FAQs

An indictment and an accusation are both formal ways of charging someone with a crime, but they come from different places. An indictment is issued by a grand jury after the prosecutor presents evidence, and it is the standard way to charge a felony. An accusation is a charging document filed directly by the prosecutor, most commonly used for misdemeanors in State Court.

A felony can be charged by accusation only if the defendant waives the right to indictment in writing. This often happens when a case is moving toward a negotiated plea, because it allows the case to proceed more quickly without going to a grand jury.

Understanding which one you’re facing matters because it affects timing, court, and strategy. Waiving indictment is a decision with legal consequences, and it should be made only after talking with an attorney.

Under Georgia’s stand your ground law, a person who is lawfully in a place has no duty to retreat before using force that they reasonably believe is necessary to defend themselves or others against imminent unlawful force. Deadly force is allowed only when a person reasonably believes it is necessary to prevent death or great bodily injury, or to stop a forcible felony.

The law does not give a free pass. The belief has to be reasonable, the person generally cannot be the initial aggressor, and the person must be somewhere they have a legal right to be. If self-defense is raised at trial, the prosecution must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the force was not justified.

Georgia also allows a defendant to request a pretrial immunity hearing, where a judge decides whether the person is immune from prosecution because their actions were justified. At that hearing, the burden generally falls on the defendant. Self-defense cases turn heavily on the facts, so legal advice early is crucial.

Yes. Georgia is a stand your ground state, and the law is not limited to your home. If you’re lawfully in a place where you have a right to be, you generally don’t have to retreat before using force you reasonably believe is necessary to prevent death, serious injury, or a forcible felony.

That said, the protection has limits. If you started the confrontation, you’re typically not covered unless you clearly withdrew and communicated that. Your belief that force was necessary has to be reasonable from the perspective of the situation, and the amount of force must match the threat.

Because prosecutors and juries will examine every detail, including where you were, who started it, and what was said, anyone involved in a self-defense incident should avoid giving statements to police before speaking with a defense attorney.

Georgia law allows a person to use force against another person when they reasonably believe it is necessary to defend themselves or someone else from imminent unlawful force. Deadly force is justified only when the person reasonably believes it is necessary to prevent death or great bodily injury to themselves or another, or to prevent a forcible felony.

There are important limits. A person who starts a fight, is committing a felony, or provokes the force generally can’t claim self-defense unless they withdraw and make that clear. The amount of force also has to be proportionate to the threat.

Once self-defense is raised, the prosecution must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was not justified. Because these cases hinge on witness accounts, video, and physical evidence, building the record early is important.

If you have been wrongfully accused of a crime, you absolutely need to hire a trial lawyer – a criminal defense trial lawyer. And why is that? Everyone at the courthouse is not gonna magically figure out that you’re innocent. Everyone has to be shown that, from the police officer that arrested you, to the prosecutor, to the judge, and sometimes even to the jury. They need to be shown that you are innocent.

That’s not an easy task, but it’s absolutely important, and it’s important that you continue to fight and not be discouraged about the system and what can happen. I believe that the system can figure out if you’re innocent. I believe that it can do that. But it can only do that if you force that wedge into that cog. It can only do that when you are fighting your case.

Georgia’s recidivist sentencing law increases punishment for people with prior felony convictions. It’s often called a three strikes law, though in practice it works in stages. After a second felony conviction, a person can be sentenced to the longest sentence allowed for the offense. After multiple prior felonies, a later felony conviction can mean serving the maximum sentence with no eligibility for parole.

Georgia also has a separate rule for certain very serious offenses, commonly called the “seven deadly sins,” which include murder, armed robbery, kidnapping, rape, aggravated child molestation, aggravated sodomy, and aggravated sexual battery. A second conviction for one of these offenses can result in life without parole.

Prosecutors generally must give notice that they intend to seek enhanced sentencing, and prior convictions must be properly proven. That makes it important to examine your prior record closely, because errors or technical problems can sometimes affect how the law applies.

There are a lot of things that you should do when you are looking choose an attorney for your case. First, it is very important that you have a lawyer. If you got fingerprinted, you need a lawyer.

What you want to do is meet with them in their office, you want to make sure they have an office. That they have a place in the area where your case starts. You want to make sure they have a good reputation in town, with their clients. You want to make sure they care about your case because it is going to take a while to resolve and you want to know that they’ve got it handled the entire way throughout your case.

I always suggest that people meet with three lawyers. It takes a lot of time, and it’s scary. You may want to pick someone right away. But you want to pick a person who works with you and that you are comfortable with. when you choose an attorney, it’s like picking a doctor. You wouldn’t but your heart in the hands of someone who has never held one before.

There are a lot of things you need to look at in every single case before any decision is made. That decision should always be yours, not the lawyer’s.

