First off, I want to thank whoever is taking their time to read my whole story, because every detail matters.
The other day, my friends and I went to the mall. My guy friend is exceptionally rich and had his father's credit card, so we didn't have any trouble with money. He had purchased me a very large bag that I was going to use for my schoolbooks, so I carried with me the rest of the day. Before leaving the mall, one of my friends went to the bathroom while my other friend and I went into a store called The Icing. He wanted to get his ears pierced (hadn't decided whether both, one ear or his cartlidge) but since he is under 18 he couldn't get it done at the shop. After this, he decided he would pierce his ears himself so we took a look at some jewelry. The earrings came on plastic packs of 6 or more earrings so we would take them off and hold them up to his ears to see how it would look, and then return them on the packs (each pack was worth about a lousy $6.50). We decided the earrings we were looking at were too cheap and since I have my ears pierced, I had infections from these earrings before. As he looked around for different earrings, I had to go to the restroom and started to leave the store. A woman working there stopped me and asked me to return the merchandise I had stolen. I was confused, but confident because I hadn't taken anything so cooperatively looked through my bag and took everything out to show her. But, she pointed out at the bottom of the bag was a small hoop earring. The woman asked me to return the earring where it belonged, but I had no idea where it came from so I couldn't really give her an answer. She found a pack of earrings it "came" from and had the cops called. She accused my other friend to have stolen merchandise so we were taken down the the securty office. The police came, searched us both and found nothing. We are both being charged for shoplifting and don't know our court dates. I wanted to know if it's even worth a lawyer, or if the court would understand that it was just a misunderstanding and misplacement of the earring and I had no idea how it got in my bag. What exactly will happen to me if I am considered guilty? I am 14 so I will be going to juvenille court and I live in the state of Ohio.

