Just after the arrest, the arresting officer communicated with the District Attorney's Office Intake Division, and an Assistant District Attorney determined what charge to file, based on information from the arresting officer. The prosecutor will recommend a bond based on a bond schedule set by the judges. The Victim Witness Program of the Harris County District Attorney's Office will notify you by mail of the defendant's name, case number and court number. They will also provide written information about crime victims' rights.
At his first court date, the defendant will appear with an attorney he has hired, or will request that the court (the judge) appoint him an attorney. The court will appoint an attorney to represent the defendant if the defendant is indigent. Indigent simply means too poor to be able to hire an attorney. The court will make the determination about whether the defendant is indigent. Alternatively, a defendant may chose to represent himself if, after a hearing the judge finds that he is competent to waive (give up) his right to counsel. The court will then reset the defendant's case on its docket.
Perhaps. In most cases, a defendant is entitled to have bail set while his case is pending. Bail is simply used to ensure that a defendant appears in court. If bail is set, a defendant will stay in jail until he posts bond. After he posts bond, he will be released from jail until his case is resolved. Texas, incidentally, allows for bond after conviction while the defendant's appeal is pending. A defendant may be denied bail pending appeal if he is sentenced to more than ten years in prison and in certain other circumstances..
Initially, bail is set according to the severity of the type of offense for which he is charged, along with the defendant's prior criminal history. If other factors, such as likelihood of flight, severity of this specific offense, or potential danger to the complainant come to the attention of the prosecutor, a high bond request may be filed with the court, asking the court to initially set a higher bond. The amount of bail may be reviewed by the court, either at a scheduled bond hearing or at any other setting of the case.
If you have an indication that a crime against you in imminent, you should call the police. If the defendant is still in custody, and you have some basis for believing some retaliation may take place if he is released, call the prosecutor assigned to the case. The prosecutor can present that evidence to the judge when the judge reviews the bail recommendation. You can register with the Texas VINE (Victim Information Notification Every day) system by calling 1-800-894-8463. If you register with the VINE system, you will be notified about the defendant's release from jail.
A protective order is an order entered by a judge in a domestic violence case that requires a defendant to refrain from contacting a complainant and to refrain from being within a certain distance from that complainant's place or work, school or home. If he does any of the actions listed in the order or goes into any of the places listed, he may be arrested for violation of the protective order. To determine whether a protective order is appropriate in a particular case, a complainant may call the District Attorney's Office Family Criminal Law Division at (713) 755-5888 or go by the Family Criminal Law Division. Because the FCLD sees people on a first-come, first-served basis, it is best to arrive early. .
Not necessarily. If he posts a cash bond, he will deposit with the sheriff the full amount of his bail. That amount of money will be returned to him (or whoever posted it) after his case is disposed of.
A defendant may, instead of posting the full amount of the bond himself, contract with a commercial bonding company. The bonding company will satisfy the bond (by pledging property in the amount of the bail amount) in exchange for a non-refundable fee. The fee varies, but is typically 10% to 15% of the amount of the bail.
Another means of release from jail pending resolution of a case is release on a personal bond. In most cases, release on a personal bond generally requires a defendant to submit to a pretrial interview conducted by Harris County Pretrial Services. The interview and supplemental information are made available to the appropriate judicial officers, who make all decisions relative to approval or denial of personal bond release.
Not necessarily. A defendant may be released on bail pending the appeal of any misdemeanor. A defendant convicted of a felony may be released on bail as long as he was not sentenced to more than ten years (unless he has been convicted of Murder, Indecency with a Child, Aggravated Sexual Assault, Aggravated Robbery, Sexual Assault or certain drug offenses).
There is really no way to tell how long it will take for a defendant's appeals to be exhausted. It could take as little as one year, or it could take up to twenty years or longer.
You may call (713) 755-5826. If you give the Appellate Division the name of the defendant and his Court Cause Number, they will be able to tell you the status of the appeal. They will also give you the appellate cause number. With the appellate cause number, you will get a quicker response to your case status inquiries.
