Let's suppose you leave the car you borrowed from a friend in a parking lot, and as you start home, you notice that the trunk space in the rear looks as though someone had tried to open it. You slam down the trunk lid to make sure it's closed. On your drive home you go through a red traffic light and are immediately stopped by a policeman. You can't find the car's registration. He takes a dislike to you. He decides your behavior is suspicious. He orders you to open the trunk of the car. You obey, and he finds in the trunk a large paper bag whose contents seem to be drugs. He ignores your statement that you have no idea how the bag got there. He places you under arrest and takes you to the police station.
At the police station, you are booked on charges of illegal possession of narcotics, of driving without a registration, and of endangering the lives of others by failing to obey traffic regulations. You are fingerprinted and put in a cell, and later an assistant prosecutor comes to interrogate you.
You should demand the opportunity to telephone your lawyer. The offense with which you are charged, illegal possession of narcotics, is a crime and may be a felony, punishable by both fine and imprisonment. Even so, you are probably entitled to be released on bail, although your release must be ordered by a magistrate or criminal court judge.
The most common form of bail is a bail bond, a promise by a bonding company to pay a certain amount of money to the court if you do not appear when you are supposed to. The cost of such a bond is something like 10 percent, depending on the size of the bail. You must remain in jail until you've appeared before the magistrate and have been released by him.
If you are in a small, local court in your hometown or village, you may be well known to the presiding judge, and he may release you without bail, on "your own recognizance".
When your lawyer gets in touch with you, you should answer all his questions as fully and frankly as possible. You should agree to pay him something, because he is going to have to put in a lot of time on your case.
He cannot be made to tell anyone else what you tell him; your communications with him are said to be privileged. Your lawyer certainly will advise you to plead not guilty to the charge of illegal possession of narcotics when you appear in a day or so before a magistrate for a preliminary hearing, called the arraignment. The other charges against you are minor and could be disposed of quickly.
The magistrate's job is simple. What he must decide is, first, whether a crime has been committed and, second, whether there is probable cause to believe that you, the defendant, committed it. If he decides that neither is the case, he has authority to release you and order the charge dropped. The police officer who arrested you will state in his complaint or information at the arraignment that he found the narcotics in your car and that you had no explanation for their being there. On the facts before the magistrate, he has little choice but to order your case to go to higher authorities for submission to the grand jury.
He will first, however, advise you that you have a right to a hearing in his court. This is a procedure under which the police, the prosecuting attorney or a representative of the district attorney's office produces witnesses, under oath, to support the charges in the information that has been filed against you. At this time, you and your lawyer are entitled to cross-examine.
