Badger Lawyer's Free Appeals Information

Appeals

It’s a fact. Sometimes you lose. That doesn’t make it right.

When you lose a criminal case, you are facing severe sanctions, including jail time, prison, probation, and huge fines. Sometimes – a lot of times – mistakes are made in a criminal case. Some of the time – fairly rarely – those mistakes can cause your case to be overturned on appeal. See “What is Harmless Error?”

The appeals process is highly complex and beyond the scope of this section. Here is some general information to get you started.

First, you can appeal either a conviction at trial, or a guilty plea. The process is different for the two different types of appeal, but the idea is the same: was a mistake made that caused you to be found (or plead) guilty when you shouldn’t have, or is the sentence the court gave you incorrect? If the answer to either is yes, then you have a good issue for appeal. You only have 20 days to file a notice of intent to appeal, so if you think you want to appeal a conviction, you must do so quickly.