Criminal Defense Attorney Greenville, SC

South Carolina’s criminal courts are made up of magistrate courts, municipal courts, and the Court of General Sessions. South Carolina’s General Sessions Court has exclusive jurisdiction over all misdemeanor and felony charges whose possible penalties are more than one-year incarceration. While it has concurrent jurisdiction with the magistrate and municipal courts over all charges, these lower courts generally handle charges whose possible penalties are less than one-year incarceration.

If you have been arrested. you are likely to be given a bond. You will only be held without bond if the judge finds you to either be a danger to the community or unlikely to appear in court. Defendants are often released on their own personal recognizance and are not required to post money with the court. Some bond amounts are quite high however, and often defendants are offered no bond at all. If you cannot afford your bond, or if you are not given a bond, you will likely be detained in the county jail pending your trial or some alternative resolution of your criminal charges. Motions can be made to have your initial bond revisited by a judge. These hearings can result in the bond amount being reduced, allowing the defendant to get out of jail pending the resolution of his or her charges.

Criminal charges can be resolved in many different ways. First and foremost, your criminal defense attorney needs to investigate your case thoroughly. If it can be shown that law enforcement did not properly follow the law in your case, your attorney can use this information to negotiate your case, or even obtain a dismissal of the charges. Additionally, depending on the severity of the charge and the criminal statute involved, defendants can be offered diversion programs as an alternative to pleading guilty or going to trial. Successful completion of these programs can result in the dismissal and expungement of the criminal warrants.