High-quality, highly-personalized criminal legal defense,
Specifically tailored to your case, your expectations, and your goals.
This page summarizes Attorney Sontz’s tried and true three-step representation model:
Let’s Work Together
The first step in developing an effective criminal legal defense strategy is the PRELIMINARY INTERVIEW.
At the PRELIMINARY INTERVIEW, Attorney Sontz will discuss your goals and expectations for the criminal case. This is extremely important because it will determine how the case proceeds at the early stages.
Pretrial Release:
Statistics show that one of the most detrimental components of the criminal system is pretrial detention. Defendants who are unable to secure pretrial release are put at a significant disadvantage relative to defendants who are released. Defendants who are detained might lose their jobs, and/or their housing. They might lose contact with potential witnesses. They might lose the ability to secure favorable and exculpatory evidence. Finally, they have to endure pre-conviction incarceration even though the law presumes them to be NOT GUILTY.
If you are detained, the initial focus of Attorney Sontz’s strategy will be securing your release on bail or bond. Whether or not you are released will depend on many different factors, such as the seriousness of the crimes with which you are charged, your criminal history, whether you have ever previously forfeited bail or violated the conditions of pretrial release, and whether you have any other detainers, such as probation or parole detainers.
Attorney Sontz will work with you, your family, your employer, and any other people who might be able to help secure your release. These people can help you by serving as character witnesses, by assuring the court that you will have a job upon release, by providing treatment services, or by acting as a third party custodian (in federal court). Once you are released the focus of your defense can shift to the substance of the criminal charges.
The Criminal Charges:
At the PRELIMINARY INTERVIEW, Attorney Sontz will get an initial sense of your opinion about the charges. At this early stage, it is unlikely that a definitive decision can be made about the long-term strategy or potential sentencing outcomes. However, the PRELIMINARY INTERVIEW will set the groundwork for the future investigation that will occur in your case.
If you are NOT GUILTY of the crime(s) for which you have been charged, then early investigation is very important to preserve as much evidence as possible. Generally, when the police investigate a crime, they do not look for exculpatory evidence once they have identified their suspect. As a result, potentially exculpatory evidence might be lost or ignored. You should contact your attorney as soon as possible so that exculpatory evidence that might otherwise be lost or ignored can be discovered and preserved.
If you did commit the alleged crimes, or if the case is overcharged (which happens frequently) but you are otherwise guilty of something, then it might be in your best interest to begin laying the foundation for a favorable plea resolution. The collection and development of evidence to put the defendant’s conduct into context based on his history and characteristics is called MITIGATION. If you committed the crime because of your drug addiction or mental health issues, you could voluntarily enter into a mental health, drug abuse, or dual diagnosis treatment program as quickly as possible to show the judge that you are serious about your recovery and addressing the underlying problems that led to the criminal offense. If it is likely that you will owe money to a victim, such as restitution for property damage or theft, you can begin saving money so that the judge will know that you are serious about making the victim whole. If you are currently unemployed, you can seek and gain employment, so the judge knows that you are a contributing and productive member of the community. In my experience, judges are most reluctant to sentence defendants to prison if they have a history of steady employment.
Your Goals and Expectations:
Never forget that when you hire an attorney, that attorney works for you. Attorney Sontz is first and foremost a trial attorney. Attorney Sontz has built his reputation and career on taking serious cases to trial and earning successful outcomes for his clients.
If you tell Attorney Sontz that you are INNOCENT of the charges, he will never push you into taking a plea agreement that you do not want to take.
However, most criminal cases do not go to trial for many good reasons, and some not so good reasons. Citizens accused of crimes have many different reasons for entering guilty pleas. For example,
Some people enter guilty pleas because they are in fact guilty of the crimes charged.
Some people enter guilty pleas because it is the quickest way to get released from pretrial incarceration.
Some people enter guilty pleas to protect other people, such as friends or family members, from potential criminal liability.
Some people enter guilty pleas in order to minimize their exposure to criminal penalties, such has lengthy mandatory minimum sentences.
Some people enter guilty pleas because they simply do not have the emotional stamina or finances to fight a criminal case that could potentially take years to resolve.
It is an unfortunate reality of our criminal justice system that some people accused of crimes enter guilty pleas even if they are not guilty. While Attorney Sontz is willing to take any case to trial, the decision whether to go to trial or enter a plea belongs entirely to the client. The attorney’s job is to counsel and advise his client based on the attorney’s training, education, and experience. But ultimately, the decision is for the client to make.
With that in mind, there are many different ways that a criminal case can end other than a trial.
For example,
an outright dismissal/ or no charges at all— The prosecution might realize that it does not have the evidence to prove you guilty. An early and aggressive investigation can sometimes prevent the prosecution from ever filing charges at all.
