PasstheDip
Junior Member
What is the name of your state? West Virginia (That is the state in which I was given a citation and the state to which I am returning to appear in court, I live in Virginia)
The fall break for my college (I am 19 and a sophomore) was several weeks ago and a friend of mine whom I had known since high school asked if I wanted to go camping along with her and several friends that she had recently met at school. I agreed because we would just be going for one night and coming back the next day (she had work and I had to study for classes), while everyone else would be staying from Thursday night all the way until Sunday. I had never met any of them before but because I had known this girl for so long and held her in a very high regard I did not think twice about the trip. After a 5 hour drive we were about 30 minutes away from the campsite when the automatic transmission on her car exploded transmission fluid all over the road and permanently disconnected itself from the engine. We were in an area of no cell phone service (deep in the mountains of West Virginia) and were quite worried until a car finally pulled over to help. It turns out that the car was one of the two other cars carrying the group we were meeting at the campsite. After transferring our belongings we proceeded to the campgrounds. As soon as we got there it became evident that there was going to be drinking and smoking (not cigarettes). I am not going to claim I have never drank before, but I was in the middle of nowhere with no cell phone service and therefore not to keen on putting myself in such a position. Also, because my friends's car had broken down (she would later have it towed and junk it because the cost of the repairs would outweigh the value of the car) and the rest of the group was not planning on leaving until the end of the weekend, I was stranded. While everyone else sat around drinking and smoking pot I stayed up all night with 2 others from the group collecting firewood and hiking to the tallest point of the mountain so we could watch the sun rise (it was beautiful). Upon our return I did not want to enter either of the tents because everyone was huddled in them drinking and smoking so I climbed into one of their cars and went to sleep. I was woken up at 6pm by a park ranger who immediately informed me he was searching because he had found drugs and alcohol in the campsite. He asked me if I had been drinking with everyone else and I replied, "No." He responded with a very harsh and sarcastic, "Yeah, right..." that caught me off guard and gave me the impression that no matter what I said he would not believe me. When asked what I was doing in the car I told him I was sleeping, and he asked me if I was sure I didn't mean, "passing out." Two state troopers also came but told us they were not going to take any action and it was completely up to the park ranger as to what would happen. He didn't write everyone in the group a citation for a minor in possession charge though. The person who he found the marijuana on was only written up for marijuana possesion. One person had fireworks in his car and so was only written a citation for having illegal firewords. Also, the way the campground worked was that there was a donation box that you were required to make a payment in to stay there, we had not put money in yet and I believe the group was going to pay depending on what day they left. He asked one person to come forward and volunteer to take the charge for this and so one person had the alcohol charge dropped in lieu of the charge for that (I am sorry for being very vague about this particular aspect but I had my mind on my own affairs at that time and do not remember the exact charge that person was cited for). I also apologize for writing such a lengthy post but because I do not have prior experiance with the law I am not sure what pieces of information are and are not crucial to constructing a case either for or against myself. Also, on my citation the ranger wrote my name incorrectly (he swapped my first and last names; e.g. if my name was Bob Allen on the citation it reads Allen Bob) and he misspelled the street in my address. Once again I don't know if this information is at all pertinent to my case I am just trying to give you as much information as possible. We got there Thursday night, this happened Friday evening, and as soon as the ranger left the whole group decided to pack up and head back to school. I am pre-med and I do very well in school and I can't have anything on my record during the medical school application process so the very next day I drafted up and mailed a letter to the address on my citation asking for a court date so I could fight the charge. I am just wondering if anyone has experianced anything similar to me or if anyone is familiar enough with this to give me an idea of what my chances are of getting the charge dropped. I have to appear in U.S. District Court before a federal magistrate, so if anyone could give me and idea of what to expect I would appreciate that as well. Also, do I need to higher an attorney? I am strapped for cash and though my parents would probably be more than happy to provide me with the money I would need I feel slightly embarrassed asking for that in a situation I got myself into like this and would prefer it if I could defend myself (my uncle is a lawyer practicing in the same city I go to school and would be more than happy to help me prepare for my court date). I have reviewed many of the posts on this board to see if there were situations similar to mine and found none. Also, I notice many comments informing the posters of the poor life choices they made. I am very smart and I understand completely what a stupid stupid decision I made so I would prefer it if you kept snide remarks like "Find better friends" or anything like that to yourself and only reply to this post if you have constructive comments to make. Also, please dont start quoting areas of my post that contain improper grammer, typos, or spelling errors and use them to try and detract from either my education or intelligence. I typed this post up at 6 in the morning and don't care enough to go back and proof read it just so I can remove a comma somewhere and perhaps change something from passive to active voice. Thank you very much and I truly appreciate any help or advice anyone can offer me.
