Transcription
Return back to NYC Parole Violations Attorney
Very few lawyers in New York work in Parole Law, I’m happy to say that I’m one of them, I really enjoy Parole Law. The mindset between the parole officer and the probation officer is very similar, I’ve always been able to communicate well with parole officers and I just have a lot of experience doing that. I was a probation officer for about six years. That’s how I first became interested in working in parole and probation defense work. I did it both as a pre sentence investigator, a person to write a report. The person who writes reports is the person who recommends prison or probation, if probation, what the conditions should be to a judge. And then, I did it in a supervision aspect as well, supervising people who had already been granted probation.
It’s very important that a client have someone experienced in parole law because often times, that person on parole will say I was arrested for a misdemeanor, but I think I’m going to win the case, or I’m confident that it’s going to be reduced, so I don’t think my parole officer is going to do anything, or the parole judge is going to care much. Well, unfortunately, for parolees that are facing a parole violation charge, a criminal case can be dismissed and sealed in the defendants favor, but he can still be charged with a parole violation.
Parole law, it’s not even found under criminal law in the CPL or the PL, it’s a completely different section. For parole, parole is found under the executive law, the reason why is, under state law, the government must prove it’s case beyond a reasonable doubt, but under parole law, the standard is much less, it’s only by what’s called a preponderance of the evidence. To actually start a parole violation process, all that has to happen is, a person needs to have probable cause found against them. That’s when a hearing officer determines that there’s probable cause, that a person violated a parole condition in one or more respects. Once that occurs, the person is then in the violation proceedings, and can face a variety of punishments, depending on how much time they owed to parole, or how much time they owed post release supervision.
