Legal Question in Criminal Law in California

I tell my clients that probation is like a job. You agree to do certain things, and the judge "pays" you by giving you less than the maximum sentence. Like any job, if you don't do what you promised to do, or you don't show up when you're supposed to, you can get fired.

Unfortunately, if you're on felony probation, your next job might be making license plates at Folsom Prison for 85 cents an hour.

Taking the job analogy a step further... if you can't make it work on time due to a personal emergency, you should call your boss ahead of time to explain. That goes over a lot better than blowing off your responsibilities and explaining later.

Your friend should have contacted the court or his lawyer sooner to see if the community service schedule could be modified. Those requests always go over better if they're made BEFORE the defendant gets hauled into court in handcuffs.

Now he needs to work with his attorney to convince the judge not to throw the book at him. If he can show that he's so busy with his other obligations that he couldn't complete the community service, the judge could reinstate him without additional jail time. However, if it looks like he just blew off his community service obligations, the judge could give him anything up to the maximum sentence.