A defendant charged with a class “C” misdemeanor cannot be sentenced to jail time or reporting probation. All traffic tickets are class “C” misdemeanors. A client who pleads guilty to a class “C” misdemeanor is only required to pay a fine. A client can sometimes also get deferred adjudication for a class “C” misdemeanor. A deferred adjudication probation on a class C misdemeanor is a non-reporting probation, just like a traffic ticket probation. A client who completes his class “C” deferred without violating the law gets his case dismissed, and is eligible to have his record expunged.

Prosecutors do not generally hand out lesser-included class “C” deals unless they have proof problems with their own case. Oftentimes a prosecutor will offer a class “C” deal on a misdemeanor case that is set for trial, as a way of avoiding bringing a weak case before a jury. If we think our client might be a candidate for a lesser-included class “C” deferred, we will usually advise that client to complete some conditions of probation like performing community service or taking a class. If it appears that the client has taken some steps to take responsibility for his own actions, often it will give a prosecutor added incentive to offer that client a good deal like a lesser-included class “C”.

DEFERRED PROSECUTION PROGRAM

In Tarrant County, if you are between the ages of 17 and 21 and you have been charged with a non-violent, non drug related, non-weapon related, non-gang related offense, and you have never before been arrested or contacted by the police for anything other than a traffic ticket, you are eligible to participate in the Tarrant County District Attorney’s Deferred Prosecution Program. The Deferred Prosecution program is a special program created by Tim Curry, the elected District Attorney of Tarrant County, Texas, to give youthful offenders a second chance to start their adult lives with a clean slate. The Deferred Prosecution Program is only available in Tarrant County.

If you are interested in enrolling in the deferred prosecution program, you are required to complete an exhaustive 15 page application. You also have to submit copies of your high school transcript and provide 3 letters of recommendation from adult non-family members who have know you for at least 3 years. You have 30 days from your first court date to submit these materials. Once the district attorney has received these materials from you, you will be scheduled to attend an entrance interview for the program. You must attend the interview with your attorney and at least one parent. If you are allowed to participate in the program, you will be required to stay out of trouble for 6 months. During those six months you must live at home and be enrolled in school full time or work full time. You will not report to a probation officer – your parents will be your probation officer. If you complete the program without any violations, your case will be dismissed. After the statute of limitations runs (two years for most misdemeanor cases) you will eligible to have your record “expunged” (erased). The deferred prosecution program is a great opportunity to get your case dismissed and your record erased if you are a youthful offender in Tarrant County. When you come in to our office for a free consultation we will discuss whether you might be a candidate for the deferred prosecution program.

IN CONCLUSION

If you have a clean record and are charged with your first misdemeanor offense, most attorneys will tell you that they can get you a deferred adjudication probation. Getting a deferred adjudication for a client with a clean record is a fairly simple, straightforward matter. However, you may be able to get an even better deal than deferred adjudication. Not every attorney will spend the extra time and put in the extra work to get you the better deal. At Yañez | McGee | Kuhner, P.C., our attorneys work hard to achieve the best possible outcome for every one of our clients. Contact us today to schedule a free consultation and find out what we can do to help you with your case.

CONTACT US

Click here to send us an email. Tell us about your situation. One of our attorneys will get back to you within 24 hours. Or you can all us in Dallas at (214) 742-6400 or in Fort Worth at (817) 877-9944.