Criminal Charges / Crimes

Although I cannot speak to your state’s sentencing guidelines, in particular, I can give you some general information about sentencing that may or may not apply to {STATE}. If a defendant pleads guilty or is convicted of multiple crimes, there could be the possibility that the judge may sentence him/her to serve each sentence for each crime concurrently (at the same time) or consecutively (one after the other). To explain what that means, let’s assume that a person is convicted of 4 counts (crimes) and s/he is sentenced to 1 year in jail for each of the counts. If the judge orders the time to be served concurrently, s/he would only spend 1 year total in jail because the punishment would all be at the same time. In other words, s/he would be in jail for all four crimes at the same time and the court would count that one year as one year punishment for each of the crimes. If, assuming the same situation, the judge orders him/her to serve time in jail consecutively, s/he could end up serving 4 years, 1 year after the next.