Knowing what to do when being charged with a crime can seem a daunting and overwhelming thing. After all, most people are not familiar with the legal system at all, at least not in a way that is in depth enough to navigate it successfully on your own. Knowing what to do when being charged with a crime is not an answer that most people have. Fortunately, you don’t always need to know what to do when being charged with a crime if you are able to contact a competent lawyer. From a DUI lawyer to criminal defense lawyers, there are many people you can utilize to help you with your legal journey and helping you know what to do when being charged with a crime.
A legal defense lawyer can also inform you of your rights, which is important when knowing what to do when being with a crime. For instance, your fifth amendment rights are incredibly important. The fifth amendment means that, essentially, you do not need to incriminate yourself. Pleading the fifth is a viable legal defense, at least until you are in contact with your lawyer and can better formulate a legal strategy going forward. It is also important to know your rights to have bail, as are protected by the eight amendment. While high bails are likely to be set for violent crimes, it’s important to understand that unreasonably high bails should not be set and can even be unlawful to set if the crime does not justify or warrant it. The eighth amendment will also protect you from enduring cruel and unusual punishment while you are incarcerated. Of course, your lawyer will also help you to fully understand the sixth amendment, which states that everyone, regardless of the crime that they are charged with, has a right to legal representation, a speedy trial, and to confront witnesses, no matter who they might be.
Those who have been charged with a DUI are particularly likely to be in need of knowing what to do next after being charged with a crime. This is simply because driving under the influence is such a common crime, especially here in the United States, where more than three hundred thousand drivers get behind the wheel while intoxicated each and every day. DUI charges are serious and can come with fines of up to twenty thousand dollars. DUI charges can even lead to jail time, as driving while under the influence can lead to both severe injury and even death in the drunk driver as well as in other people who are on the road around them. In fact, data shows that someone is injured by a drunk driver for every single two minutes that pass here in the United States. As many as ninety people will die in car accidents each and every day in this country alone, with many of them losing their lives as a result of someone getting behind the wheel while they were intoxicated.
On top of this, driving under the influence is not just limited to alcohol. Driving under the influence of other drugs is also incredibly dangerous, both legal drugs (prescription drugs) and illegal drugs alike. Many cases of driving under the influence of drugs that are not alcohol also lead to having to know what to do when being charged with a crime. In fact, driving under the influence of drugs other than alcohol make up more than fifteen percent of all DUI crimes here in the United States, all throughout the country.
Of course, knowing what to do when being charged with a crime is a difficult thing, as this can be an incredibly difficult, confusing, and overwhelming time in any person’s life, whether or not they have been charged with such a crime before. It’s important to hire a criminal defense lawyer if you are able to do so – as soon as you possibly can. It’s important to know what steps to take here in the legal world, and finding a good lawyer can certainly help.