What to Expect at Arraignment in Las Vegas

An arraignment is your first formal court appearance after you have been arrested and charged with a crime. It is the point where the court system officially tells you what you are accused of and asks how you plead.

During the arraignment, the judge reads the charges against you, explains your constitutional rights, asks you to enter a plea, and decides whether to set bail or release you on your own recognizance. The entire proceeding usually takes less than ten minutes. But what happens in those ten minutes shapes the next several months of your case.

Arraignment happens in Las Vegas Justice Court for misdemeanors and for the preliminary hearing stage of felonies. If a felony case is bound over to the Eighth Judicial District Court, there will be a second arraignment at the district court level where you enter your plea to the formal charges.

After an arrest in Las Vegas, you are taken to the Clark County Detention Center for booking. Your fingerprints are taken, your photo is recorded, and the charges are entered into the system. Depending on the charge, you may be eligible for bail at booking or you may need to wait for a judge to set bail.

For many misdemeanor charges, you can bail out or be released on your own recognizance (OR release) within hours. For felonies, you may need to wait for a bail hearing, which sometimes happens at the arraignment itself. If you bail out or are released, you will receive a notice to appear with your arraignment date and time.

If you remain in custody, you will be transported from the jail to the courthouse for your arraignment. In Clark County, this must happen within 72 hours of your arrest, though weekends and holidays can extend that timeline slightly.

At arraignment, you have three options: guilty, not guilty, or no contest. In the vast majority of cases, the correct answer is not guilty. This is true even if you believe the evidence against you is strong. This is true even if you plan to eventually accept a plea deal.

Pleading not guilty at arraignment preserves all of your options. It gives your attorney time to review the police reports, body camera footage, lab results, and witness statements. It gives you bargaining power. It keeps the door open for motions to suppress evidence, challenges to the traffic stop or the search, and negotiations for reduced charges.

Pleading guilty at arraignment locks you in. There is no going back. You waive your right to a trial, your right to challenge the evidence, and your right to negotiate. The judge moves straight to sentencing. This is almost never in your interest at the very first court appearance.

You can always change your plea from not guilty to guilty later, after you and your attorney have had time to evaluate the case. You cannot change a guilty plea back to not guilty without extraordinary legal effort.

The judge considers several factors when setting bail: the seriousness of the charge, your criminal history, whether you are a flight risk, whether you have ties to the community (job, family, property), and whether you pose a danger to any specific person or the public.

For many misdemeanor charges, the judge may release you on your own recognizance, meaning no money is required but you must promise to appear at all future court dates. For more serious charges, the judge sets a dollar amount. You can pay the full amount to the court (which is returned when the case ends if you appear at every hearing) or use a bail bondsman who charges a non-refundable percentage, typically 15 percent.

Beyond bail, the judge may impose conditions of release. Common conditions include no-contact orders in domestic violence cases, alcohol and drug testing in DUI cases, travel restrictions, GPS monitoring, and surrender of firearms. Violating any condition can result in your bail being revoked and a warrant being issued for your arrest.

A defense attorney can argue against unreasonable conditions at arraignment. This is one of the most important reasons to have a lawyer present at this hearing.

After you plead not guilty, the judge sets a next court date. For misdemeanor cases, this is usually a pretrial conference in two to four weeks. For felonies, the next step is a preliminary hearing where the judge decides whether there is enough evidence to send the case to District Court.

Between arraignment and your next court date, your attorney requests and reviews discovery. Discovery is the evidence the state has collected against you: police reports, body camera footage, witness statements, lab results, 911 call recordings, and anything else relevant to the case. This is where the real defense work begins.

Your attorney reviews the discovery for weaknesses in the state's case. Were your rights violated during the traffic stop? Was the search legal? Did the officer follow proper procedure? Were Miranda warnings given before questioning? Were there problems with how evidence was collected or stored? Every answer to these questions informs the defense strategy.

During this period, your attorney may also begin negotiating with the prosecutor. Many cases resolve through plea negotiations where the charges are reduced or conditions are agreed upon that are more favorable than what you would face at trial. But none of this happens unless you plead not guilty at arraignment and give your attorney time to work.