Ray Hrdlicka – Host – Attorneys.Media
“Realistically, would any little violation, and this is where I’ve been told from customers with Bail Bond Cowboys, ‘hey, my PO is going to violate me if he finds out I did something…’, would any little violation, while on probation, provide the adequate cause to remand the person back to jail?”
Andrew Dósa – Criminal Defense Attorney – Alameda County, CA
“The answer is ‘yes’. Practically, the answer is ‘not always’.“
Ray Hrdlicka – Host – Attorneys.Media
“Obviously, that’s what the viewers need to understand.”
Andrew Dósa – Criminal Defense Attorney – Alameda County, CA
“Let’s flesh that out, and back up a little bit and talk about probation that’s formal or informal as well. Because we haven’t quite gotten there yet. So with felonies, formal probation is always going to be required. That doesn’t necessarily mean there’s going to be a lot of regular contact or face-to-face contact between a probation officer and a defendant. But the defendant will have to report. Going to probation is significant. They have to register with probation, they have to give all their information, they have to keep that information up to date.
With misdemeanors, and informal probation, what that really is…the court is doing what’s called ‘conditional release to the community’. And it’s permission from the court to function outside in the real world without having to report to somebody. In that situation, getting caught is the problem. You get caught…if you’ve been arrested, it’s probably because there’s something significant.
If a person has DUI conditions, and they can’t drink, or you can’t drink with any measurable alcohol in your system, that’s often another characteristic. And they do drink, and they do drive, and they don’t get caught, then no one is ever going to proceed with a petition to violate their probation. Because they’re not getting caught.
If we now take it back to formal probation, the probation office can cause a problem for the defendant. Let’s use an example of a client in Contra Costa county. A domestic violence case where the victim was clearly a person with significant issues. She gets a phone call, doesn’t know where the phone call was from, the person hangs up, and she reports it to the probation officer and says ‘he is harassing me again’. The probation office says ‘let me see your phone. What was the phone number?’ She says ‘well it was unlisted. I don’t know’. He says ‘what did they say to you?’ She says ‘they didn’t say anything’. He says ‘how do you know it was him?’ She says ‘oh I know him. He’s just trying to mess up my life’. So the client survived a series of complaints from the victim in that situation.
He was required however, to attend domestic violence classes. 52 a year. 52 in a year is the requirement for any kind of domestic violence case…that begins as a domestic violence case, no matter how it ends up. If it ends up as a disturbing the peace because the DA recognizes it’s not a very strong case and the victim might have made up something, they still get a conviction out of the defendant. Probably not fairly done, and probably because he didn’t do anything. They still don’t want to give it away. They want to hold on to him. He’s got to do his 52 sessions of counseling.
If you sign up for a program, and you miss a session, and you have formal probation, the probation officer will probably get a call from the program. Or they might be calling the program to check up. If you miss one session, you’ve got to start the session over again, and you might not get a probation violation petition. If you mess up more than once, and you start over again, the probation officer is going to think about filing a petition to revoke your probation.”
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