Guilty By Association?

A friend of mine was pulled over while driving a borrowed vehicle, which was owned by a known drug dealer. When they searched the vehicle, they found a pinner joint under the passenger side seat and my friend had a pack of Zig Zag rolling papers in her pocket. (She smokes the roll-your-own cigarettes). The owner of the vehicle went with her to talk to the prosecuting attorney and admitted that the joint and the papers were his and that the vehicle was also his. They offered her a deal to plead guilty to false information to a police officer and they would drop the drug charge and the paraphenelia charge (for the papers). The false information charge was based on this:
She denied that the joint was hers and the policeman told her that she was responsible for anything in any vehicle she is driving, so she said, "Well then I guess it is mine." When she was supposed to go to trial, they switched judges on her at the last minute. Can they do that? Also, she told her court appointed public defender that she didn't want her to represent her because she hadn't done anything in her favor. The defender got angry and removed herself from the case which caused the trial to be postponed for 30 days. Also, the new judge that they brought in had filed false extreme DUI charges on her a few years before when he was a prosecuting attorney. She also believes that he has mistaken her for someone else, because he accused her of being married to someone who she's never even heard of and when she denied it, he more or less called her a liar. He also stated that she and her daughter had appeared before him two weeks earlier, but she or her daughter have never been in front of him as a judge before. But when she denied it and tried to tell him that he was mistaking her for someone else, he yelled at her to shut up and basically treated her like a piece of s**t. He accused her of being in court a lot, which is also not true, since she has never been in trouble for anything before except when she went to court for the false DUI.
The judge also made her and the guy with her publically apologize to the public defender or else go to jail immediately. My friend feels like this judge is very predjudiced against her for the false charges from before. And why was he suddenly brought in when the other judge was right there in the court room? She is looking at anywhere from 6 months jail time to 3 or more years in prison for these charges and all she did was borrow the wrong person's car. She doesn't even know why they pulled her over. Something about sitting too long at a stop sign at 1:30 in the morning. Any advice you can give would be highly appreciated. One more thing, she has a seventeen year old son who was on probation on a criminal damage charge, and when she was charged with this, the Juvenile probation people snatched her son and they have since sent him to a Phoenix prison for Juveniles because as they stated in his paperwork, "they don't want him to be around his mother", until he is 18 years old. How can that be right? They are punishing him for his mothers charges, which she is obviously not guilty of because the person responsible came forward and claimed responsibility. So why are they not dropping the charges? This case is in Bullhead City, Arizona, just for the record.

...get counsel involved--you may be able to change the judge if so many errors and incorrect statements were made.

And have counsel negotiate some kind of deal or dismissal on this; we would not think they really want to try this case as sloppy as it all appears to be...

Contact WLD lawyers if you have trouble arranging counsel. They will help direct you as well.

[DebLeppard]

So then is it legal for them to change judges on the day of the trial without her having requested it or even knowing that they were planning to do that? Especially when the judge who had been handling the case from the git-go was right there in the courtroom. Also, why do you suppose they did that?

There needs to be some reason and you may ask that the reason be stated on the record...

[viperxxxxxxx2003]

fact is i have found out that money talks, shouldnt but it does... my friends public defender told her to shut up crying your not 16... no way to talk to a deeply depressed girl facing 16 years.. i spent money and called a good lawyer who is going to see her next tuesday shes no money im not wealthy but if i have to put my house on the market i will.