"Three Strikes" and Serious Felony Defense in Nevada County

A strike allegation or a serious felony charge is among the most consequential things you will ever face. The exposure is measured in years — sometimes decades — and the margin for error is small. These are not cases to hand to someone who rarely sees the inside of a courtroom. They demand genuine trial skill, and they demand it from the first day.

What a strike actually puts at stake

Under California's Three Strikes law, a prior conviction for a serious or violent felony becomes a "strike" that follows you for the rest of your life. A single prior strike can double the sentence on a new felony. Two prior strikes can expose you to twenty-five years to life. These numbers are not abstractions — they are the difference between a future and the loss of one, and they are why a strike case has to be defended with everything the law allows.

A prior strike is not always permanent

What many people don't know is that a strike is not necessarily fixed. The court has the power, in the interest of justice, to set a prior strike aside — to decline to count it against you. That motion is not granted for the asking. Winning it takes real advocacy: showing the court the whole person standing in front of it, not a line on a rap sheet. Done well, it can change the entire shape of a case. It's one of the first things I look at when a strike is alleged.

Serious felonies are won in the preparation

Robbery, assault, and the other serious and violent felonies share a common truth: they are won or lost long before trial, in the work most people never see. The investigation. The witnesses no one else called. The experts. The motions that test the State's evidence and find where it's weak. I prepare these cases as though every one of them is going to a jury — because the cases that are prepared that way are the ones that resolve on the best terms, whether or not they ever reach a verdict.

Why trial experience matters most here

A lot of lawyers will take a felony case. Far fewer have carried more than a hundred cases all the way to a verdict, including the most serious charges in the book. As a senior trial attorney in the public defender's office, I was handed the office's most difficult cases — and I've spent the years since taking them on by choice. That record matters to you in a concrete way: a prosecutor weighs a case differently when they know the defense is ready and willing to try it. That readiness is leverage, and leverage is often what protects a client's future.

When everything's on the line, you work with me

A case this serious is no place to be passed down to an associate. From the first call to the resolution, you deal directly with me. I'll give you the truth about your exposure — plainly, without false comfort — because at this level, good decisions can't be built on anything less.