(View an actual
New York City Summons. The New
York City Summons file is in Adobe Acrobat PDF file format and you will
need the free Adobe Acrobat reader in order to view it.)
Should I Hire a Lawyer for my
Pink Summons?
If you have received a summons (ticket,
usually a pink piece of paper) to appear in criminal court in Queens
County, Brooklyn, Manhattan, or Bronx Counties, (usually Part AR2) you may be tempted to assume that you do not need the
advice of a qualified criminal defense attorney.
Many people assume that since they were given a ticket that looks
something like a traffic ticket, that it is more of a nuisance than
anything else.
It would be a mistake to assume
that a summons is necessarily nothing more than a nuisance.
In some cases, the offenses charged are
actually misdemeanors. That means that if you are convicted you will get
a criminal record.
People often mistakenly believe that
they can simply take care of the "ticket" by "paying a
fine".
There is no such thing as "just paying a
fine". If you pay a fine, that means that you plead guilty to
something.
Most of the offenses charged in Pink
Summonses are not in fact crimes and will not subject you to the risk of
a criminal record. Depending on your taste for risk and your
confidence in your ability to navigate through a bureaucracy like the
New York City Criminal Court, you might do just fine on your own.
On the other hand, there are situations in which the offense charged is
in fact a crime and an unwise resolution on your own could end up
saddling you with a criminal record.
Click
here to read an outline of your options.
Although
rare, there are situations in which seemingly trivial pink summons have
caused people who attempted to do it themselves untold grief. In
one case a person received a "ticket" for what he thought was
"minor" marijuana possession in public in 1991. He appeared in
AR2 without a lawyer because it was "just a ticket". Without a
lawyer he had no clue the level of offense he was charged with, his
options, and the alternatives available to him. The judge offered him a
chance to plead guilty to the ticket and pay a $25 fine. That sounded
good to him, so he agreed.
What he didn't quite realize was that he
had just plead guilty to a B misdemeanor and he now had a criminal
conviction. Because he didn't have an experienced criminal defense
attorney, he also didn't realize that the "deal" offered to him by the
judge was extremely inconsistent with what would be offered nearly any
other person accused of the same offense.
Many people in his situation receive
what is called an ACD (Adjournment in Contemplation of Dismissal) for
such offenses. With an ACD, the case is completely dismissed after one
year without a plea of guilt. If he had been put through the system
instead of given a ticket, he would have had an attorney and almost
certainly received that ACD. Nine years later, he called our office when
this conviction was possibly going to stand in his way of a good
promotion in the military. It would have been far easier, and far less
expensive to hire an attorney back in 1991 than to hire us now to try to
use the very few options left to try to fix the problem.
Also, if you are not a United States
Citizen, you should be careful about any interaction you have with the
criminal justice system, even one that may be as minor as a summons
matter. If you are not a United States Citizen it is imperative
that you speak with a lawyer before resolving your case. Your
ability to become a citizen, if that is your wish, or your ability to
remain in this country (or both) may be compromised depending on the
outcome of your case.
Call 718-268-2171 for a free consultation
with a criminal defense lawyer from Shalley & Murray.
return to top
