Legal Question in Criminal Law in California

About 9 months ago, my boyfriend's best friend murdered his little brother. In the last 9 months, the victim's family has received no information or contact from the prosecutors. There has been 7 pretrials, an arraignment, and a prelim exam is coming up in a couple months. In addition to this, they have also not been in contact with the two eye witnesses that where sitting right next to the victim when he was murdered. Is this is common practice for the D.A. not to keep the family informed of what is going on. If not, can the family file a formal complaint about the lack of communication and contact from the D.A. with the victim's family.


Asked on 3/15/13, 9:52 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Zadik Shapiro Law Offices of C. Zadik Shapiro

I'm not sure what you are calling a pretrial conference. To me a pretrial conference is where settlement of the case is discussed. to have had seven pretrial conferences before the preliminary hearing would be unusual.

The fact that the case has not gotten to a preliminary examination yet shows that it is still in its early phases and is nowhere near trial. Despite this to go nine months without any contact from the assistant DA assigned to the case is unusual. If the family know the name of the assistant DA they should call him/her. If they don't know the name they should call the office and ask for the name of the assistant DA assigned to the case and then call him/her up. If the assistant DA does not return the call, they should call the office and ask to speak to the assistant DA's supervisor.

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Answered on 3/15/13, 10:55 pm


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