Aggravated assault is one of the most common charges that we come across as a serious felony. It is punishable by up to 20 years in prison. What’s interesting about aggravated assault, it’s also kind of one of the easiest things to occur. If you have a weapon and you point it at someone, that’s considered aggravated assault in Georgia. Aggravated battery is essentially any broken or disfigurement on the person who you were in an assault with. If you assault a person and they get a scar; break a finger; lose an eye – anything like that, you can be charged with aggravated battery, which is a 20-year prison term.

The interesting part is you could be charged with the original conduct of getting in a fight with them, but then charged with the extra charge of aggravated battery because of the injuries that occurred as a result of their assault. In Georgia, you can have what’s called a “self-defense immunity hearing” prior to your trial, where the judge actually hears what happened. And the judge may decide that you don’t need to be charged with aggravated assault at all and let you go. So, having an attorney that can litigate those hearings and present those hearings to the court are very important.

Eligibility for Cobb County pretrial diversion is generally decided by the prosecutor, and it tends to favor people with little or no criminal history who are facing lower-level or first-time offenses. The nature of the charge, any harm to a victim, and the person’s background are all considered, and some serious offenses are excluded.

If accepted, you’ll typically need to complete specific conditions, which may include classes, counseling, community service, drug testing, payment of fees or restitution, and staying out of trouble. If you complete everything, the charge may be dismissed, and in some cases the record can later be restricted.

The risk is that if you don’t comply, the prosecution can resume. That’s why it matters to talk with an attorney before applying. They can help present your case to the prosecutor, explain the requirements, and decide whether diversion is the best option for your situation.

In most cases, having a fake ID in Georgia is charged as a misdemeanor. That alone can still mean jail exposure, fines, and a license suspension, along with a record that can appear on background checks.

It can become a felony in certain circumstances. If a person uses a fake ID to commit fraud, forgery, or identity theft, tries to obtain money or benefits with it, or alters or counterfeits a government-issued document, the charges may be much more serious. Possessing or selling multiple IDs can also raise the stakes.

The details matter: whose name is on the ID, how it was used, and whether anyone was deceived or harmed. If you or your child has been charged, an attorney can look at the specific statute involved and the possible ways to avoid a conviction.

There’s no fixed timeline, but many felony cases in Georgia take between 6 and 18 months from arrest to resolution, and complicated cases such as sex crimes, homicides, or cases with extensive forensic evidence can take longer. Court calendars, the amount of discovery, pretrial motions, and plea negotiations all influence the schedule.

A typical case moves from arrest and first appearance to a possible preliminary hearing, then indictment by a grand jury, arraignment, pretrial motions, and finally trial or a plea. Delays are common, and some are strategic. Defense attorneys sometimes need time to investigate, hire experts, or file motions.

Georgia law also allows a defendant to file a demand for a speedy trial in certain circumstances, which can shorten the timeline but isn’t right for every case. Many cases resolve before trial, so an experienced attorney can walk you through what to expect.

In a bench trial, the judge decides the facts and the verdict. In a jury trial, a jury makes that decision. In Georgia, felony cases are tried before 12 jurors, many misdemeanor cases in State Court are tried before six, and the verdict must be unanimous. Some courts, such as magistrate courts, do not hold jury trials at all.

Choosing between the two is a strategic decision. A bench trial can be faster and may work well when a case turns on a legal issue, such as whether evidence was lawfully obtained. A jury trial can be better when a case turns on credibility or when the facts may be sympathetic to the defendant, since the prosecution must convince all jurors.

The right choice depends on the charge, the judge, the evidence, and the client’s goals. It’s a decision to make together with your attorney, based on experience with local courts.

Under O.C.G.A. § 16-7-1, first degree burglary requires prosecutors to prove that a person entered or remained in someone else’s home or dwelling without authority, and did so with the intent to commit a felony or theft inside. It’s a felony punishable by 1 to 20 years in prison, with a higher minimum for repeat offenses.

Intent is often the central issue. A person doesn’t have to actually steal or commit a crime inside, but the prosecutor must show that the intent existed at the time of entry. Whether the person had permission to be there can also be disputed, which is common in cases involving former partners, roommates, or family members.

Because the penalties are so serious, these cases call for a close review of the evidence, including how police identified the suspect, what was said, and what happened inside. Defenses may involve lack of intent, consent, mistaken identity, or an unlawful search.

Child porn essentially is photographs on your phone, on your computer, or any kind of media that you have that depicts a child under the age of 18 nude or partially clothed in a sexually suggestive manner. And what has happened what we’ve seen happen is people may download from torrent or other large file sharing services lots of pictures and there may be some pictures on there that actually have a little marker in them that alerts the government that you downloaded them. And then if you share those files you have then distributed those files to someone else. This is a very serious crime both federally and here in the state of Georgia.

