Miami Lawyer » Practice Areas > State Criminal Defense > Plea Negotiations and Trial
Plea Negotiations and Trial
Once the discovery process is complete, a defendant can either take a “plea offer” from the State Attorneys Office or elect to go to trial. Plea offers are offers made by the State Attorneys Office, and offers can range from pretrial diversion to probation to incarceration to a combination of probation and incarceration. Typically, plea offers are negotiated between the prosecuting attorney and the defense attorney. If an agreement cannot be reached on a plea and sentence, the case goes to trial where the State Attorneys Office must prove its case to a jury “beyond a reasonable doubt”. This is a much higher standard of proof than probable cause.