Legal Question in Criminal Law in Pennsylvania
dropping of charges
My mother in law pressed simple assault charges on her son. At the magistrate the DA added aggrevated assult and false imprisonment. He spent 40 days in jail, we bailed him out. Mom wants to drop charges before/at arrainment on july 9th, is this possible or are the only one that would be dropped is the simple since the DA added the other charges? If so, how do we go about getting everything dropped if we want to??
2 Answers from Attorneys
Re: dropping of charges
The formal arraignment is where a defendant is assigned a Judge and a Pretrial date. There isn't really anyway to stop the process until after the arraignment and you don't even get an Assistant District Attorney assigned until after that. Once an A.D.A. is assigned it shouldn't be difficult to get the charges dropped but I have had cases, including a recent one where the D.A.'s Office subpoena'd a Defendant's Grandparents for trial. They did not show, though and the case was dismissed.
Re: dropping of charges
The formal arraignment is where a defendant is assigned a Judge and a Pretrial date. There isn't really anyway to stop the process until after the arraignment and you don't even get an Assistant District Attorney assigned until after that. Once an A.D.A. is assigned it shouldn't be difficult to get the charges dropped but I have had cases, including a recent one where the D.A.'s Office subpoena'd a Defendant's Grandparents for trial. They did not show, though and the case was dismissed.
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