Not really related to the topic but just thought I’d share for anyone interested in the US legal system and how fucked it is. My sophomore year of college I got charged for a minor in consumption and possession of paraphernalia for a bong (even longer more bs story if anyone wants to hear it). I luckily lived in the only county in my state where possession of paraphernalia wasn’t a felony and only a misdemeanor. I show up to my first court date to meet with a judge over a tv (this was years before quarantine) and he basically just asked me about the situation and if I wanted a public defender or if I had my own. As a broke college student who comes from a poor family I asked for a public defender and got my next court date. Some time passes and I show up to my next court date and they eventually call us in the courtroom. I sit down in front of the judge and the trial or whatever starts and I ask about my public defender because it was just me at my table and the prosecutors at the table next to me. They basically told me that since I wasn’t facing jail time (because it wasn’t a felony in my county) I didn’t have access to a public defender which caught me totally off guard since I was expecting the charges to be dropped with the minimal/free legal assistance I could get as the whole situation was total bs.I ended up having to accept a plea deal which consisted of 4 months unsupervised probation and a $500 fine to get all charges dropped or scrubbed from my record. At the end of the day I made it out all good and got everything dropped but was just total bs that I showed up to my trial expecting a public defender and found out I was on my own as the trial started for a total bs situation in the first place