Seattle Criminal Attorney | Bench Trial or Jury Trial?

So you’ve been charged with a crime. Maybe a DUI, possibly an mugging, maybe a theft. And the state isn’t giving you anything you feel comfortable taking as a plea bargain. Your criminal attorney tells you the only option, if you don’t want the proposition, is a trial.

You’re all right with that, but are a little tentative regarding the minutiae. In particular, you are not confident whether you ought to ask for a jury trial or request a bench trial. Your Seattle criminal attorney is suggesting a jury trial, however you simply do not know if you can have confidence in a team of people you do not know to make the just pronouncement.

Choosing between a jury trial or a bench trial (where the judge makes the choice of your guilt or innocence) can at times be complex. Let’s look at a couple of scenarios that may need you to go one way or another.

To begin with, the jury trial. You like jury trials since jurors usually are not as cynical as judges (they’ve heard lots of excuses over the years and begin to stop trying to uncover the difference). They struggle fiercely to do the right thing and will regularly grant you at least a fighting possibility. Although they can be unpredictable as well.

You typically desire a jury trial when the circumstances is fairly unsound, when you possess various inconsistencies in the facts that just don’t make sense, and when you want the fact finder to give you the benefit of the doubt (for the criminal lawyer, most cases fall into this category). Juries are capable of doing this. With judges it’s slightly more difficult.

Next, the bench trial. You commonly like to have these when you own a very technical defense, the particulars of the case are truly awful (the jury will virtually be certain to be critical of you from the start), or you are going to center your defense on a legal topic that you sense the judge will comprehend better than a jury. This too is a crap shoot, as judges, while not unpredictable, have a propensity to tilt in the direction of the prosecution.

In the end, the decision to go jury trial or bench trial ought to probably be made by your Seattle DUI attorney. They hold the familiarity to know which one to use, and they understand the complexity of the conclusion. No matter which you choose, though, it’s probably going to be an uphill struggle. Good luck!

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