Bridgeport Criminal Defense Lawyer
Facing criminal charges in Bridgeport is the worst possible experience that anyone can go through. Pennsylvania has made itself a mass-incarceration state by building enough bed space to warehouse half the state. The prison sentences in Pennsylvania for even the smallest infractions are ridiculous. Pennsylvania is one of the few states that has diverged far from the Federal model penal code that creates the benchmark for criminal laws in most other states.
It is more critical than any other decision in your life that you find the best lawyer to represent your defenses. If you don’t find an experienced attorney who knows all the nuances of the complex laws in Pennsylvania, you will find yourself paying the penalty for the offense for a lifetime.
Everything in Pennsylvania is a serious criminal offense and is designed to warehouse people and degrade them rather than to rehabilitate them. Never think that sending your son or daughter to prison for drug treatment is a viable choice. There are drugs inside the prisons.
DUI and Traffic Violations
Like everything else in Pennsylvania, even traffic violations are treated with grave seriousness. Pennsylvania officials are infamous for recently seeking to impose criminal consequences on an entire community for being behind on their school lunch tabs.
If you fail to timely pay for traffic tickets, you can be brought into court on a bench warrant. Your driver’s license can be suspended, which can lead to additional criminal charges and imprisonment if you fail to pay. Even missing scheduled court hearings can lead to contempt of court charges and jail time.
The DUI laws in Pennsylvania are among the toughest in the country. You can be charged with DUI if your blood alcohol concentration (BAC) exceeds 0.08 percent. This is true even if you are not driving the vehicle but merely sitting in it with your keys in the ignition.
In fact, you can be charged and convicted of DUI, if the police allege that you were driving recklessly or that you appeared intoxicated, when your BAC is, nonetheless, within the legal limit. Only an experienced Bridgeport criminal defense attorney can present your defenses with clarity and dismiss charges or mitigate the stiff penalties.
Felony and Misdemeanor Charges in
Although DUI charges are something that you can often put behind you after a first offense, a felony is not so easy to dispose of and can cause major limitations in your upward socio-economic mobility. You can be denied jobs, education opportunities, and may find yourself homeless if you wind up on the sex offender registry.
And because the officials continue to broaden the definition of what a crime is, your innocence may not matter. Even misdemeanor charges for simple assault, verbal threats, or possession of a small amount of drugs can lead to five years or more in prison.
Pennsylvania officials love to stack the charges and create multiple offenses out of one single transaction. Even if the charges are substantially the same, one element of difference is enough to argue in favor of another three to seven years or more in a felony case.
When you are facing a virtual life sentence for a victimless or petty crime, you will start to see pleading guilty to ten years as a good deal even if you are innocent. Don’t let the Pennsylvania conviction machine make you a victim. Hire an experienced criminal defense attorney to stop them from trumping up charges and handing out time without conscience as if it were a vacation.
The good news is that Pennsylvania officials like to go after the lowest hanging fruit. If you separate yourself from unrepresented defendants, they will not be so eager to lock you up. They don’t want people to expose poor prison conditions and interfere with their mass-incarceration business. Hiring the top Bridgeport criminal defense attorneys is the easiest way to shine light on injustices and to ensure a fair outcome.
