My question involves criminal law for the state of: California.
So I joined this forum in seek of help and advice. I'm not going to sit here and lie and say that I didn't attempt to shoplift. I was with a friend, it was a spur of the moment thing, we were both caught, and it was a stupid idea that just seemed so easy at the time.
So, my friend was a minor, I'm 18 years old, this happened in early September, I was handcuffed and taken to the police station in the mall. I was given a ticket that says Misdemeanor for Petty Theft. I was supposed to go to court by a certain date, did and they said that they hadn't filed anything, but to call back in 1~2 weeks to check again, and when I did they told me that I had a court date for February, which is next month. I received a letter a few days after this call as well, so that's that.
I haven't spoken to my friend since, but anyway, I'm here to ask basically, what I should do when I get to court?
I've had one previous ticket for driving without a license, but I have already resolved that is out of the way, should I get a public defender? I have a part time job and go to college as well, I recently just started working a few days ago so I'm going to save as much money as I can for the public defender+the charges I'm most likely going to get, but I'm not sure exactly what I should do, should I try to get it expunged from my record? Can I even do that? Is it expensive? Because I'm not sure my mother is going to help me out with paying for anything, my dad doesn't know because we are not on speaking terms, but I don't want this to affect any future employment from when I get my degree and so-on. I know what I did was wrong, and it's the worst way to face reality, especially when you're seen as the "good kid". But anyway,
Does a misdemeanor stay on your record? What advice do some of you have for me?
I'm sorry for all these questions, I'm not sure how I could make this post shorter without putting all the information I could. I'm trying not to stress out about this because I have a lot of other things to worry about but I don't want to go in there blindly.
Thank you very much ahead of time for any help/advice given.

