If you’ve been charged with a crime, you probably want to know what to expect from the court process. How does it work? How long do cases take to resolve? What’s the procedure?
While each county in Wisconsin has specific scheduling plans, there are some general procedural aspects that are consistent statewide.
For either a felony or misdemeanor offense, your first court hearing will be called an “initial appearance.” At the initial appearance, you will enter a plea of not guilty if the case is a misdemeanor, or set the matter for a future court appearance if it is a felony. The court will also set bail and conditions of bail/bond.
Wisconsin has two types of bond.
Additional restrictions regarding contact with the alleged victim and consumption of alcohol may also be added, depending on the nature of the offense.
In every felony case, the defendant has the statutory right to a preliminary hearing. A preliminary hearing essentially determines whether there is probable cause to believe that a felony has been committed, and that the particular defendant in question is probably the person that committed a felony. At preliminary hearings, every reasonable inference goes to the state, meaning that so long as it is plausible that the defendant committed a felony, the matter will be bound over for trial.
The rules of evidence are relaxed at a preliminary hearing (for example, hearsay is now admissible). Nonetheless, it can often be an opportunity to see the state’s witnesses testify for the first time, and to get a sense of the evidence the state has against a client at an early stage of proceedings.
Preliminary hearings must be held within 10 days if a defendant is in custody, and within 20 days if the defendant is out of custody. Often, defendants will elect to waive the time limits for the preliminary hearing to allow counsel time to prepare for the hearing.
A defendant has a right to waive a preliminary hearing. Many times, a waiver of a preliminary hearing will be made in conjunction with an offer to resolve the case.
After an initial appearance in misdemeanor cases, or a preliminary hearing and arraignment in felony cases, the court will schedule a pretrial conference. Generally speaking, pretrial conferences are held approximately six to eight weeks after the initial appearance or preliminary hearing. By the time of the pretrial conference, your attorney will have what is referred to as “discovery materials,” which tend to be:
During the pretrial conference, the state and your attorney negotiate a potential resolution for the case short of a jury trial. In the event that the resolution is unsatisfactory to you, your case will be placed on the trial calendar. Depending on the county you are charged in, you may have multiple pretrial conferences.
In the event that a case does not resolve with a plea agreement, the matter is set for trial. Trials tend to be several months after an initial appearance, and in serious felony cases, it may take over a year before a case is tried. All adult criminal cases have the right to a jury trial, but a defendant can elect to “waive” jury and proceed with a trial to the court. Juvenile defendants do not have jury trial rights, so every juvenile case in Wisconsin is tried to the court only. Trials can take one day or several days, depending on the nature and severity of the charges.
If a defendant is convicted at trial, the court may proceed to sentencing immediately, or may set an additional date for sentencing in the future. If a defendant is acquitted, then no further proceedings occur.
Defendants do have the opportunity to retain an expert of their own to complete an alternative PSI. Our trial lawyers regularly work with a forensic sentencing consultant to produce alternative presentence investigations.
By law, you have the right to a lawyer. The earlier you get a lawyer involved, the more opportunities your lawyer may have to get you a positive outcome such as dismissal. However, even if you initially do not enlist a lawyer, you can change your mind and hire a lawyer at any point in the process.
