They only do that for criminals who have turned state's witness against a worse criminal. They don't do that for perverts convicted of sex crimes. Stop embarrassing yourself.
In some countries they actually do give new identities to ex-cons. It actually makes sense, because if you're releasing someone back into normal society, if they can never get a job or are constantly having their house set on fire, you're just setting the stage for more crimes to happen (either by the ex-con or by some normie equivalent to what we would call an A-log who thinks that "punishing" their victim justifies their sadism)
The U.S. doesn't do this, which basically creates an underclass that only knows how to get by by committing more crimes.
Had Chris agreed to plea guilty, to stay the hell away from 14BLC and Barb, and to be placed in a tard home (far away) , he could have been out of jail as soon as they found a placement for him (and probably wouldn't have been too picky about whatever placement they find). That's what he should have done if he were smart.
Chris might have been persuaded to plead guilty, or at least no contest, but I bet he refused because part of the deal was not going back to 14BC. He seemed so certain that he was getting out at the 6 month mark, I bet he had been told that he could be released with an agreement, and he just assumed that he was going back to the temple and then tard raged when he finally sat down at the table and realized that he wasn't going to be allowed to go back.
If Chris is essentially going for time served in jail, could he still take a plea? I was under the impression he has to do his time.
If he doesn't take a plea deal, he still has to go to trial. They could just drop the charges if they didn't want to deal with it, but that would look bad. More likely (IMHO), they'd finally indict him on a felony out of frustration, to keep him in jail.
If Chris pled guilty, could the prosecution then add further charges at that point as well? Because of the change in Chris' tone during his last letter, I wonder if there might be further charges pending in the works in addition to incest.
Probably not. This is covered in the FAQ. If he pleads guilty, he can't face charges again under the same statute, or any statute thats evidentiary requirements are entirely a subset of the charge he's convicted of. This falls under double jeopardy.
If he takes a plea deal, the deal will include a non-prosecute agreement preventing the state from bringing up any future charges related to the crime (unless new evidence is found that reveals that he did some other thing at the time that they didn't know about, like bringing over child prostitutes for a threesome with Barb).
If he pleads guilty without a deal, they could theoretically later prosecute him on other charges, but that would go against the court's procedure where they generally bring all the charges involved in a given action in one case. The reason for this is that Virginia has very strong protections above and beyond the US consitutional definition of double je
opardy, under § 19.2-294. It prohibits bringing multiple charges for the "same act".
So for instance if he made a guilty plea, or made a not guilty plea and was then found guilty of incest, and then they brought new charges of rape, they would have to prove that the rape was not the "same act".
So when there are multiple charges, the court procedure is to consolidate all charges into one trial, and to determine which charges consitute the same act. Even if two charges were not the same act, it would be against procedure to perform successive trials, so the state would bring both charges at the same time.
Successive trials are usually only done in situations where it's necessary, for instance if evidence on one charge could prejudice a jury on the other charge. An example is a case in Virginia where a person was charged with stealing guns from a locked safe, and also being a felon in a possession of a firearm. They split the cases because his criminal history was required evidence in the possession charge, but could prejudice the jury on the burglary charge. He was acquitted on the burglary charge, so argued that he could not be tried on the possession charge since it used some of the same evidence. The courts disagreed, and the prosecution was successful in arguing that possessing the firearms was a separate act from stealing them.
In the case of Chris, it would be hard to argue that having sex with Barb and raping Barb were not the result of the same act.
He didn't commit the worst crime Heilberg's ever defended, but he may well be the worst person he's ever dealt with, at least from a lawyer's perspective. I doubt he's ever had as much hassle from a client over such a picayune case.
I'm sure he's had completely deranged clients before, they just didn't have the same oversharing online presence as Chris.
Though obviously the most notorious case he's ever worked on is the DC Sniper case.
My own best guess is the court requested Heilberg take the case (pro bono or at standard rates) due to his experience with media circus trials. Heilberg agreed (for whatever reason), not knowing the insanity he was stepping into.
I'm absolutely certain the state is paying him. It's the law that they pay court-appointed attorneys, so he would have to go to the trouble of refusing to be the court-appointed attorney and then step up as a pro-bono attorney separately. Whether he's keeping the relatively-modest pay, or donating it like some attorneys do, I have no idea.
