Massachusetts Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog

As a Massachusetts criminal attorney, once any client is sentenced after trial or accepts a plea to jail time, the first question is, when will I get out. This will depend on how the sentence is structured. Massachusetts criminal sentences can be concurrent or consecutive, meaning one after another. The Casey Anthony Sentencing provided an example of the judge sentencing Anthony to consecutive sentences on the four misdemeanor counts she was convicted of. In many misdemeanor cases in Massachusetts, it would be common for a judge to sentence a defendant to concurrent time on four separate misdemeanor charges meaning that the sentence would run at the same time for each count of the complaint.

In Anthony's case, she had substantially jail credit meaning that she had already served her sentence prior to trial. Jail credits are important for a Massachusetts criminal lawyer to calculate as well. In a Massachusetts felony or misdemeanor case, if a person cannot post bail and is held prior to trial or sentencing, then if there is a conviction or plea, the defendant is entitled to jail credits from the time that the defendant was held on the case. Where jail credits can get complex, is when a defendant is being held on more than one case or doing a sentence for another charge pending trial. A defendant is entitled to jail credits if being held on two charges at the same time, but would not be entitled to jail credit if serving a sentence pending the resolution of an outstanding charge.