Alcohol & Drugs: DUI, DWI Ofa

[ozellaozone]

My son, who is 18, was arrested for posession of marijuana under 1/2oz, paraphernalia, DUI and underage DUI. This was his first offense, not that I am making any excuses for him. He spent 3 days in jail and was scheduled to be in court in Dec 2007. We asked for a continuance because his court date fell on the date we had planned our first family trip in 20years. The court gave a continuance and rescheduled for Jan 7. My son wrote the date down as Jan 9th and when we went to court on Jan 9 his name was not on the schedule so we had to go to the 6th floor, see a judge and received another continuance to Feb 4th. On Feb 4th we went to court. We spoke to the D.A. explaining my son has since enlisted with the Marines and was there anyway he would be able to make boot camp on March 8th. He agreed that if he plead guilty, he would consolidate the charges give him time served as long as the judge agreed. The judge agreed and we asked the officer of the court was that was all and they said yes so we left.

I received a call the other day from an officer in the county we used to live in and he said that there was a warrant for my son for a failure to appear. After many, many calls we found out that two of the four charges had a letter missing in my sons last name and therefore were not taken care of at the time we were in court. My question is should I hire a lawyer? Are they going to put my son in jail when I take him to the Magistrate? My husband and I have had one financial hit after the other and our savings is depleted. Of course I would do anything for my children but the lawyer said it would cost $850 cash to take care of this and that doesn't include court costs or fines given.

The Marine recruiter has changed his boot camp date to March 17th so that maybe we can get this settled.

Any opinion would be greatly appreciated.

Stephany

 

[seniorjudge]

What is your legal question for us?

 

[mattw]

why dont you talk to the public defender he is assigned to first to see what they say, before you hire a high priced attorney

 

[ozellaozone]

My son has not been assigned a public defender. He would have to go to the Magistrate, go to jail if they send him, wait for a court date to be assigned a public defender. All of this takes time and we are trying to get this handled so that he can still enter boot camp in March. I have since spoken to another attorney who says this would cost $1500. He says there is a lot of work to do getting the judge to resind the OFA, talking to the DA and trying to get a quick court date. He also said he will probaly have to spend more time in jail, and community service. I just don't understand all of the jail time when it is his first time ever getting into any trouble. It seems like there are people with more charges that seem to get a slap on the wrist. Thank you for your responses. It looks as though we will have to hire an attorney and ride this one out.