I am not sure about where this happened but in most cases in Chicago IL if it is a first time offender they will get a light sentence if they plead guilty to a lesser crime usually the equivalent to a parking ticket and many times if they spent a day or so waiting to be bailed out they consider that time served. I am not a lawyer or in law enforcement, just witnessed many different cases while in a courtroom.

hmmm, not good for her, however, a decent attorney could spin a claim that she was self medicating b/c of the epilepsy and she might have a chance

If it is her first involvement with the criminal system they might go easy. Different jurisdictions different policies I would suppose. Here a suspended sentence with some form of probation might be the result.

not entirely fair to portray all legal aid attorneys as worthless. Depending on region, legal aid jobs are some of the hardest to get and subject to intense competition from highly motivated intelligent people who actually want to help other people.

I say this because my sister, a lawyer in NYC went through about 2 years of an application process to get into a legal aid job.

She said it was way harder and way more competitive to get into this job than applying to a much better paying (like 3 times the salary) corporate job at some of the top firms in town.

The legal aid jobs are low paying, but are subject to intense competition because of court time and actual trial practice as a lawyer, which you will see a lot of, and there are usually limited positions and money for such jobs.

All this said, this is in NYC where there are dozens or legal aid lawyers based on the population, locally where I live I believe there are like 5 in the whole state, which has one 10th the population of NYC. In benhogans region could be a completely different standard of quality, but I wouldn't write off all court appointed lawyers simply because they happen to be court appointed.

Wow! That hit me hard. The poor girl is already challenged in life without dealing with this. That sheds a different light on it.

I don't know that much about all the issues except that if someone is indeed addicted, they have to get cleaned up one way or the other. That is what led to my comment about there possibly being some good in the situation for her.

I wish her all the best of luck. I wish I could help.

Where did this come from???:confused:

Self medication is I think at the root of a lot of drug abuse. Maybe she could spin this herself. Not much of a stretch.

right you are: lots of diagnosed and undiagnosed mental illneeses and physicall afflictions drive folk to self medicate...

Another vote for a private attorney. Perhaps call around and ask if one would do the gig pro bono...

A common drug used for epelepsy is dialaudid, which is basically like heroin. Did she have health coverage when she was self medicating? If not That would put a good spin on it.

holy crap, did not know that. had a friend that got sort of hooked on dialaudid a long time back....

It's morphine derived.
If she's a diagnosed epileptic and has no insurance she can make herself a good case.

Hogan, you getting all this?

I'm not sure if anyone else here has actually practiced law, or are just throwing out the typical opinions, popular or otherwise.

I can tell you that every public defender I know is 1) very dedicated and 2) hopelessly overworked. (They are not at all like the buffoon caricature in My Cousin Vinny.) At a very minimum, they will seek to ensure that the defendant's rights are not trampled on and that the state does it's job without railroading the defendant. That said, most cases plead out at one level or another.

Heroin is not like pot. Most jurisdictions still treat it seriously, like a dangerous, debilitating, illegal narcotic, which it is. Dependency typically leads to other criminal activities as well. Which means that unless she has an otherwise spotless record, the PA is likely to be pressing for a harsher sentence.

There is nothing at all wrong with letting a PD go to bat for her initially. However, she is going to have to be extremely motivated (and appear sincere in that desire) to get clean and stay clean, find honest, legal work, etc...in other words, to be rehabilitated and not just rehabbed off the smack. If that's the case and the PD meets with her and then the PA and the PA is playing hardball, then you can pool together funds for a private attorney. (Just because you start with a PD doesn't mean you can't hire someone later.) On the other hand, if she seems sincere and the PA isn't a ****, then the PD can put together a workable plea deal and it's not going to be vastly different than what a private attorney would manage. In that case the money saved from the private attorney can be put towards a rehab program.

That's my .02. I wish you all well as you wander these paths.

Great advice. The PD will probaly have done some ground work that can be given to a private attorney. According to my poker buddy's that is where the money is at.