This page describes what that work involved and what it means, in general terms, for a person facing a misdemeanor or felony charge in the Bay Area. Nothing here predicts the outcome of any case.
Every case turns on its own facts, its own evidence and its own court. What follows is an account of an aggressive trial method, not an empty promise.
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01Charging decisions
A deputy district attorney reads the police report and decides what to file: which code sections, felony or misdemeanor, which enhancements, or nothing at all pending further investigation. That decision sets the shape of the case before a defendant ever appears in court.
A lawyer who has made charging decisions understands the questions a filing deputy asks: whether each element can be proven, whether the witnesses will hold up, and what the office's own filing standards require. In a pre-filing matter, those are the terms on which a defense presentation is received.
In California, a felony filed by complaint leads to a preliminary hearing where the magistrate decides whether there is sufficient cause, meaning probable cause, to hold the defendant for trial. Charges can be added, reduced or dismissed at several stages, driven by the prosecutor's reading of the file.
02What this background does not mean
A former prosecutor holds no special standing with any court or any district attorney's office. The office reviewing a Bay Area case is the one in the county where it was filed, and it makes its own decisions under its own policies.
What carries over is a way of working: how a file is read, what a filing deputy needs to see, where an affidavit or a witness can fail, and how a case looks from the other table. That method is applied to each case on its own facts.
03Criminal defense since 2008
The practice handles felony and misdemeanor defense across the nine Bay Area counties: San Francisco, Alameda, Santa Clara, San Mateo, Contra Costa, Marin, Solano, Napa and Sonoma.
Office: 1390 Market Street, Suite 200, San Francisco. Appointments by arrangement. Phone: 415-963-1152. Email: marc@peltalaw.com. Read more about Marc Pelta and felony defense.
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