There is a mandatory prison sentence if you are convicted of this and just possessing it is enough for the state to come after you. So if someone wants to ask you about whether you have something on your computer or wants to seize your computer you need to tell them you need to speak to a lawyer and that they need to have a warrant to get any of your personal property. And of course, the best practice is not to have that on their computer but as we all know we don’t often know what files we have on our computer. Everyone’s gotten a computer virus before that they didn’t know was there.

There’s one that’s both national and there’s one here in the state of Georgia and there’s one in every state. Essentially, it is a list of people who have been convicted of a sexual offense. If you’re on the, you have certain places that you can and can’t live or locations you aren’t allowed to go to, which involves schools, school bus stops, playgrounds, swimming pools, etc. It can severely curtail where you can live and work. It’s a pretty onerous burden for anyone.

Any sex offense here in Georgia that you’re convicted of that’s not a misdemeanor pretty much involves this sex offender registry and oftentimes once you’re on it, you can never get off even if you move to another state. So it’s very important that you make sure you fight a case so that you do not end up on the sex offender registry. And it’s also public so people can look it up on the internet an there have been instances where people have been their houses have vandalized just because they appear on that registry. And it doesn’t matter if you’ve already done time or completed your sentence you still appear on the registry and people can still punish you for it.

Sometimes a completed sentence can mean that you are eligible for removal from the sex offender registry, but it requires a petition and oftentimes a court hearing. This is something Frye Law Group is experienced in and can help with.

Kim Keheley Frye is a compassionate and aggressive trial attorney. Her true passion is protecting people who are facing criminal prosecution. If you or a loved one have been accused of a crime, contact us today.

When you are charged with prostitution or pimping, pandering or human – even human sex trafficking, those all can be charged, even when there’s consenting adults involved. That’s why it’s super-important, because there’s mandatory minimums for some of these charges. There’s also sex offender registry for these charges, and they’re almost always considered something of a high and aggravated nature – more serious. And that’s the important thing to understand – the Internet’s involved in a lot of these cases, and these sex crimes result in what seemingly might be innocent, consensual behavior, but can turn into a very serious charge very quickly. If you are charged with that, don’t be ashamed because of how the charge is made. You need to talk to an experienced attorney who can navigate what these charges mean in Georgia and how they are prosecuted, because that’s very important.

If you’re arrested for your DUI, obviously you need a lawyer immediately, within thirty days of your arrest – is the first thing that you do. The second thing you can do to give yourself peace of mind is to start working on community service at a 501(c)(3). If you do that, you can start building the hours, because a third DUI requires a minimum of 240 hours of community service. The other thing that every judge is going to want to see in your case as a drug and alcohol evaluation. So, go to a drug and alcohol evaluator to be evaluated to see if treatment is necessary. Every single court is going to want to see that.

DUI consequences in Georgia can be rather harsh and there’s a lot of collateral consequences. After a conviction for DUI you could receive a license suspension, you can’t travel to Canada for 10 years, you can’t rent a car. You may have to have an ignition interlock device installed in your car. You’re going to have trouble keeping a job where you drive a company car or getting a job where you have a company car. You may lose your car insurance. In any event, your car insurance is going way up. This is going to be on your record permanently if you get convicted with DUI for the rest of your life.

So how do you avoid all of those collateral DUI consequences? The only way to avoid having a DUI stay off your record in Georgia is to fight your case and win. You fight your case and win then your record will be restricted. And there are lots of different ways to fight your case. And that’s what we do here we look for ways to fight your case.

The first thing you do when you’re stopped for a DUI in Georgia is try to remain calm. It’s always scary when you get stopped by a police officer for anything. And when they walk up to the car and the first thing they’re gonna do is ask you questions. Have your driver’s license and if you have your insurance card have that ready to go. At that point, you don’t have to answer any other questions or do any exercises for the officer.

IF I’M STOPPED FOR A DUI IN GEORGIA, WHY SHOULDN’T I HAVE TO ANSWER ANY OTHER QUESTIONS?

Oftentimes I’m asked well; “won’t I get arrested if I don’t cooperate with the officer?” The truth is you may get arrested anyways whether you cooperate or not but you don’t have to cooperate and give the officer possibly more evidence against yourself.

So when he asks you to do any field sobriety tests or anything just to check and see if you’re okay to drive say “no, thank you, I’d rather not. Am I under arrest?”

IMPLIED CONSENT

Georgia is an implied consent state. Implied consent means a person has consented to a blood-alcohol test by driving on Georgia’s roads. A driver may refuse to take the test, but you may face a suspended license. You only have 30 days from the date of your arrest to contest the suspension of your license. Do not delay getting an experienced DUI lawyer to handle your case.

If you’re charged with a DUI in Georgia, contact Kim Frye. To read more about charges for DUI a Georgia, visit our DUI Defense page.