Case Example:
Attorney Sontz represented a client who was accused of sexually molesting his ex-girlfriend’s young daughter. The client was adamant that he was INNOCENT of the allegation. Before charges were ever filed, Attorney Sontz and his investigator gathered cell phone GPS data, receipts, and emails, and interviewed several witnesses to prove that the client was never alone with the accuser during the time period when the conduct allegedly occurred. The defense team also collected a series of emails between the client and the ex-girlfriend that showed that she was very hostile to him, and was motivated to make his life as difficult as possible. With this information in hand, Attorney Sontz counseled the client to participate in a lie detector test conducted at the local police station. As expected, the client passed the test, and the District Attorney concluded that the allegations were false, and no charges were ever filed.
admission into a pretrial diversionary program that could include no criminal record, such as probation without verdict or ARD;
a carefully negotiated plea of guilty or nolo contendere that includes withdrawal of some charges, potentially an agreed upon sentence, potentially an agreed upon amount of restitution, and other agreed upon conditions, such as drug and mental health treatment, etc.
So how do citizens charged with crimes decide whether to proceed to trial or seek some other resolution, like a negotiated guilty plea?
Let’s go to Step 2…
So, you’ve decided to hire Attorney Sontz and the PRELIMINARY INTERVIEW has been completed. What happens next? Thomas Edison famously said,
“Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.”
This quote certainly applies to criminal legal defense. Successful outcomes are achieved through diligent and meticulous preparation. This brings us to the “heart and soul” of criminal defense: investigating the facts and researching the law.
INVESTIGATING THE FACTS:
The fact investigation includes interviewing witnesses— both eyewitnesses and character witnesses.
The fact investigation might also include collecting evidence such as surveillance videos, social media posts, phone call records, emails, employment time sheets, and medical records.
The fact investigation might also include the production of evidence, such as taking photographs of injuries, or of the alleged crime scene. There might be a need to take measurements of the crime scene to show the distances between various points of interest such as where the eyewitness claimed to be standing when he saw the defendant.
There is literally no limit on what evidence might potentially be useful at trial, which is why it is so important to hire a creative and experienced trial attorney.
Case Example:
An eyewitness claimed that she could identify the client as the shooter. She testified at the preliminary hearing that she was about 20 feet away when she saw the defendant shoot the victims.
Through investigation, Attorney Sontz learned that the night when the crime occurred was during a new moon. It was one of the darkest nights of the year at the time when the shooting occurred.
Based on official government data, Attorney Sontz identified a day and time (2 AM) when the lighting conditions were very similar to those on the day and time when the shooting occurred. Accordingly, Attorney Sontz and his investigator travelled to the crime scene at 2 o’clock in the morning to take videos of the lighting conditions as they would have appeared during the night that the shooting occurred.
Once at the scene, Attorney Sontz and his investigator observed that there was very little artificial lighting in the area. The limited artificial lighting along with the phase of the moon meant that the crime scene was almost pitch black.
The scene was so dark that it was difficult to see a person standing five feet in front of you. Attorney Sontz and his investigator produced several videos of the scene to demonstrate just how dark it really was when the shooting occurred.
The purpose of this evidence was to show that the eyewitness could not have accurately identified the shooter, but rather the identification was influenced by “the word on the street” that the client was the shooter.
The fact investigation might depend on the knowledge and expertise of expert witnesses. Attorney Sontz has extensive experience working with many different types of expert witnesses, including the following:
social workers, mental health professionals, psychologists and psychiatrists, drug counselors, toxicologists, drug chemists, DNA experts, serologists, ballistic experts, forensic scientists, pathologists, SANE nurses, forensic interviewers, and CYF case workers.
RESEARCHING THE LAW:
There is a lot more to criminal defense than simply declaring your innocence. Criminal offenses are composed of elements, which are the various “pieces” of the crime that the prosecution must prove beyond a reasonable doubt. For example, the elements of first degree murder are
the intentional killing of another person,
by the defendant,
with premeditation, deliberation, and malice.
Your attorney’s job is to develop the facts in the way that best fits the law. In order to do this, your attorney must carefully study various legal sources, such as legal opinions, which are referred to as caselaw, legal treatises, and law review articles that define the elements and explain what they mean. For example, Pennsylvania recognizes the defense of JUSTIFICATION, which is commonly referred to as self-defense. A specific form of JUSTIFICATION is the Castle Doctrine. In order to assert the justification defense, the facts have to be consistent with the law. For example, generally speaking, you cannot use deadly force to defend yourself unless you cannot retreat in complete safety. However, under the Castle Doctrine, there is no duty to retreat from your home or place of business. So, to continue the example of first degree murder, if the defendant can show that he was acting in self-defense when he killed the decedent, and that he did not violate his duty to retreat, he can negate the element of malice. Without the element of malice, the prosecution cannot prove the crime of murder.
Using the Facts and the Law
People accused of crimes are at a disadvantage because it is very difficult to PROVE A NEGATIVE. In other words, it is much easier to find evidence to prove that something happened rather than find evidence to prove that something did not happen.
