terrible situation... to make matters worse, Illinois is one of those states that got rid of bondsmen -- so to get her out you need to come up with 10% of the 500K in cash no wiggle room.
Im not licensed in IL, but i practiced criminal law in arizona for a couple years. If you want, i can draft (but you or your sister is going to have to file it) a motion to reduce bail and take a look at the case for you and give you my take. Unfortunately, thats about the extent of what I can do without putting my license in jeopardy. But im happy to do that much. HMU on steemit chat if you want.
Thank you, that is incredibly informative and generous of you. My apologies for the late response, I decided to fly out to Illinois to see what she is up against. Unfortunately, she has three felony charges, two of which are Class X and come with mandatory minimums and no probation. She was in a car with two individuals and there was a large amount of cannibis. They were pulled over by an unmarked car that was part of a task force. Apparently they look for out of state plates and pull them over for perceived traffic violations. Because of that, I decided my money would be better spent hiring a private attorney rather than bond her out. Her preliminary hearing was yesterday afternoon, and like you said, they found probable cause and set a trial date in April. The attorney seems optimistic though, so I guess that is good. Once again, thank you for your kind words and offer to help. This is such an amazing group of people!
This is an incredibly wise decision. A very surprising number make the opposite decision (to use their limited resuources to pay the bond).
Im assuming the class X are posession with intent to deliver... don't get too freaked about it.
What you have to understand about criminal prosecution is that the initial charges filed represent an opening bargaining position. Something like 95% of criminal charges are resolved through a plea bargain. If people didn't take plea bargains the system would shut down. So to encourage people to take plea bargains they overcharge. But in order for overcharging like that to be effective in encouraging people to take plea bargains, they have to come through with an offer considerably better than the initial charges.
Because your sister has a paid attorney, the case, if it goes to trial, is going to be much more of a pain in the ass for the DA's office. That means they are more inclined to offer a better deal to avoid trial. Also, if your sister wasn't the owner or the driver of the car, they actually have a pretty tough case to make, especially for posession with intent.
If i had to take a guess on how this case is going to resolve, assuming your sister has no adult felony record, id say in about a week ot two the DA is going to come to her attorney with an offer somewhere between:
They'll set a date for the plea acceptance (usually within a couple weeks but it depends on how busy the court is) and shell most likely get out then and have to come back for sentencing in three months. During that three months, she's likely to have to stay in the county (definitely in the state). After sentencing, she'll maybe be able to go back to where ever she lives if she puts in an application. But realistically its jurisdiction dependent and i wouldnt count on it.
Even with no guaranteed probation as part of the plea, its nearly certain that she will get probation if this is her first felony offense.
No problem. its always good to help out.