How does a Criminal Charge get dismissed?

Occassionally, our office received the news every defense attorney loves to see, a charge against a client was dismissed by the prosecutor.

How does a criminal charge get dismissed?

The short answer, either the Court dismisses after a request by the defense, or, the prosecutor decides to dismiss on their own. I am often asked to contact the prosecutor and request that a charge be dismissed. Unfortunately it is not as easy as a simple phone call, a prosecutor files a case because they believe that a crime has been committed. In order to convince them to dismiss, you have to present material that they were not aware of that shows them they do not have a good case, that they will not be likely to win a conviction at trial. Doing this takes hard work, the type of stuff that does not show up on legal TV shows, digging for evidence, witnesses, material that supports your client's claim that they are not guilty.

The other way a case gets dismissed, the defense files a motion, a request to the judge to dismiss the charges without a trial. Judges rarely dismiss before trial, to win a motion to dismiss you have to show that the prosecution does not have enough to convince a jury to convict, without considering what the defense has. This is a high standard, it takes alot of work to get enough to meet it. All the prosecutor has to show to defeat your motion is that there is enough evidence for a jury to possibly convict your client, it is far lower than the beyond a reasonable doubt standard that they need to meet to win a jury trial.

Either way, dismissals are rarely granted, and, hard earned.