Next time your son goes to court, he needs to address the judge and ask to be assigned to a new public defender as he hasn't been able to get ahold of them to discuss his case.

You might just be stuck with the one you have. The Public Defenders, or as my sons calls them the "Public Pretender", are over worked and under staffed. We are in Fl, but I'm sure it's the same all over. My son's PD is the same way. You would need a very good reason to get another PD.

His PD is not part of the PD office, he is a sub contractor basically. He is an attorney that the court hires whenever they need him.
The issues are that he has no idea when his next court date is, and when he went for his first court date, he found out they dropped 3 of the 4 charges, no idea why. Also when he did actually talk to his lawyer, he told my son that he was on vacation and that he was handed the case after the court date, then he said that since he was on vacation when my son had his court date he asked someone else to stand in for him. The same lawyer told me he had just gotten back from handling a case in Texas. I am beginning to think that if we cannot get someone else, my son is really screwed.

Was his first court date the pre arraignment or pac?

What's a PAC? All I know right now is that the judge read off the charges and he plead not guilty.
He finally talked to his lawyer today. He said he's been out of town on another federal case, he just got some info about his case, but he hasn't looked it all over yet. Then he told my son that he will come see him either Thursday or sometime early next week and that they will go over everything so my son can tell him what he needs to read and what he can just ignore??? He also told him that his secretary doesn't accept the calls from inmates when he is not in the office because she has nothing to tell them and that the calls are recorded by the facility (they get the same recorded message that everyone else gets about the call being from a correction facility and subject to being monitored and recorded).

They are not allowed to record conversations with attorneys, or censor mail, or record visits...

PAC is pre arraignment conference, it's where plea deals are made and you find out what evidence or lack there of the prosecutor has.

Thoughtasweak, That's what I always thought, but according to his lawyer when his office gets calls from inmates she hears the same message we hear, about the call being subject to recording and monitoring. When he was in Ohio, I think they had separate phones for calls to lawyers.

frogpond1, Thanks for the explanation. In that case it was definitely not a PAC. We have no idea what evidence they have, or why they dropped 3 out of 4 charges.

The only court date I've had was when I turned myself in and there was no plea entered just bail set. Supposedly the next date I'd for my PAC but we'll see what happens.

Well, my son finally got to meet his lawyer. He told my son that he won't get more time tacked on, and that he is 75% sure he will be able to get the remaining charge dismissed. He also said that he is going to get this handled as quickly as possible so they can send him back this way, closer to home. He's also going to get the power of attorney form notarized for us.
So, we will see.

Kitty96 here is a better explanation as to what a PAC is in the state of RI, about halfway down; http://www.ripd.org/Handbook/chbProcedure.htm

frogpond1, thanks for the info.

Now my son's lawyer is asking me to send the judgement from the case here, the pre-sentence report, and the indictment paperwork. He has also called his lawyer here and requested papers from her. She told me that she told him a few times that everything he wants he can get on line. She told me to keep an eye on him, he sounds old, and she has had the same conversation with him a few times. She didn't say it, but I think she thinks he is getting senile. She also told me not to send him anything, that she would mail him everything he needs. The thing is I already told him that I would send him what I had and that the lawyer here would send him the rest. I think I am going to send the stuff tomorrow. I am kind of hoping it's just that he can't get the stuff on line because he is not very internet savvy, but doesn't want to admit it, (and his secretary just had a death in the family, so she is out right now). I do know he is an older gentleman, and he still uses aol for his email. He told me on the phone today that he is hoping to match up the time lines??? He is hoping he can get the case dismissed because my son was already charged and convicted here during the same time frame, then he said he's hoping to prove double jeopardy. The thing is the charges in Montana are different, so I guess we will see.
I did ask the lawyer here if in her personal opinion, my son should request a new lawyer, but she said "it's too early to tell", and "not yet"

Just my two cents but matching up the time lines is the first thing I'd want done. If the claimed time for the Montana charge is anytime after your son was charged for the first offenses then he probably can't be held liable and the charge has to be dismissed.

Now even if the sequence of events on the timeline shows that your son could be held liable for the Montana charge all is not lost because that's where double jeopardy may come into play. Double jeopardy issues can get complicated but the short version is a person generally can't be charged multiple times for the same conduct. If the attorney can show all the events occurred within the same criminal episode then there's a good chance the Montana charge has to be dismissed because your son has already been convicted for that criminal conduct.

The attorney asking for the same paperwork from multiple sources also sounds like a pretty sharp idea to me. There's absolutely no guarantee any one source has a complete copy of everything and the devil is in the details. I can think of 4 or 5 cases including my own where different people had slightly different copies of what was supposed to be identical paperwork. There are even some cases where the paperwork was radically different! In one the investigator sent paperwork to a judge claiming she had made a controlled phone call with the defendant and even submitted a recording to establish probable cause. By the time the investigator submitted the case paperwork to the prosecutor all mention of the recording had disappeared. The prosecutor sent that report to the defense attorney as part of discovery. The only person involved in the case that still had a copy of the paperwork about the recorded phone call was the defendant because he had been given a copy at his first appearance hearing. The investigator lied to establish probable cause. There never was a phone call between her and the defendant but the only way that came to light was by comparing the paperwork from different sources.

Make a copy of the paper work that you have.....NEVER send the originals.