If you've been arrested anywhere in Merced County, your case is heard in one of two courthouses. Most criminal matters, felonies, misdemeanors, and infractions, run through the Ogletree Jr. Courthouse on N Street in the city of Merced. If you were arrested on the county's west side, near Los Banos, the Robert M. Falasco Justice Center on G Street handles its own criminal calendar. Which building you walk into depends on where the charge originated, and it changes how the case moves. Knowing that before your first appearance saves you from showing up to the wrong place at the wrong time.
Karan Saini is based in Modesto, about thirty minutes north up Highway 99, and he defends clients throughout the Central Valley, Merced County included. Here's the honest version of what he brings to a Merced case: he was a prosecutor at the Stanislaus County District Attorney's Office, not Merced's, so he isn't trading on inside connections at the Merced DA. What he carries across the county line is the part that actually transfers. He spent years deciding which cases to file and how to try them, so he reads a charging decision the way the people who made it do, and he uses that to find where a case is weakest.
The firm takes on two kinds of trouble. On the criminal side: DUI, domestic violence, theft, drug charges, and the violent felonies that carry real prison exposure. On the injury side: car wrecks on the 99 and 152 corridors, dog bites, slip-and-falls, and wrongful-death claims an insurer would rather settle cheap or not at all. Karan speaks English, Hindi, and Punjabi, and the firm offers services in Spanish, so you can explain what happened in your own words.
Consultations are free. If you've been charged with a crime or injured by someone else's carelessness in Merced County, call 209-809-1634 before you talk to police or sign anything an adjuster hands you.