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Welcome to Beat the Prosecution, presented by Northern Virginia criminal defense and DUI lawyer Jonathan Katz, where we are here to regularly present you information and ideas for beating your prosecution as best as possible. Nothing on any of our media sources, such as our podcast or website, is legal advice. John Katz only provides legal advice to current clients or for individuals who have paid for a consultation. And now for your host, John Katz.

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Hello, everybody. This is John Katz at Beat the Prosecution. I am a criminal defense and DWI defense lawyer in Fairfax, Northern Virginia. Today I'm talking to you alone briefly. We have some great guests lined up for the future weeks for the coming weeks. I'm going to talk to you about settlement negotiations in criminal cases. First and foremost, I want to focus on that no one is entitled to a settlement offer from the prosecutor. The second category here is how to settle. And the third one is what do prosecutors do to try to divide and conquer criminal defendants and their lawyers through the settlement process. I'll walk you through this with the recent success where my client was charged with a.22 blood alcohol level for a DWI case. A conviction for over 0.20 with DWI is 10 days mandatory minimum in Virginia. I worked the prosecutor down to him offering no better than 0.15 or higher, which is five days mandatory minimum in jail. Mind you, that's not what I sought. That was the prosecutor's best offer after about 30 minutes of going back and forth. A no is not always a no. A no is sometimes the start of negotiations. I told the prosecutor all the good things my client had done for self-improvement. I told the prosecutor how my client might lose his job from getting a conviction here because of how his schedule worked, or not from a conviction, but from getting jail. I was hitting a brick wall. I said to the prosecutor, if it was lawful to do so, I would buy a copy of Fisher and Uri's getting to yes for your office. Getting to yes is about negotiating based on goals versus positions. So many prosecutors' offices do the opposite. There are some prosecutors' offices that, for instance, in a DWI case, will rarely, if ever, negotiate down from DWI to reckless driving. In fact, in one prosecutor's office that's south of here, a chief, a deputy chief prosecutor said to me, We've got the Quantico Marine Base just up the street from here. If we gave your client a break for being a federal police officer to negotiate DWI down to reckless driving, look at what we'd have to do with the people at Quantico because so many of them would lose their position in the military by getting a DWI conviction. Well, the way I went about that is I just went ahead and won the trial. In this particular case, I still got nowhere with the prosecutor with this point to DWI case. I was getting nowhere, so I had nothing to lose. I stood up and I said to the police officers in the room, all four of them, all of them only there for that case, after saying to the prosecutor, you know, look, the sooner these police officers are out of this courthouse, they get to go back to the road to their work. They get to go back to whatever breaks they had. And I stood up and I called out the names of the two lead police officers in the case, and I said, Officers A and B, these are all the great things my clients been doing for self-improvement. Uh, this is the risk my client has to his job if he's convicted. What do you suggest? What do you suggest for settling this case? And one of them, without almost missing a beat, he said, three years of the ignition interlock device. Now, usually a DWI conviction requires for a first offense the uh ignition interlock device for uh at least six months, sometimes a year depending. Uh three years would be reserved for if you have a second conviction within ten years, or else a third felony conviction, if it even came to that. Uh so my client agreed to it, we added community service, and we settled the case. So what is the um what is the breakdown of that? First of all, I do the Chinese martial art of Tai Chi Chuan. Tai Chi Chuan is about engaging the opponent, engaging the opponent, not being angry at the opponent, being open to the opponent. When an opponent, when I'm sparring in Tai Chi Chuan, says to me, Am I being too hard on you? when they uh when they push me particularly hard, for instance, I say, nah, this is nothing compared to what I deal with with prosecutors. Likewise, when I'm dealing with a challenging prosecutor, a challenging cop, a challenging judge, I'm learning from them and I'm strengthening along the way. And if I do the Tai Chi Chuan move, I'm absorbing their energy and I'm using their energy back at them if I have to push back at them. In this instance, whether I was empowering the police officer or uh entertaining him or making him feel like I just want to get out of here, let's just settle the case. He came up with a great idea that the prosecutor hadn't offered, and the prosecutor went along with it, and we then settle the case. Now, part of negotiations involves being ready to hear ugly things, possibly offensive things. When a prosecutor is yelling, when a cop is yelling, I'm listening for the gold specks in that poop. It's one thing, it's very easy to have an inclination to walk away from that, but if you walk away, you're not hearing it. Now, certainly, if a prosecutor or cop are raising their voice to me, I'll say, if if you want to speak like that, let's at least make sure my client's out of earshot. In this instance, there was no poop. In this instance, I give the prosecutor credit that at least he was listening to me. He wasn't cutting me off. I was just reaching an impasse with him. Now let's talk about this divide and conquer aspect. For divided and conquer, there are some prosecutors who will make such crazy plea offers, such offensive plea offers, that whether they're intending or not, it can have the effect of risking dividing and conquering the defendant and their lawyer. This is why I make clear to my clients they are not entitled to a plea deal. And if a plea offer is made, it may be an offensive one. So when the attorney-client relationship is strengthened, that is less of an issue. What should you look for in dealing with your lawyer with settlement negotiations? Don't wait until the trial date to talk to your lawyer about this. Don't wait until just a day before trial. Talk to your lawyer about self-improvement steps you can take for improving your prospects at getting a settlement that you want. Talk to your law about any kind of uh evaluations you can get for a DWI, for instance. Uh what's your event, what's your relationship with alcohol to show the prosecutor that you're just a social drinker, for instance, if your evaluation uh shows that. But make sure that you are fully in sync with your lawyer to make sure that you understand what the settlement process is and what the trial process is. You are not going to get a good settlement negotiation or as good a settlement negotiation if the prosecutor does not know your lawyer to be ready, able, and prepared to go to trial. There has to be that threat of not only trial, but an effective trial by the defense to get a desirable settlement negotiation. That has been my short talk today. This is John Katz at Beat the Prosecution because there's no other option. I'm a criminal defense and DUI defense lawyer in Fairfax, Northern Virginia. Thank you.

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Thank you for listening to this week's episode from Beat the Prosecution. This is a regular podcast giving people a leg up against police investigations and prosecutions. Nothing discussed on our media sources, such as our podcast or website, is legal advice. John Katz only provides legal advice to current clients or to individuals who have paid for a consultation. We welcome you contacting us via email at info at beat the prosecution.com by calling our office at 703 383 1100 or texting us at 571 406 7268.