DUI checkpoints are actually legal here in Georgia, but not in all states. In Georgia, there are certain requirements for them though. They have to be well marked so that you can tell it’s a checkpoint. There has to be a minimal amount of stopping of the traffic – so if it’s stopping traffic too much then it’s not legal. There has to be a supervisor present on scene but they cannot be doing the actual DUI investigations.

One of the things to remember when you pull up to a checkpoint you have the same rights that you have at any time that you’re actually stopped in a car. You don’t have to cooperate with any field tests whatsoever. You don’t have to blow in anything and you only have to present your driver’s license and insurance if asked. You don’t have to answer any questions. So that’s something that’s important to remember if you ever do come up on a roadblock or checkpoint.

Many people ask if it’s possible to get charged for a DUI for marijuana in Georgia. The truth is that consequences for a marijuana DUI are actually worse than they are for an alcohol DUI. If you get convicted for being under the influence of marijuana when you are driving a car, there is a six month hard license suspension with no ability to drive whatsoever. That is worse than an alcohol DUI. Proving impairment at the time of diving that’s one of the most difficult things for the state to prove. It’s important that you not submit to any testing whatsoever. That makes it more difficult for the state to prove that you were impaired by marijuana at the time of driving a car.

WHAT CONSTITUTES AS “DRIVING UNDER THE INFLUENCE?”

Georgia’s prohibition of DUI is not restricted to just alcohol. The presence of marijuana or illegal drugs in your system in any amount constitutes driving under the influence. Since it is actually illegal to drive under the influence of marijuana in Georgia, and can will take or attempt to take blood and urine from you in order to prove that. If a driver has a restricted prescription drug in their system, they may face a DUI conviction. If a driver has a prescription and is impaired due to the medication, they still can be convicted of a DUI.

WHAT TO DO IF I’M PULLED OVER FOR A DUI FOR MARIJUANA

It’s hard to know what to do when pulled over. Georgia is an implied consent state which means a person has consented to a blood-alcohol test by driving on Georgia’s roads. A driver may refuse to take the test, but you may face a suspended license and/or a search warrant for your blood. You can still refuse to have your blood taken even if they take a search warrant. The officer may threaten to charge you with obstruction, but it is still your right.

Kim Frye is an experienced and aggressive DUI lawyer with extensive courtroom experience. Prior to entering the private practice of law, she worked with the district attorney’s office. Her experience as a prosecutor helps her to detect when the police have acted improperly.

To learn more about driving under the influence and a DUI for marijuana or other substances, visit our DUI Defense page.

Is possession of a controlled substance a felony? “Controlled substance” sometimes will mean cocaine, meth, heroin – those are the things that you would naturally think of. Those are a controlled substance. Marijuana is also a controlled substance. Marijuana – the green, leafy variety – in less than an ounce is a misdemeanor. However, anything over an ounce, here still in Georgia, is a felony. What’s even more interesting is the law treats marijuana wax, THC wax, or dabs, or things of that nature differently than it treats green marijuana. It also treats plants that you’re growing differently than it treats the dried marijuana.

So, pretty much anything over one ounce of the green leafy material – any kind of marijuana – is also a controlled substance. And yes, they are felonies here in Georgia, and there are some alternative sentencing arrangements that you can make sometimes in cases, but it is a serious case. Also, prescription medications – they are always controlled substances in most cases, and without a proper prescription, possessing them, like Xanax or Valium or OxyContin, would be a felony.

Drug trafficking actually comes about by possessing a certain amount of weight of a controlled substance. With marijuana, it’s ten pounds. What’s interesting is how the government comes to the conclusion of it being ten pounds of marijuana, and that’s something that we deal with in our business, trying to figure that out and negotiate that. So, trafficking is always a minimum amount of weight. So, that would be about an ounce of cocaine, typically four grams of morphine or heroin, or ten pounds of marijuana, or one ounce of meth.

Those are kind of the base level weights, and there’s a big discrepancy there between marijuana; between heroin; between cocaine; between meth. One of the interesting things that we do is we’ve done a lot of extra training on the science of how the government measures those things. So, that is a way to defend your case. If the government faultily weighed the controlled substance, that helps you in your case.

If you are in need of defense for drug trafficking, contact our office.

Drug possession comes in a couple of different forms. You can just literally possess the drug on your person; in your car; in your home. That’s one level of a drug offense, and it’s usually considered the lowest level. The next level is an intent to distribute; distributing or manufacturing. That takes it to a whole nother level – higher mandatory minimums, higher fines – things like that. How that changes is it could be literally you sharing –someone sharing – their controlled substances with somebody else. You share cocaine. That is distributing, technically.

The other thing – there are factors that help the police officers charge you with intent to distribute. You may have a tiny, tiny bit of marijuana, but you may have other factors –someone may have other factors there. A weight– a scales; money; baggies. Things of that nature help the police officers, or signal to the police officers, that someone may not be using the drugs for their personal use.