Legal Question in Criminal Law in California

Re: parole violation sentencing vs. new case for cause of violation

Sorry, but no. Parole is essentially an agreement between the defendant and the court -- if you don't violate the terms of your release, than you don't have to serve your sentence behind bars. If you do violate those terms, though, you can be imprisoned for the amount of time left on your sentence.

Your husband was allowed out without finishing his first sentence, and he has resumed serving that sentence because of the violation. The time he is spending behind bars now is thus punishment for his first crime, not the second one. He can be prosecuted, convicted and sentenced on the second crime as well.

If it didn't work this way there would be serious problems. A person on parole after committing, say, assault with a deadly weapon could then commit the same crime again and only serve one sentence instead of two. There is no reason a person who commits a crime while on parole should be treated better than someone without a criminal record who commits the same crime. On the contrary, the parolee should be treated worse. He actually is treated worse, since the being on parole at the time of a new offense usually justifies a longer prison term for the second crime than it would otherwise have carried.

It's also worth noting that many actions which violate the terms of parole are not criminal. Someone who violates parole by committing a new crime should be punished more harshly than someone who does so via a noncriminal act.