Rizzuto plead not guilty?

Of course he pled not guilty

It was his arraignment

quote:

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I'm not a lawyer like most everybody else on the OT, but I thought pleading "not guilty" was just part of the game.

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It is

You get indicted or a bill of information is filed

Then you get set for arraignment where you plead guilty or not guilty

99.9999% of felony defendants plead not guilty because usually a judge won't even take a guilty plea at arraignment for several reasons:

1) judges have to advise defendants of their constitutional rights on each charge they're pleading guilty and that takes a long time and a judge won't do that if he's got hundreds of other people that need to be arraigned that day too,

2) in this case as in several cases, the guy didn't have an attorney yet. The public defender stood in for this kid for the arraignment but said he was going to hire an attorney. Which means he hasn't even had a chance to go through the charges with his attorney yet

3) if he doesn't have an attorney that means he likely also doesn't have discovery on the case yet which means he doesn't know exactly what evidence the state has against him

4) lots of other reasons too

So people plead not guilty, get set for another court date and their case starts getting reviewed and discussed by prosecutors and attorneys.

He'll plea guilty. It's just going to take some time