-Wrong Place Wrong Time
The fall break for my college (I am 19 and a sophomore) was several weeks ago and a friend of mine whom I had known since high school asked if I wanted to go camping along with her and several friends that she had recently met at school. I agreed because we would just be going for one night and coming back the next day (she had work and I had to study for classes), while everyone else would be staying from Thursday night all the way until Sunday. I had never met any of them before but because I had known this girl for so long and held her in a very high regard I did not think twice about the trip. After a 5 hour drive we were about 30 minutes away from the campsite when the automatic transmission on her car exploded transmission fluid all over the road and permanently disconnected itself from the engine. We were in an area of no cell phone service (deep in the mountains of West Virginia) and were quite worried until a car finally pulled over to help. It turns out that the car was one of the two other cars carrying the group we were meeting at the campsite. After transferring our belongings we proceeded to the campgrounds. As soon as we got there it became evident that there was going to be drinking and smoking (not cigarettes). I am not going to claim I have never drank before, but I was in the middle of nowhere with no cell phone service and therefore not to keen on putting myself in such a position. Also, because my friends's car had broken down (she would later have it towed and junk it because the cost of the repairs would outweigh the value of the car) and the rest of the group was not planning on leaving until the end of the weekend, I was stranded. While everyone else sat around drinking and smoking pot I stayed up all night with 2 others from the group collecting firewood and hiking to the tallest point of the mountain so we could watch the sun rise (it was beautiful). Upon our return I did not want to enter either of the tents because everyone was huddled in them drinking and smoking so I climbed into one of their cars and went to sleep. I was woken up at 6pm by a park ranger who immediately informed me he was searching because he had found drugs and alcohol in the campsite. He asked me if I had been drinking with everyone else and I replied, "No." He responded with a very harsh and sarcastic, "Yeah, right..." that caught me off guard and gave me the impression that no matter what I said he would not believe me. When asked what I was doing in the car I told him I was sleeping, and he asked me if I was sure I didn't mean, "passing out." Two state troopers also came but told us they were not going to take any action and it was completely up to the park ranger as to what would happen. He didn't write everyone in the group a citation for a minor in possession charge though. The person who he found the marijuana on was only written up for marijuana possesion. One person had fireworks in his car and so was only written a citation for having illegal firewords. Also, the way the campground worked was that there was a donation box that you were required to make a payment in to stay there, we had not put money in yet and I believe the group was going to pay depending on what day they left. He asked one person to come forward and volunteer to take the charge for this and so one person had the alcohol charge dropped in lieu of the charge for that (I am sorry for being very vague about this particular aspect but I had my mind on my own affairs at that time and do not remember the exact charge that person was cited for). I also apologize for writing such a lengthy post but because I do not have prior experiance with the law I am not sure what pieces of information are and are not crucial to constructing a case either for or against myself. Also, on my citation the ranger wrote my name incorrectly (he swapped my first and last names; e.g. if my name was Bob Allen on the citation it reads Allen Bob) and he misspelled the street in my address. Once again I don't know if this information is at all pertinent to my case I am just trying to give you as much information as possible. We got there Thursday night, this happened Friday evening, and as soon as the ranger left the whole group decided to pack up and head back to school. I am pre-med and I do very well in school and I can't have anything on my record during the medical school application process so the very next day I drafted up and mailed a letter to the address on my citation asking for a court date so I could fight the charge. I am just wondering if anyone has experianced anything similar to me or if anyone is familiar enough with this to give me an idea of what my chances are of getting the charge dropped. I have to appear in U.S. District Court before a federal magistrate, so if anyone could give me and idea of what to expect I would appreciate that as well. Also, do I need to higher an attorney? I am strapped for cash and though my parents would probably be more than happy to provide me with the money I would need I feel slightly embarrassed asking for that in a situation I got myself into like this and would prefer it if I could defend myself (my uncle is a lawyer practicing in the same city I go to school and would be more than happy to help me prepare for my court date). I have reviewed many of the posts on this board to see if there were situations similar to mine and found none. Also, I notice many comments informing the posters of the poor life choices they made. I am very smart and I understand completely what a stupid stupid decision I made so I would prefer it if you kept snide remarks like "Find better friends" or anything like that to yourself and only reply to this post if you have constructive comments to make. Also, please dont start quoting areas of my post that contain improper grammer, typos, or spelling errors and use them to try and detract from either my education or intelligence. I typed this post up at 6 in the morning and don't care enough to go back and proof read it just so I can remove a comma somewhere and perhaps change something from passive to active voice. Thank you very much and I truly appreciate any help or advice anyone can offer me.
-Wrong Place Wrong Time
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