A Crisp county defendant was charged with Violation of Probation

The Defendant was placed on probation in 2007 for ten years. His probation was transferred to another state, where he was working. The Defendant’s work required him to move around a lot and at some point, probation lost contact with him. He continued to send in his payments until he thought he was paid in full and thought he no longer needed to report. He was wrong. A warrant was issued for his arrest and his probation tolled. Four to five years later, he was made aware of the warrant and eventually turned himself in. There was no dispute that he had violated probation by not reporting, even if it was the result of a misunderstanding. However, in the eight years since he was placed on probation, he had not gotten into any trouble, was a productive citizen, and had not violated any other terms of his probation. So we suggested to the DA that the Defendant stipulate to the violation, be given one month in jail with credit for the time already served (six weeks), and placed back on probation to finish his last two years. The DA declined because probation told him to and we proceeded to a revocation hearing. At the hearing, we presented all of the above information as well as testimony that the probation office here really had no idea what transpired between the Defendant and his out-­of-­state probation supervisor. In addition, the office here had no proof that the Defendant had ever been contacted to inform him that he still needed to report. At the conclusion of the hearing, the judge found the Defendant violated his probation and ordered him to serve one month in jail with credit for time served, be placed back on probation and that as long as he reports as directed, the probation is to terminate in two years. Sounds like we offered! So the DA wasted everyone’s time because he was a puppet for probation instead of an independent thinker and in the end, we got exactly what we wanted.