{"id":392,"date":"2017-11-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-11-01T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/baronedefensefirm.lawblogger.net\/blog\/should-i-plead-guilty-to-drunk-driving\/"},"modified":"2022-10-04T13:44:15","modified_gmt":"2022-10-04T17:44:15","slug":"should-i-plead-guilty-to-drunk-driving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/should-i-plead-guilty-to-drunk-driving\/","title":{"rendered":"Should I Take My Drunk Driving Case to Trial or Just Plead Guilty?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If you are charged with drunk driving in Michigan, then at some point after your arraignment you will need to decide if you wish to plead guilty or stand trial. This is because all Michigan drunk driving crimes are classified as either misdemeanors or felonies.\u00a0 This means that all people accused of drunk driving in Michigan have an absolute right to trial.\u00a0 The trial can be either by a jury or by a judge.\u00a0 Misdemeanor cases in Michigan are tried before juries of 6 people whereas felony cases are tried by juries of 12.\u00a0 Verdicts in all criminal cases require that juries be unanimous, either in favor of conviction or in favor of acquittal.<\/p>\n<p>The trial\/no trial decision is a complex one and requires the assistance of an attorney familiar with the trial process, particularly, one familiar with drunk driving trials. However, relative to the trial option there are many things to consider in making this decision.\u00a0 The first is the likelihood of conviction but this likelihood is best viewed within the context of the plea offer being made on the part of the prosecutor. Has the prosecutor offered to reduce the charge in exchange for your plea of guilty?\u00a0 If so, then how \u201cvaluable\u201d is that plea offer?\u00a0 You are the only person who can assess this value.<\/p>\n<p>When there is a plea offer, or in those cases where no plea offer is made at all, and your only choice is to plead guilty as charged, it may be useful to weigh this fact against the right(s) you are giving up by foregoing trial and pleading guilty.\u00a0\u00a0Everyone accused of a crime has many trial rights, including the presumption of innocence, the right to call witnesses and the right to remain silent.\u00a0 These are valuable rights and ones that should not be lightly waived or given up.<\/p>\n<div class=\"read_more_link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/should-i-plead-guilty-to-drunk-driving\/\"  title=\"Continue Reading Should I Take My Drunk Driving Case to Trial or Just Plead Guilty?\" class=\"more-link\">Continue Reading \u203a<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you are charged with drunk driving in Michigan, then at some point after your arraignment you will need to decide if you wish to plead guilty or stand trial. This is because all Michigan drunk driving crimes are classified as either misdemeanors or felonies.\u00a0 This means that all people accused of drunk driving in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dui-penalties","category-owi"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Should I Take My Drunk Driving Case to Trial or Just Plead Guilty?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Michigan DUI defense attorney Patrick Barone discusses what factors should be considered before pleading guilty to a OWI charge in Michigan.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/should-i-plead-guilty-to-drunk-driving\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Should I Take My Drunk Driving Case to Trial or Just Plead Guilty?\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"Michigan DUI defense attorney Patrick Barone discusses what factors should be considered before pleading guilty to a OWI charge in Michigan.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Patrick Barone\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Should I Take My Drunk Driving Case to Trial or Just Plead Guilty?","description":"Michigan DUI defense attorney Patrick Barone discusses what 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