Dallas DWI Lawyer Blog

I wanted to write about a very concerning trend in municipal courts.  Over the past few months I have had several clients faced with alarming situations.  The typical situation is as follows:  you get arreseted for a class C offense whether that be assualt, drug paraphernalia, or dui; you go in front of a municipal judge the next morning for arraignment and the judge asks you then and there what your plea is.  This has become the typical chain of events for these courts and the alarming issue is that most of these people just want to get it over with and they plea guilty.  They do not ask for a lawyer or negotiate a better plea deal.  They simply plead guilty to the charges and in doing so will not be allowed to remove these charges from their respective records.   Meaning if a background check is conducted, these charges will show up. 

This is not explained by the judge at the time and the person has no idea what they are actually pleading to.  They do not have a full understanding of what is actually happening.  In my opinion this is a terrible injustice to the persons pleading out their cases and something needs to be done to change to way these courts are operating.  Or at least explain what the plea actually means to the individual before they are allowed to plea their case.

 If this situation sounds familiar to you call Mark T. Lassiter right now at 214-457-1668.