Drug Use Charged in Court Shooting Case : Violence: Ellie Nesler took methamphetamines before killing the man accused of molesting her son, authorities say.

Prosecutors charged Thursday that a Sonora woman took the illegal drug methamphetamine the day she killed her son’s alleged molester in a courtroom.

The state attorney general’s office contended that Ellie Nesler first denied using drugs that day but “later admitted that she had ‘done crank’ that morning.” Crank is a nickname for methamphetamine.

A blood sample taken after Nesler’s arrest showed 0.14 milligrams of methamphetamine per liter of blood in her system plus a trace amount of amphetamine, according to a document filed in Sonora Justice Court.

None of Nesler’s three attorneys was available for comment.

The drug allegation was contained in a brief opposing a defense motion to reduce Nesler’s $500,000 bail on a charge of shooting Daniel Mark Driver to death April 2. The brief added that Nesler told a psychologist two days after the killing that she had used crank in the past.

The brief also alleged that Nesler told a state Department of Justice special agent that “she had wanted to kill the victim for two years and had waited for her opportunity to do so on the day of the preliminary hearing.”

Meanwhile, a published report said Nesler’s new attorney plans to have her plead temporary insanity, a major reversal of tactics.

Nesler’s first lawyer, David Lewis of New York, wanted to argue that the killing was justified. Lewis said Nesler had “moral authority” to kill Daniel Mark Driver because of the nature of the crime Driver was charged with committing.

But Nesler fired Lewis and hired J. Tony Serra of San Francisco, who has abandoned the justified homicide defense, according to an article published Thursday by the Sonora Union Democrat.

“This is a classic mental defense case,” Serra told the newspaper Wednesday. “We’ll be defending her on the basis of temporary insanity.”