Legal Question in Criminal Law in California
My question involves criminal law for the state of: Los Angeles CA
My boyfriend was arrested last year on the charge of posession of a controlled substance (an empty baggy of cocaine left in the pocket of a jacket he was wearing from a friend ..true story....the police scrapped as hard as they could to identifty the absolute minimum ammount to be convicted of)
he failed to appear on the charge and a warrant was put out for his arrest. He was picked up mid december and spent 9 days in the Twin Towers Correctional facility in downtown LA before being transferred to Sanbernadino county where his charge was filed.
at his preliminary court date he chose to enroll in the prop 36 programme in order to avoid any more jail time and time away from me (I'm an Australian citizen and work between Australia and LA and was visting for xmas) i had spent a total of 2 weeks alone in downtown LA while he was locked up..i spent christmas and newyears alone in a forgeign country..needless to say the entire situation had me pulling my hair out. I promised myself i was going to try to help him as best i could from the other side of the world... needless to say the Prop 36 programme is extremmly hard to succeed at. The waiting list alone for him to enroll was months. 5 NA classes a week... my boyfriend was orphaned at birth, relies on friends for accomidation and hasnt held a stable job in more than 3 years...he is a 25 year old black male who nobody seems willing to employ after a background check.... *sigh* its hard to make a new start with no family, no housing and no income. I could make excuses all day but bottomline is i need help and advice.
Last week he was picked up once again on a bench warrant for failure to appear. He simply didnt want to go back to court without being enrolled in a programme... theres no logic to it except that he didnt do what he was meant to do ..through lack of available options and didnt report to court because of it.
He is now once again in the Twin Towers. from what i understand from the googling ive done- his probation has been revocked and his prop36 has been terminated.
what is his best options from here forward? ive read that its a strong possibility he could serve some jail time.... how long though? min max lengths?
will he be able to appeal to his public defendant and explain his homlessness and lack of income as to why he's had such trouble? would he be able to come out here to Australia as i can set him up with multiple jobs but im guessing they dont forfeit probation and jail time to allow you to move countries.
what can i do from over here to help him? obviously i cant communicate with him. I work a fulltime job but struggle to support myself as it is without huge lawyer bills *sigh* im trying my very best to stay positive but i just dont know what im dealing with an really appeal to anyone out there for any kind of insight.....
Please sombody out there..... provide me with some help and hopefully put my mind at ease..although i know its not a misdemeanor case.
Gday from down under....
thanks in anticipation..
3 Answers from Attorneys
You could hire the best lawyers in the world for the guy, but it won't help him if he doesn't show up for his court appearances.
G'day yourself. What can you do?? Nothing, other than hire him a private attorney if you want to switch away from the Public Defender. That and convince him to make his court appearances, because failure to do so is going to put him in jail, for sure. If serious about hiring counsel, feel free to contact me.
He is looking at jail time, and possibly prison time depending on the severity of the charges. There is no legal procedure to transfer him to Australia, we never used Australia as a penal colony, that was our State of Georgia.
With that said, I have always liked Australia and Australians, and please do not take any of our responses as rude. Australians have always been good to me. He is in a bad situation with his repeated failures to appear, and it is his fault. He needs to accept responsbility, and if you care about him, you need to see that he accepts responsbility. It is the first step in the right direction.
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