Can state keep a part of my cash bond if found not guilty? In Texas speeding is a class C misdemeanor. If someone takes this to trial and the state requires a cash (bail) bond (twice the maximum find amount plus court costs) they must pay it to the county or the state. They will keep this bond until the trial is over or the case is disposed. If found not guilty, or the judge dismisses the case in the defendants favor, can the state or the county then require / deduct a 20 dollar processing fee before they return the bond to you? What law (in Texas) gives them the right to just take part of the money they required you let them use for several years? I was under the impression that when the state loses they don't get to require payment from the accused. Also, since the amount does not exceed 20 dollars, does that preclude the use of the 7th Amendment to force them to allow a jury trial to justify this?
Regarding the second part of your question: The 7th Amendment does not apply in state court, so any right to a jury trial there would depend upon the constitution of the State of Texas (specifically Article I, Section 15 of the Texas Constitution). This is the case because the Bill of Rights applies by its terms only to the federal government. Under the Selective Incorporation doctrine, the 14th Amendment causes some of the Bill of Rights to apply in state court but not all of it. In particular, the 7th Amendment is one of the parts that does not apply in state court as determined in the U.S. Supreme Court cases of Minneapolis &amp; St. Louis R. Co. v. Bombolis, 241 U.S. 211 (1916) and Pearson v. Yewdall, 95 U.S. 294 (1877). The 11th Amendment would probably bar a federal lawsuit over this matter, since the proper defendant would probably be the State of Texas which is immune from suit in federal court except by another state or the United States. You would still have a right to assert your substantive federal constitutional rights in any state court litigation, however.
The exact form used can vary based on the court. At the federal level, the Administrative Office for the US Courts has a standardized form, although I don’t know that district courts have to use it. State courts obviously wouldn’t be expected to use the federal form, and I’m having a harder time turning up a blank state warrant form. The standard elements are in the federal form, though. A search warrant will have a header identifying it as a search warrant and will have something identifying the court that issued it. It will be signed by some sort of judge. The body of the warrant will be written as a command to the police to do a search, telling them where to search and what to look for. There will generally be some standard language about what to do with the property once it’s seized.
You do not automatically have the right to trial by jury in traffic court. The government only requires courts to allow trials by jury when it is not a petty offense. Refer to Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145 (1968): Crimes carrying possible penalties up to six months do not require a jury trial if they otherwise qualify as petty offenses, Cheff v. Schnackenberg, 384 U.S. 373 (1966). ... In the federal system, petty offenses are defined as those punishable by no more than six months in prison and a $500 fine. Since most traffic violations do not involve jail time and do not exceed a $500 fine, most traffic violations are also not eligible for jury trials as defined by the government. Presumably the law is built this way so as not clog the courts with a bunch of people demanding jury trials for very minor infractions that need not be tried by jury. The Washington State Civil Rules you reference do not grant any further rights to trial by jury not already granted otherwise. It can be quickly summed up as saying that trial by jury rights cannot be revoked, and outlines how one should go about requesting a trial by jury. If you were fined more than $500 and were denied a jury trial, consult an attorney in the area about the situation.
Your friend can get into a lot of trouble for this. Those stickers were given to you for renewing your registration. The stickers are meant to be a quick way for police to tell whether your license plates are still valid, but applying them does not make the plates valid - they are only stickers that have no legal meaning as standalone devices. You still need the registration renewal recorded in the state's system for your particular license plate, which can only be done by going and renewing the registration at the DMV, not by buying stickers. Without the stickers, your friend would only be guilty of driving with an expired registration and subject to relevant punishments for that. However, with stickers purchased from someone else, he is also adding an additional gross misdemeanor in Minnesota for intent to escape tax, which can additionally include up to a year in jail and a $3,000 fine on top of the usual $115 fine for the expired registration.
I don't think that's an accurate interpretation of the statement. The key difference between the two scenarios is the defendant's legal assessment of who owns the necklace. In the first he thinks he is the owner and can claim mistake of law; in the second, he he thinks someone else is the owner, so he cannot. To say he believes "the law allows for someone to do whatever they want with lost property even if they know who the rightful owner is" is very different from saying he thinks he's the owner. He doesn't think he's the legal owner, he just thinks he has legal rights that include some rights associated with ownership. So if the defendant's statement had actually been, "I thought I was the owner," that would have been a successful defense when the crime requires depriving the owner of the property. The defense was actually, "I thought I was allowed to deprive the owner of the property," which is an admission of guilt when the crime requires depriving the owner of the property. There are a couple questions here: a. A different crime that did not require intent -- or even required a different kind of intent -- could still lead to a conviction. A legislature is free to define larceny differently, so it could say that anyone who recklessly or negligently deprives another of property is guilty. Or it could say that your state of mind doesn't matter and that depriving another of property is larceny regardless of intent. b. In most cases, the mistake of law defense requires that the defendant honestly believe in the mistake; unlike mistake of fact, it does not require that his belief also be reasonable. Either way, the question of reasonableness would probably be a question for a jury, so a judge wouldn't be able to reject it (except in a bench trial). c. Mistake of law is a potential defense to any crime that requires an intent to do something that requires an assessment of what the law is. So if it's illegal to intentionally have sex with a woman who is not your wife, and you mistakenly believed you were in a legal marriage, sex with your non-wife would not be a crime. It has potentially very broad implications, but keep in mind that in many cases, the mistake a defendant would have to claim would be pretty far out there. If it were illegal to intentionally let anyone under 21 years old into your bar, I guess you could argue that you only let a 20-year-old in because you thought the law started calculating at conception, but I doubt you'll convince a jury. Mistake of law defenses still pop up pretty regularly. Here's one just yesterday from the Tenth Circuit. And this one is a Kansas case where a conviction for carrying a weapon while a felon was overturned because the court wouldn't allow a mistake-of-law defense. The Kansas case, though, uses the more modern definition of mistake of law, which also includes reasonable reliance on official statements from the government. In that case, the felon's parole officer had told him that it was OK to carry a pocketknife, but in reality, the law titled "Criminal possession of a firearm by a convicted felon" prohibited carrying knives, as well.
