What Happens If Prosecutors Reject A Criminal Filing in Los Angeles?
This happens all the time. Either the District or City Attorney will reject the filing and not file a criminal case. It's very troubling because they end up arresting somebody.
The police are citing them. A lot of times, people have to post bail. They hire an attorney, and we show up in court, and there's nothing filed. After waiting several hours, it's determined that either the District Attorney's or City Attorney's office has rejected the case.
If it's the District Attorney's office, they can reject a case and send it to the City Attorney. The City Attorney can decide whether to file a misdemeanor against the criminal defendant. If it's the City Attorney, typically when they
reject a case, that's the end of it.
However, both prosecuting agencies can sometimes reject a case and later file it. That's why when we show up and find out that a case is dismissed in one of the Los Angeles courts, we're asked why it was denied, whether it has been referred anywhere, and whether it has been rejected for further investigation.
Rejected for Further Investigation
If it's rejected for further investigation, it's not completely dismissed, and a case could be brought back up again.
Likely, what happened was that the investigator, the detective, or the police met with the prosecutor. The prosecutor reviewed their evidence and said, you need some pieces here. We need to know more information.
Here's what we want you to do, and the prosecutors will specifically tell you: We want you to investigate this. We want you to go get this piece of evidence and talk to this witness.
In other words, the prosecutors are the attorneys. They're going to have to present the case, and they know that once they do, the defense will come and attack their case.
So, if they don't feel strong about the case, if they see things are missing, there are loopholes – they're going to send the investigators back out or they're going to say, we're not filing this case because the defense is going to attack it.
They're going to win the case. We will waste time, resources, and money, so we're only moving forward with the case once certain things are done.
Case Rejected by Prosecutor – “DA Reject”
Sometimes, they look at the case and say, there's nothing else you can do on this case. We're not filing it. We're rejecting it, and that's the end of it. So, if you have a matter denied, talk to your attorney about it.
I get cases all the time. I'm not just going to settle because it was rejected. We will talk to the prosecutors, find out what happened, and see why it was denied.
Sometimes, they won't give us the full reason, but maybe we can get some sort of indication. Other times, they reject it and are going to do further investigation on the case. I try to pinpoint what investigation they are going to try to do.
I've actually done an investigation myself on whatever issue they were zeroing in on. So, I could provide them with the other side of the story—the other side of the coin—so they would keep it rejected and not bring it back.
I could say we‘ve done the research. Look what we found. You're going to lose this case. We've got evidence that does not support a prosecution in this case. It supports that our client is innocent. You cannot prove that our client did anything wrong.
So, this whole concept of rejecting a case is a murky issue in Los Angeles. I've been dealing with it for twenty-five years and see all kinds of crazy stuff going on.
The bottom line is you want to have an attorney with you. You want your attorney to be the one dealing with the prosecutors to ensure that that case gets rejected and stays rejected. Could you contact the Hedding Law Firm for help?
