Fairfax court date length- Virginia criminal lawyer addresses the time to set aside for your trial date and for pre-court preparation

Fairfax court date length is important for you to know before each court appearance. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer, I tell my clients how much time to reserve in their calendar for their motions hearings, trials and other court dates. It is important that Virginia criminal defendants set aside enough time for their court dates, and also important that they not reserve a full day when they will be in and out of court the same morning. In this article, I include addressing the specifics of Fairfax criminal court dates, which to a degree apply to all Virginia criminal court dates. Ask your Fairfax criminal defense lawyer in advance of court about how much or little time you need to reserve in your calendar for each of your court dates.

How much time should I set aside for my Fairfax arraignment?

Fairfax has three trial courts — as do all Virginia trial courts — which are the General District Court (handling misdemeanor cases and felony matters before the preliminary hearing stage), Juvenile and Domestic Relations (JDR) District Court (handling prosecutions of juveniles, prosecutions of adults with an alleged juvenile victim, and prosecutions of adults for alleged crimes against other family members and domestic partners), and Circuit Court. The arraignment date is typically the date early in your Virginia criminal defense where the judge informs you the crime you are accused of, asks if you understand the charge against you (I typically suggest that my potential criminal defense clients simply answer “yes” to that question), asks if you plan to obtain your own Fairfax criminal lawyer or to seek a court appointed lawyer (by saying you will hire your own lawyer, you can avoid providing your financial information, which will show up in the court record), possibly provide you an attorney review date and time (a date when unrepresented defendants appear to inform the judge of their status in obtaining a lawyer) and their trial date and time. If you do not want to attend your Fairfax arraignment nor attorney review date on time, simply have your lawyer hired before that date and make sure that your lawyer gets his or her name docketed online with the court before that date or correctly files his or her appearance with the court by that court date. (You of course are in the hands of your lawyer’s correctly and timely filing his or her appearance if you do not see it online before your court date.) If you attend your Fairfax court date for your arraignment or attorney review yourself, you can expect to be finished that same morning in District Court, and I would expect the same in the JDR and Circuit Courts. Beware that many Virginia courts do not automatically waive a defendant’s appearance merely by the lawyer’s entering his appearance as their attorney.

How much time should I reserve for my court dates between my arraignment and trial dates in Fairfax

You may have a Fairfax Court date in between your arraignment and trial date. for instance a motions hearing date. Ask your Fairfax criminal lawyer if you must or should attend any of your non-trial dates, and the latest time you should expect to be able to leave court that day. Moreover, for some lower level misdemeanor cases, your lawyer may be able to convince the judge to excuse your presence for the first trial date and only to require your presence if a second trial date is needed. Your appearance should not be required for traffic infraction cases when you have a lawyer already. Beware simply deciding to prepay traffic infractions and public intoxication and other non-jailable misdemeanor charges, as the adverse collateral consequences of doing so may end up being costly financially, personally, professionally, if you were on probation or pretrial release at the time of the incident, and with security clearance status (at least if convicted for public intoxication) in even unexpected ways.

How much time should I set aside for my trial date?

Talk well in advance with your Fairfax criminal lawyer about how many hours or days to set aside for trial. That time length can run from as short as an hour or two if your lawyer knows the prosecutor will not be ready for trial on your next Fairfax court date, to the morning or 1:00 p.m. if yours if a blood draw DUI case appearing for the first trial date that does not involve the presence of the blood draw witness and blood analyst (see Fairfax General District Court administrative procedures manual at Section 5:25 (p.82) from the Virginia Department of Forensic Science, to multiple dates for a jury trial.

How much time should I reserve for sentencing in Fairfax General District Court and Circuit Court?

While my ideal goal as a Fairfax criminal lawyer is to pursue dismissal and acquittal of prosecutions, there are cases that get convicted. Some get sentenced the same date and some not. Sometimes your Fairfax criminal lawyer will want your General District Court sentencing date to be on a date later than your trial date, for instance to deal with interim logistics  or if the judge will not otherwise permit you to start your jail term (if any) on a delayed basis. Fairfax General District Court sentencing dates typically commence at 2:00 p.m. on Thursdays, but I had a judge recently set mine for 9:00 a.m. Therefore, as always, check with your Fairfax criminal lawyer on that. Fairfax Circuit Court sentencing dates typically are on the judge’s available Friday for the designated month at 10:00 a.m. Depending on how busy the rest of the judge’s schedule is for that date — and depending on how long your own sentencing might take — you may be done that same morning for sentencing on this particular Fairfax court date, or else in the afternoon, and hopefully you will be leaving the courtroom from the same door as your attorney.

Most importantly is to win as much victory as possible in Fairfax court and all courts

Time is a commodity. As much as I hear many clients talk of wanting to “get it over with”, the case is not over with if convicted, so patience is a virtue in working with your criminal lawyer in all aspects of your case, including each Fairfax court date.

When you have Jonathan Katz as your Fairfax criminal lawyer, you can have the peace of mind that he will capably do the heavy lifting in preparing your defense so that you can get back to your life while awaiting your court date, and you will know that he will relentlessly go after your best defense throughout his defense of you. Call 703-383-1100 for your free in-person initial consultation with Jon Katz about your cour-pending case.