Legal Question in Criminal Law in California

Re: felon probation

Once you finish your time in prison you're placed on parole. I put this in just in case you've confused parole and probation. However, if you only serve time in the County Jail, or served no jail time at all you are placed on probation. Probation is either formal i.e. you're assigned a probation officer that you report to, or informal i.e. you don't have to report. It would be a bit unusual to be assisgned to probation on a felony drug offense and not be assigned to formal probation. However, stranger things have happened. If you were assigned to formal probation they probably violated your probation when you left. So there may be a bench (court) warrant out for your arrest. Can check with the court and the clerk can check the computer. If you were assigned to informal probation probably nothing has happened. In any case if a bench warrant was out it would be a simple matter to surrender you to the court, and the judge may set a date for you to re-appear. Most likely the judge would have the probation department check out your story right then, and confirm that you've stayed out of trouble. The judge might then place you back on formal probation, or cut you free. I would expect that you would not be sentenced to or have to serve any jail time. At present we have an expanded P. C. 1000 program that allows you to go through the program twice to break the drug habit. Although if you've stayed clean that isn't likely to happen. However, the judge has a lot of discretion in matters involving probation. In summary come home and take care of the problem.