This is SB 5605 in Washington, effective July 28, 2019, which allows a person to vacate a misdemeanor conviction for marijuana possession. The process allows a person to withdraw a guilty plea, or has the court vacate a conviction after a not guilty plea, and then the court dismisses the charges. That doesn't create a right for compensation for then penalty imposed, but it does remove any legal disabilities arising from the conviction. It depends on whether that state has such a law: such laws exist in a number of states, and apparently in California it does not even require application.
Criminal cases The answer in the case of criminal charges in the federal system and in the vast majority of U.S. states is that you can almost never recover legal fees you incur defending a criminal action. There is such a thing as a lawsuit for malicious prosecution, and there is such as thing as a lawsuit for a civil rights violation caused by bringing baseless charges, but in both circumstances one must demonstrate that the charges were brought without probable cause. But, in most cases of serious criminal charges like this one, either a grand jury probable cause finding, or a preliminary hearing probable cause finding, both made well prior to a trial, will conclusively preclude a malicious prosecution or civil rights lawsuit. (Also, prosecutors have absolute immunity for their discretionary prosecution decisions, and judges have absolute immunity for their judicial decisions, and you can't sue jurors unless they accepted a bribe or something like that.) But, the standard of proof necessary to establish probable cause is much lower than the standard of proof necessary to convict. A very small minority of states allow for reimbursement of fees upon an acquittal, but even then, it is often necessary to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that you were actually innocent, so a dismissal on procedural grounds or an acquittal at a criminal trial where the prosecution must show beyond a reasonable doubt that you are guilty, is not sufficient to show that it is more likely than not that you are innocent. Likewise, you are not entitled to recovery for indirect financial damages caused by criminal charges. As you correctly imply, this is a very harsh rule that can mean that wrongful criminal charges can ruin you. On the other hand, if you are unable to afford an attorney, and a public defender is appointed for you by the state, you do not have to reimburse the state for the public defender's fees if you prevail and are acquitted. A minority of states, however, require that you reimburse the state for the public defender's fees if you are convicted along with other court costs, fines and restitution awards. For what it is worth, only about 1% of criminal charges brought result in an acquittal at trial. Most cases are resolved through a pre-trial plea bargain, a voluntary dismissal by a prosecutor who acknowledges that there is no case against you prior to trial, or a conviction of at least something at trial. About 10% of cases go to trial and about 10% of cases that go to trial result in an acquittal or hung jury (in very round and approximate numbers that vary greatly from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and by type of case). Also, probably at least 10% of acquittals are of people who were factually guilty, because juries get it right something on the order of 90% of the time when cases go to trial. But, the vast majority of acquittals result in a vast injustice to the defendant (although not as great as when a judge uses the factual basis of the events from which you have been acquitted to enhance the sentence against you on other charges which is done from time to time in both the federal and state legal systems in a practice that is unfair but not necessarily sufficient to overrule those sentences on appeal). Civil cases The situation in a civil case is different and too broad to answer in one question. There are some civil cases where a prevailing defendant is entitled to attorneys' fees and costs, while there are others where a prevailing defendant is not. The default rule, called the "American Rule" is that a prevailing attorney is not entitled to attorneys' fees and costs of a defense. But, there are myriad exceptions to that rule that vary by type of case, by the particular details of how a case was prosecuted, and by legal jurisdiction within the United States, that are not easily summarized. For example, in Colorado civil cases, some of the more common grounds for an award of attorneys' fees to a defending party are: (a) a two-sided contractual fee shifting term, (b) dismissal of the case before filing an answer for failure to state a claim when tort claims were asserted, (c) a determination that the suit was groundless, frivolous or vexatious, (d) violation of certain rules relating to disclosure of information to the other party, (e) a statutory fee shifting provision in the case of a claim based upon a statutorily created right which is present in some statutes but not others.
A prosecutor cannot make a change to a plea agreement after it is signed. That's why it has to be signed. If there is an error in it then it needs to be re-written and re-signed. No, your friend cannot get their conviction vacated over this. They can have it reversed and put back into pre-trial for a new determination (plea, trial, etc.). They need to speak to an attorney to understand if this is worthwhile or not. There really are very very few instances where a mistake in the legal system means you can get away with a crime.