Think of all the evidence that you would expect to see if the prosecution alleged that a bank was robbed on January 5, 2020. There would be eyewitnesses and surveillance video. There would be forensic evidence, such as finger prints or DNA . There would be evidence of missing money, as shown through discrepancies in the bank’s records, ledgers, and balance sheets.
Now, consider the opposite— how would you prove that a bank was not robbed on January 5, 2020, or that you are not the person who robbed it. The best you could do is present evidence of a lack of evidence, such as the lack of eye witnesses or surveillance video, etc. But, as the famous saying goes,
“The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”
There is no affirmative evidence that you could present to prove that the bank was not robbed. Unless you have an airtight alibi which proves mistaken identity, the defense in a criminal case will likely be a combination of various pieces of circumstantial evidence.
Fortunately, at trial, the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of Pennsylvania do not require that a defendant accused of a crime prove anything at all. In other words, the BURDEN of PROOF is on the prosecution, and the prosecution must meet that burden with PROOF BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT. However, even though the defendant has no burden of proof, the defendant can still present evidence in his defense, though he is not required to do. In some cases, the defense can earn an acquittal without offering any evidence at all, and by simply “putting the prosecution to its proof” by challenging the sufficiency of the prosecution’s evidence. The defendant is in a very strong position when he can argue “even if you believe everything that the prosecution has told you, it still has not proven the alleged crimes beyond a reasonable doubt.” This is a much stronger position to be in than asking the jury to believe one witness over another, or one set of facts over another. However, in some cases, the defense will introduce evidence to specifically contradict and cast doubt on the prosecution’s evidence. In such cases, you need an experienced, talented, and aggressive attorney to present your evidence in the best way possible.
It is important to remember that the PROOF BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT standard applies ONLY at trial. It does not apply to earlier proceedings such as preliminary hearings, detention hearings, or motions to suppress evidence. For example, at a preliminary hearing in Pennsylvania, the burden is PRIMA FACIE evidence, which is a very low standard. It essentially means that the prosecution will meet its burden as long as it presents some evidence that a crime has been committed and that the defendant committed it. Credibility is not at issue at the preliminary hearing. This means that at the preliminary hearing it does not matter if the prosecution’s witness is lying. The magistrate must accept as true the Commonwealth’s evidence.
So, having completed
Step 1, the PRELIMINARY INTERVIEW, and
Step 2, Investigation and Research,
we now move to Step 3, implementing the LITIGATION PLAN….
The final component of a successful criminal legal defense is the LITIGATION PLAN. The litigation plan will change depending on whether the client decides to proceed to trial or seek some other resolution, such as a negotiated plea agreement.
Of course, the plan can change over time, such as if new evidence comes to light, or if previously considered evidence is no longer available.
Ultimately, the purpose of Steps 1 and 2 is to put the client in the best possible position to get the most favorable outcome— sometimes this means an acquittal at trial, and sometimes it means a favorable plea agreement.
Attorney Sontz is first and foremost a trial attorney. If your goal is to proceed to trial, Attorney Sontz will investigate the facts and research the law in order to WIN your case at trial.
Attorney Sontz will never talk you out of going to trial if you are innocent of the charges.
The decision whether to go to trial or accept some other resolution is your decision to make based on your consultation with Attorney Sontz and your understanding of the facts and law.
However, the reality of our criminal justice system is that not every case can or should proceed to trial. As previously mentioned, there are many possible outcomes in a criminal case.
Listed below are some examples of potential outcomes other than trial:
Treatment and Expungement Programs
Treatment Courts
Treatment courts provide alternatives to incarceration for defendants who meet certain requirements. Click the links below for more information.
Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition (ARD)
ARD is codified under Pennsylvania Rules of Criminal Procedure 300-320. If you are accepted into ARD, you will be placed on probation for a maximum of two years. If you successfully complete all of the conditions of probation, your record will be expunged. This is program for first time offenders. You may only qualify for ARD one time. The conviction still counts for recidivist crimes. ARD is a common option for first-time DUI offenders.
Probation without Verdict (PWOV)
PWOV is codified in 35 P.S. sec. 780-117. It is available for first time offenders who are drug dependent. If you are granted PWOV, you will be placed on a period of probation. Upon successful completion of the probation, the charge will be dismissed. You may qualify for PWOV one time. PWOV is a common option for first-time, small amount, drug possession, such as 30 grams or less of marijuana.
State and federal courts offer several potential options for citizens who suffer from alcohol and drug addiction, as well as mental health issues. These options are usually available to first-time or low-level offenders. However, Drug Court, DUI court, Mental Health Court, and Veterans Court might be available to citizens who have fairly substantial criminal records. While these programs are generally available to anyone who qualifies, a skilled and knowledgeable attorney can work with experts and service providers to help gain acceptance for marginal cases. If you are facing criminal charges for the first time, it is very important that you work with an experienced attorney so that you don’t miss out on a potentially favorable resolution. Attorney Sontz can guide and advise you through the process.