Hi, thanks for taking the time to read this.
The other night some friends were making a trip to the grocery store to get cigerettes and I decided to tag along. I should probably note that I was *slightly* intoxicated.
Now, I get up for work in the morning every day at 3:45am so while they went in, I decided to sleep in the back of the car, when suddenly, nature called. Due to my urgent need to pee as well as how tired I was, I decided that, since we were in a virtually empty parking lot at quarter till midnight, I would just go behind the car. Like I said, it was the middle of the night and I made sure no one was around.
After I finished up and started to get back in the car, a light shone on me and police officer drives up and tells me to come over. He says, "If there is a puddle of piss behind that car, I am taking you to ****ing jail for peeing in public". I told him there was no need to go look, that I had urinated.
At this point he asked me how much I had to drink, and I told him one or two beers, which was true. This made me nervous as I am only 18, but he made no other comment as to my underage drinking, nor did he make me take a breathalizer or administer a field sobriety test.
So the police officer writes me up a ticket, but instead of public urination, or something of the like, he gives me a code 315 PC - Indecent Exposure, which was somewhat shocking to me. I had "exposed" myself to no one. There wasn't even anyone around (except the police officer who must have been lurking around somewhere). I was under the impression that indecent exposure is done with the intent to annoy or shock, and entails to exposing one's person TO someone, or in an openly public place. I of course did not intend to annoy or shock anyone, and had anyone been around, they would have only seen my hands.
This is my first offense and I am bewildered as to what to do. I have a preliminary court date in about a month. It seems to me like indecent exposure is too harsh a violation, also I really don't want an indecent exposure on my record, so what would you recommend I do? Is there something less serious like public urination I could fight for? What are the odds that it gets dropped completely? And what do I at the preliminary court date?
Also, I am working on EXTREMELY limited funds, and IF I did get a fine, that would probably be all of the money I have. Are public defenders available in a trial this minor?
One last question. If I DO choose to contest, is there any possibility that I might get in trouble for being drunk as well, even though I didn't get cited for that, and there was no testing done?
Well, thanks for you help, I appreciate it.

