Felony Assault

[giantsny]

My question involves criminal law for the state of:rhode island. i was in a bar that was full of people. during trying to find my friends, i accidently bumped in to a highly intoxicated (at the time i did not no he was drunk) male. the male then spun around and started swearing at me and even threatin to kill me. He then got in my face in a threating manner and at that time i punched him once in the face, causing him to be knocked out and causing serious bodily injury to his face. there were no cameras , only a bouncer who turned around the last second and saw me hit the guy. my question is what is a pretrial?, what can i expect to come out of the pretrial? and can there be more then one pretrial? thank you for your time.

[flyingron]

Pretrial is where they work out whether there's going to be a plea bargain and if not whether this is going to be done as a guilty plea, a not-guilty case heard in front of the judge, or a jury trial (which will cause removal to a different court most likely).

You need a lawyer.
You just confessed to a felony. Someone "getting in your face" is not justification for committing serious bodily injury upon him. Even if we believe your story, you're guilty.

I'd stop telling this story in public forums or to anyone other than your attorney.