Q: How should I plea for shoplifting charge and how do I get a public defender? I'm 18 and will be turning 19 in a little under two weeks. I got caught shoplifting a pair of grey jeans priced at $17.95 and they called the cops who told me I was no longer allowed to return to that particular H&M permanently. Also, they did tell me I was arrested and gave me a notice to appear and then let me go. I am planning on taking a shoplifting course before my court date but I want to know do I get a public defender before my court date? Also how should I plead? Considering the undercover security said he saw me put the jeans in my purse. Is there any way to get this removed from my records, considering I go to school full-time and have good grades. Will they notify my job about this? Lastly, what should I expect as a punishment? I understand what I did was wrong and i am sorry.
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Answered . As to what will happen to you: If this is your first offense then it is almost certain that you will be eligible for a diversionary program. Diversion is a program which is designed to make you think twice about future criminality by way of making you jump through a series of proverbial hoops during a period of supervision, successful completion of which results in a dismissal. The program is owned and operated by the State Attorney's Office and they have absolute and unequivocal discretion as to whether to admit you, keep you or "graduate" you from their program. That said, the question is whether or not diversion is right for you. There may or may not be viable defenses to the charges, affirmative or otherwise, or there may be factual, legal, procedural or substantive mechanisms by which to attack and beat the charges without going through diversion.
The best way for you to get competent advise is going to be to have a face-to-face meeting with a criminal defense lawyer who can follow-up on your information with questions of her/his own, as well as review the police reports and citations and then offer an informed opinion.
As to your record: Expunction is available in a case which was dismissed, nolle pros'd, no actioned or where you were found to have been not guilty. In Florida you can only expunge one eligible (non-disqualified) offense in your lifetime.
If you look at the following website you will learn everything you ever wanted to know about the expunction process:
The best way for you to get competent advise is going to be to have a face-to-face meeting with a criminal defense lawyer who can follow-up on your information with questions of her/his own, as well as review the police reports and citations and then offer an informed opinion.
As to your record: Expunction is available in a case which was dismissed, nolle pros'd, no actioned or where you were found to have been not guilty. In Florida you can only expunge one eligible (non-disqualified) offense in your lifetime.
If you look at the following website you will learn everything you ever wanted to know about the expunction process:
Please see: http://www.fdle.state.fl.us/content/getdoc/c83dd888-ef7a-448e-9a96-ba69fc4181f7/Seal-and-Expunge-Home.aspx
The procedure is both quite detailed and somewhat painstaking but is also far from being rocket science. You can attempt to navigate it yourself (FDLE has tried to simplify it - again I refer you to the website above) but, assuming your eligibility, any criminal defense lawyer (anywhere in Florida - this can be done remotely and does not necessarily require a local attorney, although a local attorney may or may not be less expensive) will be able to accomplish the task with greater ease and likely in a shorter time period.
That said I suspect that it doesn't much matter where you were arrested, what you were arrested for, what the final disposition was or whether or not you expunged the record. This is 2013 and we are forehead deep into the internet age, where nothing is private, sacred or truly hidden from public scrutiny.
Sadly, expunging only applies to certain (not even to all) government agencies and has no effect whatsoever on private (er, extortionist) enterprise, who compile and maintain arrest information and then demand that you pay them off to remove your information from their database and public access. Worse still, after you "buy back your information", then you can count on there being another private company lurking, somewhere, sometime, somehow, just waiting for you to pay them off as well. Its a seemingly never-ending vicious cycle.
While it is most unlikely that anyone will call either your school or your employer about this, your arrest (even though you did not go to jail you were technically arrested) it is a matter of public record, for better or for worse you are probably best advised to take the wind out of the sails by admitting your past issues / indiscretions to your present (or potential) employer, landlord, etcetera, rather than waiting for them to find out on their own.
Finally, you shouldn't be making admissions on line (please see my disclaimer below) - anything you type can be admitted into evidence against you as an admission against your own interest in a subsequent legal proceeding.
Although I practice primarily in Miami-Dade County you are welcome to contact my office for a referral or two, or you can search either Avvo or the Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers website by locality (please seehttp://www.facdl.org/ - and click on the "Find A Lawyer" tab).
First, second and third: No attorney-client relationship exists by virtue of any Q&A with Michael A. Haber, Esq. on Avvo. Fourth: Anything that you post on Avvo (or on similar sites) or on any social media is by its nature public. It is essentially an admission / confession and can be introduced into evidence as a statement against your interest in a subsequent legal proceeding. Once posted you lose any reasonable expectation of privacy, so, as this is an open forum (with no privilege attached), please be extra careful when considering what to post online (forewarned is forearmed.)
At Michael A. Haber, P.A. the goals in representing folks are A) to be honest and realistic about litigation objectives; B) to be fair in regard to fees; C) to be consistently available and responsive to the client (in person, by phone call, text, email, Facebook. Twitter and otherwise); D) to keep the client informed; and E) to secure your positive feedback / client review at the conclusion of each case.
At Michael A. Haber, P.A. "Its all about reasonable doubt"!
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