Being on probation allows you to enjoy a certain level of freedom and flexibility when compared to jail and prison. While it does require you to make regular reports to a probation officer and remain out of trouble, it also means that you do not need to spend time in jail. This can allow you to remain at home and keep going to work or school.
However, probation officers and prosecutors will require your strict adherence to the terms of your probation. An alleged violation could result in a petition to revoke your probation and a requirement to spend some or all of your remaining sentence in jail. A Palmetto probation violation lawyer could fight on your behalf to prevent this outcome. With the help of a skilled defense attorney from J. Ryan Brown Law, you could fight back against an alleged probation violation, and, if necessary, argue for a more lenient outcome that helps protect your freedom.
Receiving a sentence involving probation means that you must follow the terms of their probation to the letter of the law. This means both making regular reports to your probation officer and obeying all terms imposed by the court.
If your probation officer suspects you’ve failed to live up to these terms, the Official Code of Georgia Annotated § 42-8-38 authorizes them to file a report with the criminal court. This initiates a hearing on the merits of this complaint.
Courts hearing a probation violation case have three ways to deal with these cases. After hearing evidence from both the probation officer and the defendant, the court may:
A Palmetto probation violation attorney could work to obtain evidence that convinces a court to continue your probation. This includes working with probation officers to dissuade them from filing charges with the court and presenting information before the court on behalf of probationers.
If a court finds you have violated probation, it has the option to revoke probation and require you to serve a jail or prison sentence. However, this does not necessarily mean that you must spend the rest of your sentence in jail. State law provides that the length of this revocation depends on how you violated your probation.
Many examples of probation violations are technical violations. These are instances where someone fails to report to a probation officer at a scheduled time or does not provide payment for the services. In these cases, revocations cannot exceed two years of probation terms.
More serious are supposed violations of specific probationary terms. For example, someone on probation for a drunk driving charge may have an order that prevents them from drinking any alcohol and submitting to random testing. Failures of these tests can result in a total revocation. A Palmetto probation violation attorney could provide more information about the types of these violations and the potential penalties.
Probation violations are serious. Although they cannot result in the issuance of new charges unless the alleged violation is itself a new crime, they can motivate a probation officer to issue an arrest warrant and ask a court to reimpose a jail sentence. At a minimum, a finding of fault could result in new, harsher probation terms. In the most serious cases, you could spend the rest of your sentence in jail.
A Palmetto probation violation lawyer at J. Ryan Brown Law wants to help you avoid this outcome. We could work to show that your absence from a probation meeting was justified by an emergency or argue that your supposed violation of a specific term was not as it appeared. This could help to convince a court to continue probation as before or at least not force you to spend time in custody. Reach out to us today for the help you need with your case.
J. Ryan Brown Law, LLC
J. Ryan Brown Law, LLC
