Negotiation with the DA can happen at any time, all the time.
-- If one pleas not-guilty in the sense that he considers himself to be not guilty and believes he will not be convicted of a crime, it would make sense to wait and hope there is no indictment. --
That depends. Some people who are innocent in fact, truly innocent and wrongly accused, cop a plea because it's the quickest way to get out of jail. Plead guilty, pay a $5,000 fine vs. stay in jail until a trial, which is a crapshoot because juries are the people to stupid to get out of jury duty.
“cop a plea”
My limited experience with the “Criminal Justice System” is traffic court, and if that experience is informative, it is clearly “stacked” against the ordinary citizen. The judge will take the cop’s word. Case closed . . . except . . .
Traffic Court is aligned with “revenue enhancement.”
You can “cop a plea” down to a mechanical violation, and not get points, but you will pay the same in court costs as if you signed the ticket. But it is still worth it. I encourage everyone to fight “revenue enhancement” tickets.
Don’t sign the ticket, if you are not guilty, and the cop has to show up in court to testify or the case is dropped. OK this only works if you can get to the court . . . maybe why cops tend to pull over out-of-state cars.
One egregious traffic ticket I could not honestly sign. He charged me with a speed I could not have been going. I told him that cops used to look out for a Mom with a kid in a car, not take advantage of them because they would sign a ticket for a higher speed limit just to avoid the hassle. He was a fat “doughnut-muncher.” He was clearly into revenue enhancement. He admitted that “you don’t live in xtown and pay taxes to xtown! I said my husband used to work in xtown (which I call The People’s Republic of xtown) and paid income taxes to xtown.
Bottom line, there was no way I was going to sign that ticket, because it would have been a lie to admit guilt. I had to go to the People’s Republic of xtown Mayor’s Court (represented by myself, dressed appropriately in a suit, with my ~8 year old daughter taking notes). To my astonishment it was just the arraignment, I plead Not Guilty, but had to come back AGAIN for the — Trial?? That is when the cop doughnut-muncher did not show up to testify so the charges were dropped. So that is one time I won, without spending a penny on a lawyer — I did spend a lot of hours in anxiety and preparation for court.
Maybe the cop had actually LEGITIMATE law enforcement business, more important than testifying against a Mom driving her kid home from school who was NOT going as fast as he wrote on the ticket! I hope so! Because there are of course more important law enforcement duties! I also hope he didn’t show up because he was humiliated by his behavior against an honest Mom merely driving her kid home from school, doing exactly nothing to hurt anyone.
OK this is just a bit of nothing, compared to having a house raided or being arrested and put in jail. But if people roll over to unjustified traffic tickets, just sign and pay the fine because it is a hassle otherwise . . . even if the cop exaggerated the speed, etc. . . . what is that teaching small xtown People’s Republics and their Mayor’s Courts, much less anything more serious?
Those who believe themselves innocent, have some sort of a duty to themselves and to the integrity of the judicial system, to NOT cop to something they are also not guilty of, just to make it go away. On the other hand, people have to live and pay their bills.
Being unjustly accused IS a burden on a citizen.
From this distance, as I have said, I do not know how many, or who by name, is innocent. I pray that they do stand up for their judicial rights.
I pray the guilty are appropriately punished.