Legal Question in Criminal Law in Washington

Re: Is an arraignment legally considered a hearing?

An arraignment is most certainly a formal hearing, i.e. a �court proceeding�, and you have the right to bring your attorney to the arraignment. This is why, before the arraignment, it�s prudent make contact with an attorney who cam stand with you and assist at your arraignment. I have personally save clients thousands of dollars because I caught something significant at the arraignment which after I commented on it, resulted in a dismissal of the charges right on the spot.

If you are indigent, that is financially impoverished, the court must appoint you an attorney at public expense. Most courts permit you to go to the office of assigned counsel before the arraignment date and make out an application for the public defender. If you haven�t done this by the arraignment date, you still need to attend your arraignment. Sometimes judges will go through your financial status right on the bench and appoint you counsel during the hearing.

Sometimes you want to hire an attorney or you have the public defender, but happenstance prevents you from having your counsel lined up for the arraignment. If you tell the judge that you�re working on getting counsel, the court can either continue the arraignment or it can enter a plea of not guilty on your behalf. A not guilty plea preserves all of your criminal procedure rights and if the need arises you can change your plea after speaking with your counsel. To squarely answer your question, this practice of the arraignment entering a not guilty plea does not violate the Constitution.

One foot note. Most felony courts won�t let you plead guilty on the arraignment date. They either want you to speak with counsel or they want you to come back the following days or weeks after �cooling off.� This avoids the court accepting improvident pleas. While arraignments are important, they are routine and most judges get rather impatient fast if you raise objections to the process. Again, the school of thought is that the judge is making sure you preserve your rights.