Bail Review Hearings in San Diego

The California Penal Code gives criminal defendants the right to have a judge review whether the amount of bail as set is appropriate. This means that if you are charged with a crime, you have an opportunity to have your lawyer ask the judge to lower the bail. It also means the San Diego DA’s office has an opportunity to ask the judge to raise the bail.

In many counties, these bail review hearings often occur after the first court date, called the arraignment. In San Diego County, however, most judges will listen to bail arguments at the arraignment. This can be extremely beneficial to those defendants who are in custody at the time of the arraignment. What does this mean to you?

First, it means that you need to be ready to try to convince the judge at the very first court date that you should be let out of custody or that your bail should be reduced. This means you need to have a well thought out legal strategy developed by your experienced criminal defense attorney.

Second, now that you know that different judges treat bail differently in the different counties, if you are going to hire a criminal defense lawyer to represent you, you would be very smart to hire a criminal defense attorney who works exclusively in San Diego County. You need a lawyer who knows the rules in the courtroom where your case will be heard.

Third, it means that you need to work with your criminal defense law firm to gather all the evidence, character letters, statements, proof of employment, etc., that you will want to use when your lawyer is arguing your case to the judge at the arraignment. If you not retain a criminal defense law firm to help you then you likely will be spending much more time in jail if you cannot post higher bail.

An experienced and knowledgeable criminal defense lawyer in San Diego can help you. You need a San Diego lawyer who has successfully represented clients at bail review hearings in San Diego for many years. At Wallin & Klarich, we are those lawyers. We have helped clients get out of custody on the date of the arraignment many times. We also have convinced judges to reduce bail by tens of thousands of dollars for individual clients. In one recent murder case we were defending we were able to convince the judge to reduce our clients one million dollar bail to $200,000 and she was released on bail that same day. These type of results do not happen without your lawyer working hard on your behalf.

If you have a question about bail, or you have a bail review hearing or any questions about your San Diego County criminal csae contact us as soon as possible via phone at 1-877-230-1529 or fill out our consultation form for a free evaluation. We will be there when you call or email us.