Legal Question in Criminal Law in California

That depends on when the preliminary hearing is. If it's Monday, August 24th, I would not advise it. How is a new lawyer going to be prepared by then? A better move would be to stay with the PD until the prelim is done and then get a private lawyer.

I am not saying that the Prelim is not an important stage. Ideally, you would have your lawyer of choice well before the prelim, but most judges won't continue a prelim ON THE DAY OF THE PRELIM so the accused can change lawyers. It comes off looking like a stalling mechanism.

Now, if you have a week and your lawyer appears in court to substitute in before the prelim, or at least in time to notify the witnesses not to waste a trip, then you have a chance. If it were me, I would call the D.A. and tell him we intend to sub into the case and ask him to call off his witnesses. They sometimes agree. If he does, well then the judge has little choice, doesn't he?

I am from Marin County, but do accept certain cases in Sacramento. If you want to review my history and qualifications, you can go here:

http://dinday.com/results.htm

or call me for a free consultation.

Public Defenders ARE attorneys, but they are paid by the government to represent people who can't afford to hire a lawyer themselves.

Judges are required to give a defendant a reasonable opportunity to hire his own lawyer, but a judge is unlikely to continue a case if the new lawyer just shows up at the time of a preliminary hearing where witnesses are already present.

A prelminary hearing is sort of a mini-trial where the judge decides if there's enough evidence for the persecution to go forward. Except in complex cases, they rarely last more than a couple of hours.

Even if a judge would allow it, most attorneys wouldn't want to walk into a preliminary hearing that was already underway. It would be almost impossible to do a decent job if you weren't involved in the whole thing.