I may be wrong, but I don't think the J&DR courts in Virginia have jury trials.
They don't. They're not a court of record and they don't do juries. I believe the federal rule is any sentence longer than six months triggers the right to a jury trial, so I assume there is some procedure for kicking it out of J&DR and insisting on an actual trial for that sentence. There are possibly other triggering circumstances elevating an offense out of the "petty" category and justifying a demand for a jury trial.
Virginia goes above and beyond the SCOTUS ruling. The right to trial by jury in Virginia is absolute. Under § 16.1-132 you can appeal by right any District Court bench trial ruling, and receive a de novo jury trial in Circuit Court. This can be for any charge. You can even
plead guilty and still demand a jury trial in Circuit Court. You can even demand a jury trial
for a traffic ticket.
The only caveat is that the District Court must first issue a ruling before you appeal. For crimes with short sentences with little hope of acquittal, the new trial is more pain than it's worth to the defendant. Still, about a third of the cases in Circuit Court are misdemeanor appeals.
Traffic tickets almost never go to jury trial since there's no right to an attorney, and obviously just paying the fine is cheaper than hiring an attorney to go to trial. Extremely wealthy people can leverage the right to a jury trial to get out of a ticket if it means avoiding a suspended license.
The trial is just going to be a formality at this point.
His lawyer will probably have him plead guilty-- at which point he will be sentenced to time serverd and released.
What type of hearing?
Trial doesnt necesarily mean a jury is involved...
Sentencing is part of a trial too...
If he pleads guilty, then they will skip the trial entirely and move straight to the sentencing hearing. While sentencing can happen at the trial for minor crimes in Virginia, when there is no trial, or for serious crimes, the sentencing is held in an entirely separate hearing.
Greene County is absolutely dinky, and, having been in the courthouse there on more than one occasion, I will 100% agree with that assessment. Having said that, the case is currently being heard in Albemarle Couty since Greene doesn't really have the facilities to deal with much more than traffic tickets and meth offenses. This is important because it means that Greene County isn't prosecuting: Albemarle is. Charlottesville is effectively the venue at this point, not Stanardsville, and Charlottesville is an entirely other ball of wax when it comes to their court operations.
That makes a lot more sense. I looked into the venue at Greene and my first thought was: "Well, they're fucked."
Has it? The last I heard, it was still being held in Greene County Combined Court (which handles both General District and J&DR). Greene County is perfectly capable of handling crimes of all types, and murder trials are handled by Greene County Circuit Court, for instance.
While you can certainly request a change of venue, it's generally required that even tiny counties have a functional court system.
Also, if they'd moved it to Albemarle, they probably wouldn't be keeping him in Orange County (where the CVRJ is located), and would have put him in Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail.
Maybe
@SigueSigueSpergnik has information that I don't, but I'd be surprised if they changed venue.
Interestingly, I believe Heilberg practices out of Greene County.
No, his practice is in the independent city of Charlottesville. Of course he's free to handle any case in the state. Greene County is small so I'm sure they normally draw on attorneys throughout the greater Charlottesville area.
I believe it was tossed down to J&DR right at the arraignment (if not before), before any evaluations were even made. That says to me the DA took one look at Chris' case and didn't want to deal with it. "Retarded manchild. Elderly mother. Incest. This looks like a job for Family Court. I could go after him for rape, but it's so much easier to make this someone else's problem."
Yes, there was a single hearing in General District, where they basically just read the charges, assigned Heilberg as defense (via phone I assume, as I don't think he was present), and then kicked it to J&DR, where they had their first hearing the next day.
That's what they're nominally required to do, but that's not why he was sent there. A simple competency evaluation does not take months and months. The question asked of them wasn't if he was competent to stand trial, but if he could become competent to stand trial.
Yes. The six month delay is what's specified in the statute for people who have been evaluated as incompetent, and are then treated to be restored to competence. A new evaluation is presented at a hearing at the end of six months, which is what I assume is going to happen on July 28th.
I'm pretty certain there will be a plea agreement then. If Chris fucks it up, I'd wager on it going to indictment rather than them just letting him go.
If they do let him go, he'll still be expected to show up to hearings, and Chris is lazy and won't have a car. I could see him failing to appear and the court issuing a capias order, at which point Chris goes back into jail.
