Legal Question in Criminal Law in Alabama

Re: Lawyer or not?

You absolutely need to get a lawyer before you go to court. A lawyer may be able to work out a deal for you to keep the incident off of your record, or at a minimum the lawyer should be able to work out something to keep you out of jail. It may also be possible that you have defenses to this case that would prevent you from being convicted at a trial, but you won't know that without getting the advice of an experienced criminal defense lawyer first. Without getting a lawyer involved, you will be throwing yourself on the mercy of the court - and courts in Alabama don't have a lot of mercy. You will also have a theft conviction on your record, which will follow you the rest of your life. You may not think that is important now, but try applying for a job that involves handling money in any way and you'll find out that a theft conviction is a big deal to an employer.

You might get probation without a lawyer, but you could also receive a jail sentence. Many defendants try representing themselves in court "to see what is going to happen," and wind up being sentenced to jail time. Then they have to go through the expense of posting an appeal bond (usually twice the fine and court costs) so that they don't have to go to jail, and then they have to pay a lawyer five times as much to handle an appeal as it would have cost to just get an attorney to handle it correctly from the start.

Since you have no priors, an attorney may be able to get you into a pretrial diversion or pretrial intervention program where the entire matter disappears if you stay out of trouble. Invest in a lawyer who can get you out of this mess, before you mark yourself with a criminal record that will follow you for the rest of your life.

Our office handles criminal cases in Mobile. If we can be of any assistance, please give us a call or send me an email. Good luck to you.