Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Violating Probation

Probation is often granted in misdemeanor and felony cases. Probation is generally preferable to incarceration. During probation the defendant must abide by the terms and conditions of probation. If you fail to abide by these terms and conditions you have violated your probation. You only need to violate one of your terms and conditions to be in trouble, you do not need to violate them all.

A violation can be something as small as drinking a beer or as big as violating a restraining order! Either of these will get you in trouble. Once you have violated your probation you are looking at possible jail time. Depending on the terms and conditions and your underlying crime you may look at getting probation reinstated or you are looking at incarceration. A great deal of this depends on your D.A. and the court you are in. Sometimes it is possible to get a serious violation dropped and a minor one to replace it and you go back on probation. Other times you are going to go to jail no matter what your attorney does. Remember, you broke the terms and conditions of your probation and while your attorney may be good they cannot change the fact that you violated probation.

If you are accused of violating probation you have the right to a Vickers hearing. This is a hearing in which the state has to prove by a preponderance of the evidence (50.01%) that you violated the probation. Furthermore, the rules of evidence are much more lax and hearsay and other forms of evidence can be admitted into the hearing. It is uncommon for a person to prove that they did not violate probation.

One of the worst things about violating probation is that you may be facing more time in custody than you would have than if you had done straight time after sentencing.

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