Where defendants plead "not guilty," the court will schedule a trial on the merits of all charges pending against the accused.  But, in addition to other court appearances such as preliminary hearings, prosecutors and defense attorneys often meet at pretrial conferences or at pretrial hearings where they often debate points of law affecting the trial and presentation of evidence.  Like the arraignment, each time these adversaries are scheduled to meet, they may have occasion to engage in plea negotiations in which cases may be disposed of prior to trial.

Absent a plea deal, many cases involve pretrial hearings in which the prosecution and the defense lawyers bicker over the admissibility of evidence and the viability of the charges themselves.  In these motions, defense counsel often ask the trial judge for orders:

• to suppress confessions and other statements of the accused, either because prosecutors failed to administer proper Miranda warnings of the constitutional "right to remain silent" or because such statements were coerced by overzealous law enforcement officers;
• to suppress statements on the grounds that the police did not have probable cause to arrest the accused;
• to suppress identification on the grounds that the pretrial identification procedure was suggestive and the witnesses would not have been able to identify the accused under ordinary circumstances;
• to suppress physical evidence seized from the accused on the grounds that the police had no legal right to stop or search him, his car or his home, or that the evidence they found was obtained by violating his constitutional rights;
• to prevent the prosecutor from using the accused's criminal record to impeach his credibility on cross-examination, if he elects to testify at trial.  Though such evidence is generally admissible to attack the credibility of most witnesses, it present greater dangers when the accused testifies at his own trial.  Indeed, jurors may believe that a person who has committed crimes in the past is probably guilty now.  Because this is an impermissible inference at trial, defense lawyers will want to persuade the judge to exclude the use of prior convictions in the event that the accused takes the stand in his own defense.  Ultimately, the judge must balance the defendant's constitutional right to testify against the prosecutor's right to a full and vigorous cross-examination.