You should keep the defendant's name and the police agency case number. You should also keep the trial court cause number and the court number.
The police agency case number is the number assigned by the police agency to a particular investigation. All the records of the investigation will be filed with the police agency case number. Typically, a police officer will leave this number with the victim at the scene or at the time when the crime is reported. When charges are filed, the police agency will be able to tell you what the court cause number is.
The trial court cause number is the number assigned by the District Clerk's Office to a particular case filed against a particular defendant. With this number, the prosecutor assigned to the case will be able to easily locate the case in the system.
The court number is simply the trial court that the case is assigned to. The case is assigned randomly to a trial court unless a defendant is currently on community supervision. If a defendant is on community supervision and is accused of committing a new offense, the new case will be assigned to the court in which the defendant's community supervision case is pending.
The Victim Witness Division can give you that information. Call (713) 755-6655. You may also call the District Clerk's Office or the office of the prosecutors handling the case.
The Victim Witness Division can give you that information. Call (713) 755-6655. You may also call the District Clerk's Office or the office of the prosecutors handling the case.
The Victim Witness Division at (713) 755-6655 can give you that information. Alternatively, you can call the main number of the District Attorney's Office and tell them what court the case is being prosecuted in, they will give you the number to the office of the prosecutors for that court. An individual prosecutor will be assigned to your case. That prosecutor will be assigned to your case until the case is disposed of or until the prosecutor is assigned to a new court. If a prosecutor is reassigned, the replacement prosecutor in that court will handle your case.
The courts are currently located at 1201 Franklin Street. Parking costs vary from $2 per day for lots between the Courthouse and Minute Maid Park (about four block from the Courthouse), and as much as $8 per hour right across the street. There are parking meters in the downtown area, but they are generally full by the time most courts start at 9:00 a.m. You should discuss with your assigned prosecutor whether it is necessary for you to come to any specific court setting.
Call the prosecutor assigned to the case. He or she will coordinate with the Victim Witness Division to send you bus tokens to get you to the courthouse by public transportation. Tokens will also be provided to get you home again.
Typically a case is set for Arraignment soon after the defendant is arrested or posts bond. When it is done formally, a defendant hears the charge read to him and enters a plea of guilty or not guilty at the Arraignment setting. A case can be set at various points for a setting called "non-trial" or "Non-Issue". This setting reflects the fact that, even if cases are initially screened to be as complete as possible, there will very often be issues of law that need to be researched or assertions of fact that must be investigated. The court will give the parties a certain amount of time to investigate their cases. At the Non-Issue setting, the parties review their positions and, usually, attempt to negotiate a disposition of the case. A "Disposition" setting generally indicates that by that date, the State and the Defense are expected by the court to have researched their cases well enough so that they will able, on that date, to set their case for plea or for trial. At a "Plea" setting, the defendant enters his plea of guilty or no contest. After a plea setting, there may be settings for "Sentencing" at which the court decides the defendant's punishment. A "Motions" setting indicates that there is some matter set for the court's decision on that date.
If the case is set for trial, the victim (also called a Complainant) will ordinarily receive a telephone call from the prosecutor and will also receive a subpoena. The subpoena is a court order requiring you (or the person named on it) to be in court at a specific date and time. If a case is set for trial, one of four things can generally be expected to happen. The trial could take place on the date it is set. Alternatively, the case could be carried for several days or even weeks. This means that the case is being re-set from day to day. A case is carried if it appears that the court will not be able to attend to the case immediately, but expects to be able to get to it in relatively short order. Another thing that could happen on trial date is that the case could be re-set. If the case is re-set, then it will be assigned a new trial date at a specific time in the future. All of the witnesses, including the victim, may expect to get new subpoenas. Finally, the case may plead on trial date, meaning that the defendant has changed his mind about contesting guilt, or that a new plea bargain offer has been made that the defendant will accept.
