Legal advice

[jmcclain]

As many of you know, I got a DWI in January. My case is already been to court and I was charged with Obstruction of a passageway and received 2 years of probation and 40 hours of community service. This was a pleas from the DA with out seeing the judge. Under the advice of my attorney, I took the case in front of the judge to see if he would defer that charge after my probation was up. Basically clear my record of even this charge. He agreed to do that but gave me several stipulations to my probation in order to do it. Keep in mind this is my first one. He made me got to a repeat offenders class, wear an ankle bracelet that monitors the amount of alcohol in my system for 120 days, and go to an intensive outpatient treatment program (IOP).

The IOP is a three phase program. First phase is 8 weeks, Mon-Thurs. from 6:30-9:00 pm every night. The second is 3 nights a week, for 8 weeks from 6:30-9:00. And the third phase is one night a week for the remainder of a year.

Here's the problem. I'm a social drinkerthat got caught driving. My probation officer realizes this and told me not to do the IOP class. So I didn't. When my 120 day period was up for my ankle bracelet I went to court to get it removed. The judge said everything was perfcet, that I had done everything he asked me to but go to IOP. So he wasn't going to take the bracelet off until I enrolled and showed him I was. So I did that night and went back today, a month later, for my court date to get the bracelet off. The owner of the place that teaches the class and monitors the bracelet is always in this judge's court when he's in session. Keep in mind I've never met the owner before so he knows nothing about me. The judge asked him how I was doing and he responded with, "he's barely doing enough to get by in the clas." I did everything I could not to lose it. I pay this guy's company almost a grand a month. Do you really think he's going to tell the judge to take the bracelet off that I pay him $400 a month for? Hell no.

So my question is this. Do I have any rights here, or am I at the mercy of this guy and the court? I do exactly what they tell me and they keep changing everything up on me. Who can I report this to to let them know that the judge and this ass clown are doing this. It's a total conflict of interests to have the owner of a company that's benefitting from the reccomendations he's making to the judge.

Sorry so long, but wanted to tell the whole story.

[superdude]

you can get old court records. You will have to talk to the court about this. The lady that types everything, assuming you had one, keeps it on file for up to 6 years. Tne best thing to do would try and locate this information. Once you do, you can show how you met the certain regulations, as long as they are verifiable from the other parties.

[Zoomzoomers]

I won't go into detail why I know about this sort of stuff but you've already said it yourself. And I'm sure by now, you now it too. In these types of situations and whenever you're bound to the court... you are at the court's mercy. Translation, you're balls are in the judge's hands. He/she can decide to do whatever he/she wishes. There's not much you can do but plead with the court. So, if you've retained representation, which I'm sure you have, then tell him to talk to the judge for you. If you're retained an attorney with any sort of skills he'll know what to do and how to do it. Especially in a way as not to get you into any more sh!t. Until that happens you'll just have to do the song and dance and yell out, "yessir", now and then to keep them happy. Sorry man I wish I had some good news for ya, but unfortunately I don't.

I do feel your pain though. I know this is a touchy subject and in no way do I condone drinking and driving, but I was raised in the 80's where cops used to take away your key and leave you in your car, drop you off at home if close enough or have you walk home, than arest you for driving with a bit too much to drink. Now it's just become a politically correct (man do I hate that word) thing for a cop to arrest anybody who's even got a trace of alcohol in their system. Yep, things have changed. I remember the days when the cops used to take away your booze to take home for themselves and give you a stern lecture.

On a funny note, back like 5 or 6 years ago I had a buddy who got so many DUI's that he had this machine on his car to you have to blow into to get the car started. LOL. Funny as shit. He wasn't what I'd technically call an alcoholic, he was a more of an avid social drinker. It was really funny to see this machine mounted on his $100k Porche 911 Turbo. You know they didn't do a neat of job of mounting the thing either but he didn't mind too much. After he had to blow each time into the machine to get it started, he started to have these "non-drinking" girl friends accompany him wherever he went. I used to laugh because he'd outsmart the system.

In either case, I'm sure you know, as we all do, it's not smart to drive drunk so I'll digress here. Best of luck to you man and I hope things get resolved soon.

[jmcclain]

The problem is that I've already been to court and taken a plea. The crap that they're making me do is to drop the plea of Obstruction of a Passageway. So the DWI can never can back into the scene. My question is can I go back and tell the judge to just keep the Obstruction o nmy record and not have to do all this BS. Or am I stuck with what I agreed to?