Legal Question in Criminal Law in New Jersey

Repsonsibility for court required counceling

My son is 22,was arrested for controlled subsence abuse,sentenced to 2yrs probation&lost his drivers privledges for 1yr. Probation officer(PO)required him to attend counceling 3hrs/day 3days/wk for6wks. Counceling is at hospital 35miles away. The POis aware of the problem getting to and from the hosp. The PO stated ''you better find a way to get there!Your parents drove you before,they can do it again.''We don't think it's fair that the court requires treatment but will not provide transportation! There's local rehab prog in our town hosp.with in walking distance,but PO will not help get son in local prog. It takes 40 minutes to drive to the session, that starts at 6:00 pm, and runs for 3 hrs so we drive home and return to pick-up my son at 9:30 pm. This means we drive 140 miles per day for 6 weeks (2520 miles)expending 3 hrs/day, 3 days a week, for 6 weeks or more than 54 hours driving time. And now they want us to do it again without consideration for mileage,wear&tear on privately owned vehicles Can I file a claim or some other action that will place the burden back on to the probation department to provide transportation or accomidations in the local program?


Asked on 6/30/03, 2:37 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Jeffrey Weinstein Jeffrey L. Weinstein, Attorney at Law

Re: Repsonsibility for court required counceling

You should file a motion with the court that sentenced your son asking the court to allow him to attend the drug counseling locally. You need to set forth as specifically as you can why it would be a hardship to tranport him. It would also help if you could establish that the local program is substantially similar in scope/quality to the one that is far away.

Please contact me if you would like furhter assistance.

Good Luck

Jeff Weinstein

609-397-8400

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Answered on 6/30/03, 2:48 pm


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