Generally, two things will cause a case to be re-set? One is scheduling difficulties among the witnesses or attorneys. It is sometimes discovered after a case is set for trial and the subpoenas have gone out that one of the essential actors in the case, either attorneys or witnesses, is unable to be present at the trial. A typical trial will have between half a dozen witnesses and dozens of them. The possibilities for scheduling difficulties, even when the presence of a witness is ordered by the court, are enormous.
The other thing that will cause a case to be re-set is the court's schedule. The vast majority of criminal cases are resolved by a plea of guilty by the defendant. The majority of cases that are set for trial are also resolved by a plea of guilty. The court will attempt to schedule enough cases each week so that it will be able to try some cases each week. If all of the trial cases plead guilty, the court is left with no cases to try that week. Because of scheduling difficulties, it is almost impossible to move a case at the last moment into the vacant week. Sometimes, though, several cases are set the same week in the same court and none of them plead guilty at the last minute. The court cannot try them all, so some are carried to be tried later in the week or are re-set for a future date.
The criminal court has the power to order the defendant to make restitution to any victim of the offense. If the crime is a property crime, the court may order the defendant to return the stolen property or repay the owner for the monetary value of the loss. For crimes involving bodily injury, the court may order payment for medical expenses, necessary therapy and loss of income. The criminal court has no power to order payment for pain and suffering or any of a number of types of recovery that may be available in civil court. The Crime Victim's Compensation Fund may also help to provide compensation in certain types of crimes against the person.
There are basically three ways for you to get your restitution in a criminal case. The quickest is restitution paid as a condition of a plea bargain. Restitution is paid before a plea is taken and will be forwarded through the Victim -Witness Division or, in the case of a theft by check case, through the Check Fraud Division. Restitution as a condition of the plea bargain is the quickest and most reliable way of getting restitution to the victim. It only works, however, if the defendant has the money to pay the restitution, or can get it, before the plea.
Another way to get restitution is to have it paid as a condition of community supervision. A defendant receiving community supervision (probation) may be ordered to pay restitution as a condition of that community supervision. Typically, within about a month of the date the plea is taken, the victims will receive an affidavit in which they verify that the restitution amounts are correct. After the affidavit is returned to the community supervision department, the monthly payments will start. These payments will be in the form of checks from the Community Supervision and Corrections Department. The problem with payments ordered as a condition of community supervision is they come in periodic payments, without interest on the outstanding balance, and they only continue as long as the defendant can make the payments. Our law has a provision, in fact, that prevents a judge from revoking the probation of a defendant if his only violation of his probation is that he failed to keep up his payments even though he is able to do so.
The third way of getting restitution for a victim is restitution as a condition of parole. A defendant sentenced to prison will generally be released before he has served all of his time. Defendants released before their sentenced time is completed are generally released on parole. The Board of Pardons and Paroles has the authority to order payment of restitution to the victim as a condition of a prisoner's parole. The payments would not begin until the parole began, so these payments will begin much later than would payments made as a condition of probation.
Restitution payments could be made by a combination of the methods mentioned above. A defendant could, for example, pay one third of the restitution before the plea, and two thirds could be ordered as a condition of probation. If one third is paid as a condition of probation before probation is revoked and the defendant is sent to prison, a third could still be ordered as a condition of parole after the defendant is released.
It is entirely up to you whether or not you speak with them. The prosecution cannot tell you not to speak with the defense. You should assume that you are being taped. You are free to tape any such conversation, and are also free to decline to converse with the defense unless a representative from the District Attorney's Office is present.
An ethical defense attorney or investigator will identify himself as such. If you have doubts, take the name of the person who is calling, and call (713) 755-5800, the main District Attorney's Office number and ask whether the person calling is a prosecutor. The main operator is able to transfer your call to that prosecutor or investigator.
You can register with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice(TDCJ)- Victim Services Division at 1-800-848-4284. You can also fill out a Victim Impact Statement (VIS) that will be sent to you by the District Attorney's Office Victim Witness Division. The VIS will be sent to TDCJ-Victim Services Division when the defendant is sentenced to prison. They will notify you of any changes in the defendant's status in prison. For example; if he moves to a different prison, escapes, dies in custody or becomes eligible for parole..
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