Early Disposition Court in a Los Angeles Criminal Case
As a criminal defense attorney, you obviously have to know all the ins and outs of how to handle criminal cases.
If you have a criminal case where the police and the prosecutors have done their due diligence and they have good evidence against your client, and ultimately your client is going to end up having to plead guilty or no contest.
Sometimes, it might be a good idea to direct the case into the Early Disposition or EDP Court in whatever courthouse your case is pending in. Most of the courthouses in Los Angeles have this EDP Court.
Basically, it is designed for a case that is going to be resolved. The district attorney, the judge, or the city attorney are supposed to offer the best offers there. If you're going to go to the Early Disposition Court, you're going in there to resolve your case.
So, they're going to assign a prosecutor or prosecutors, depending on how busy the courthouse is – who all they do is deal with EDP cases.
Again, they're supposed to offer the best deals, but I find that many of these prosecutors in Los Angeles County's courts are not really offering good deals.
They are not reasonable, and if you have the type of case as a criminal defense attorney where somebody really needs to look at it, check the facts, and do some investigation, it's not likely going to be the EDP Early Disposition Deputy District Attorney in the court.
They're just too busy, overwhelmed, and often too lazy to investigate a case and examine its facts. They're like bills moving through the cases.
Clara Foltz Courthouse in Downtown Los Angeles
There are circumstances when it helps you. The downtown criminal court or the Clara Foltz courthouse is a perfect example. They have an EDP program. It's Division 50.
The judge there is very reasonable. He realizes that most of the county's cases are filed in that courthouse. If they need an effective EDP program, they will be overrun with cases very quickly.
So, he undercuts the prosecutors all the time. That's a great system there because it takes care of cases that need to be taken care of.
If you can't use the EDP court and it's not the right prosecutor there or the case is not proper to use, as a defense attorney, you have to say, what will the next move be?
You have to move it out of that court. You should hold a preliminary hearing and damage the prosecutor's case. Then, you must realize that EDP is wrong for my case. It's not going to yield the best result.
Especially if you have a case where you have to make some motions, you have to show the prosecutors that they could lose the case. If there's some sort of legal search, you probably don't want to move your case to the EDP court because it is not designed to deal with those types of issues. It is supposed to be designed to resolve cases.
Prosecutor Running the Los Angeles EDP Court
Another thing that I look at – if I'm being honest – I look at the prosecutor that they have running the EDP court.
If the prosecutor or prosecutors are not reasonable, too harsh, or not fair—and if the judge does not get involved in cases where the judge won't undercut them—then maybe that's not the best EDP program.
Maybe you need to take a different approach and skip the EDP court altogether. I do that in a lot of cases in Los Angeles County, and I get to a prosecutor who is fair-minded and reasonable and will take some time to look at the case and consider our arguments.
So, I only sometimes go to the EDP court, and I think only some defense attorneys do. If you have a case pending in the criminal court and you're wondering if the EDP court is for you, your best bet is to get in front of a great criminal defense attorney who has dealt with cases in the particular court they're using as the EDP court.
An attorney who knows what prosecutors are in there knows whether they're fair, knows whether they're going to be harsh with your case or not, and also knows the judge because a lot of times, the judges can help out these EDP courts and give a good resolution on the case that the prosecutor refused to provide.
You have to remember. The judge controls the sentence, but the prosecutor controls the charges. So, trying to use the judge can be problematic if the charges carry a mandatory minimum.
For example, attempted murder is fifteen to life. So, the judge can't dismiss that because they don't control the charges, so the best sentence that a judge could give is fifteen to life.
That doesn't help you. So, then you have to go to the DA's boss and try to get the boss to get rid of the attempted murder and give a different crime that doesn't carry fifteen to life.
So, it's a little bit complex for somebody who hasn't been doing it for a long time, but for those criminal defense attorneys who know what they're doing and have been down the road you're about to travel, those are the ones you want to get in front of and let them sit down and talk to you about your case, figure out a good game plan, and decide whether the EDP court is best for you or not.
