Jessica Ruth Newhart

I had Ms. Newhart as a public defender in 2014. My original charge was felony false reporting. The only reason that I used a public defender was that the case against me was almost nothing. The prosecution had no evidence, only a single "eyewit ess" who I had never seen in my life, but claimed he kne...w me. I consulted with another attorney, and he said that any public defender should be able to get the case dismissed at the preliminary hearing before it got bound over to the grand jury. The court appointed Ms. Newhart as my public defender at my arraignment. When I met with her after my arraignment, she was rude and cut me off in the middle of speaking to her. I only met with her one time before my preliminary hearing for less than a half hour. She said that she had everything she needed for my case. At the preliminary hearing, the only witness that the prosecution had was put on the stand. She asked him a few questions and didn't argue with anything that he said, just accepted it as truth and said she was finished. The witness said he saw me running at full speed from the scene of the crime, even though I was recovering from a serious car accident at the time. My back was broken in five places and my hips were broken in four places just a few months prior to the supposed incident. She never mentioned this in my preliminary hearing. Needless to say, my case was bound over to the grand jury. I paid Matt King $5,000 to take my case from there. My charges were dismissed within 3 months of hiring him due to lack of evidence. The district attorney had offered me a plea bargain before my preliminary hearing which would've dropped my charge from a class c felony to the lowest class of misdemeanor. I would've only had six months of unsupervised probation and a $10 fine. They knew they had no case against me, as did Mr. King, who was the attorney that I consulted with first. Her rudeness and lack of concern has me seriously worried about anyone else that she represents in the future who is facing serious charges.