Legal Question in Criminal Law in California

Tell the court you can't afford to hire a lawyer. It will appoint a public defender to represent you. Do *not* try to defend yourself. Don't even do anything preliminary. And don't discuss the case with the police, the prosecutor or anyone else.

Good luck.

The arraignment is an important stage in the case against you. It is the proceeding where you are formally informed of the charges against you.

If you cannot afford to hire a lawyer, and you are charged with a felony or misdemeanor, you have a right to an attorney at government expense. Tell the judge at your first court date that you would like a public defender. Public defenders are lawyers paid by the county.

The people who say you would already be in prison if there was sufficient evidence apparently don't understand why we have courts, judges, lawyers and trials. Before a defendant can be sent to prison, he or she must be convicted, either by entering a plea or because they went to trial, where the District Attorney proved beyond a reasonable doubt they committed the crime. Not everyone convicted of a felony goes to prison, either; many of them get probation.

Of all the faulty reasoning I ever see by people asking legal questions, "I don't need a lawyer because I'm innocent" is the hardest to fathom. Those are the people who need a lawyer the MOST.