This video is about dispelling a very common first offender myth. The First Offender Act is something that's available for people who have never used first offender- never been convicted of a felony. Certain offenses don't qualify, but they're usually pretty serious ones.
A big benefit to first offender is that if you haven't used it, when if you use it, you can avoid being a convicted felon or avoid having the conviction on your record if it's a misdemeanor. That's a big, big advantage, especially when we're talking about avoiding being a felon in the context of job hunts, apartment hunts, student loans, all kinds of stuff, etc. Big, big deal.
But we do get a lot of calls and a lot of questions about one big common misconception when it comes to first offender and I want to dispel that myth. A lot of people think that first offender is an automatic get out of jail free card- that if you have your first offender available that the prosecutors and the courts cannot recommend in sentence you to jail time respectively. That is simply not true. First offender can be used on a sentence and the person still go to prison. It is not a get out of jail free card and people have to be careful and make sure that they're using first offender appropriately and understand that just because you can use first offender doesn't mean you're automatically staying out of jail.
