Who posted bail? / Readiness hearing??

What is the name of your state? CA

We are trying to find out who posted bail on a felony charge for a friend who is mildly mentally retarded. The clerk said there's no access to this info and his assigned PD isn't returning our calls. Is there any way to get this info???

Also, he has a 'readiness hearing' on Friday. What is this?

They can't give you information as a "friend." Get your friend a lawyer.

A readiness conference assures that all the pretrial motions and discovery has been satisfied and sets the date for trial. Your friend should have a lawyer (either PD or otherwise) long before it gets to this state.

'friend' has a public defender

This 'friend' was one of my special ed kids when he was in high school. His assigned public defender is not returning my calls or his sister's calls. I took all his records down on the day of his arraingment and gave them to the public defender who was there. At that time he thanked me profusely and said someone would be calling me to discuss them, but no one has. Shouldn't this have been done then before the readiness hearing, which is tomorrow? Anyway, thank you very much for taking the time to comment.

If public defenders returned the phone calls of concerned friends and relatives, then that is all they would get done.

Go to the readiness hearing and see what you can find out.

jusuni2 said:

This 'friend' was one of my special ed kids when he was in high school. His assigned public defender is not returning my calls or his sister's calls.

Click to expand...

Unless you or sister has guardianship, the lawyer has no business talking to you unless the friend authorizes it.

In addition to the lack of standing, it may be that the issue of the defendant's mental capacity is no an issue here. Being "mildly" retarded implies being at least functional. If the nature of the offense is one that the defendant should have known was a crime, or DID know was a crime, then the issue becomes even less important.

Only the defense attorney would seem to be in the best position to evaluate the case. And, unless his sister has guardianship over the defendant, the defense attorney is generally precluded from discussing details of the case even to her.

- Carl