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First Appearance At Court
In This Section:
1. What will happen at your first appearance?
2. Legal Representation.
First Court Appearance - What now ?
You either have a summons with a date or you have been arrested and are now awaiting your first appearance. I know that most people who have just been arrested will not have access to this web site from the Police holding cells, most likely you are anticipating this or a loved one is reading up on your behalf.
If you are in custody you will be brought from the Police holding cells to
the court holding cells - by the police.
Once at court you will be in a cell with plenty of other people also eagerly
awaiting the fate of their first appearance in court. You will hear many stories
in there about what to do and what to expect and what not. The best I can
say is be very skeptical, wait for your turn and see what happens in Court.
Don’t get wound up over anything you hear, most of it is Bull anyway...
The courts are very busy and you will find it to vaguely resemble a sausage factory. Things go in very fast and come out even faster. Tact and patience is not the courts strong point. If you can already have an attorney there, at your first appearance, it will save you allot of heart ache, and potentially unnecessary jail time, awaiting a bail application in jail. If you can afford an attorney, then make prior arrangements or let your family or loved one’s do this for you.
Once you are brought up from the court’s holding cells, they will let you stand in the Accused Dock, and now quite a few things CAN happen and a few things MUST happen.
MUSTS
- Your rights to a legal representative must be explained (unless yours is already present in court)
- The Charge should be explained to you and under which schedule it resorts.
- You must receive a new court date (unless the charges are withdrawn)
- The Issue of Bail must be addressed.
CAN
- You could be asked what you will plead to the charges. In some rare instances
the charges could even be put to you and you will then be asked to plead and
give a plea explanation.
_____________________________________________________________________
At the first court appearance regardless how you get to court, your rights to an attorney will be explained and you have 3 choices-
Legal Representation:
1 Defend Yourself (Mostly a bad idea)
2 Get Your own attorney for which You Pay.
3 Get Legal Aid - An Attorney provided by the State Free of Charge
The Explanation Of The Charge
The Court will do this and the charge could be detailed or vague. The court
could inform you that the charge is one of theft (for example) or the court
could tell you exactly where, when and what was taken and how the state alleges
you did it.
If you do not understand the charge or its too vague, then ask what they mean.
Most of the time the investigating officer would have already have covered
this with you and would have told you what they are going to charge you with.
The schedule of the charge could be anything from schedule 1 to 6. Mainly
this determines how the court will deal with your bail issue. It has some
other implications too. Schedule 5 and 6 matters could only be dealt with
by the court and the court can only set bail AFTER hearing evidence. In short
this means a full on bail application with witnesses. Bail will not be merely
set in this case. We will deal with bail and all its related issues under
the bail section.
The New Court Date
The new court date is the next day that you must either come to court if you
are on bail or the next date you will be brought to court if your are in custody.
A reason will be given for the postponement, there could be plenty, this you
will be told at the time of the postponement
The Bail Issue
If you appeared in court
[ THIS PAGE IS INCOMPLETE AND WILL BE COMPLETED SHORTLY]