William Cole practices in Washoe County, Nevada, including Reno, Nevada and Incline Village, Nevada, Carson City, Nevada, Douglas County, Nevada, including Stateline, Nevada and Minden, Nevada, as well as other Northern Nevada counties. The procedure in each of these courts is similar. Your first appearance in court is called your arraignment. At the arraignment, the judge wants to know whether you plead guilty or not guilty.
If you plead guilty, the court case ends there. If you plead not guilty, the case is set for a pretrial conference. At the pretrial conference, Mr. Cole will negotiate with the prosecuting attorney in an attempt to resolve your case to your satisfaction. Your case may be set for several pretrial conferences.
In most Nevada courts, if you retain the law office of William Cole, he can appear on your behalf at the arraignment and at the pretrial conference(s). If your case cannot be settled or resolved to your satisfaction, the case can be set for trial. The decision of whether or not a case goes to trial is yours. You decide whether or not your case has reached a resolution that you can accept and, if not, you may choose to go to trial. If you do go to trial, the reason that you were stopped -- the field sobriety test and the chemical test results -- will all be called into question in order to establish your innocence.
The penalties for a driving under the influence (DUI) conviction in Nevada depend largely on whether or not you have prior convictions within the past seven years in Nevada or any other state. In any case where a prior conviction is alleged, the law office of William Cole will obtain the records of that prior conviction to determine whether or not that conviction is constitutional, that is, whether or not you were fully advised and intelligently and voluntarily waived your constitutional rights. If the records do not establish this, then a motion to strike that conviction for use in the current case can be made.
If there was an accident and injuries occurred, you may be charged with felony driving under the influence (DUI) and you could be sentenced to prison. In Nevada, a third DUI conviction within seven years is also a felony and you could be sentenced to prison.
William Cole