Tulare, CA asked in Criminal Law for Utah

Q: How do I file a motion to get court to change class b in UT from consecutive to run concurrent to parole violatoion time

My husband was on parole when he got charged with 5 charges Class A misdemeanors dropped to only 2 Class b one was criminal mischief and other from a separate case was for leaving the scene of an accident. These led to him being in prison on a parole violation. He was sentenced this week to two 6 month sentences to run consecutive to his prison sentence. His parole violation hearing is in 2 weeks and he has a very good job that is waiting on him to return and expecting around November and December the latest. If they don't start his 6 months until he gets out from parole violation it will be another year and he will lose the best job he has every had. I need to find out how to file a motion since his useless public defender won't return a call, email or respond to a letter mailed by his own client from prison

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2 Lawyer Answers
Mike Branum
Mike Branum
Answered
  • Criminal Law Lawyer
  • Saint George, UT
  • Licensed in Utah

A: First, you cannot file a motion on your husband's behalf unless you have a pre-existing power of attorney for some reason. Only your husband or someone with power of attorney for him, like a lawyer, may file a motion in his case.

Second, one cannot run sentences consecutively backwards in time. EVEN IF the Court agreed to run the sentence "consecutively" with his current imprisonment for parole violation, he would need to do six months from the date the latest sentence was imposed. I am not a math genius, but five months from now is well into 2021 and would not result in the nearly immediate release you are seeking.

Third, the imprisonment for the parole violation was the imposition of his PREVIOUS sentence which was suspended because he was given the privilege of being free on parole. Since he violated parole, he had to serve the sentence for the previous crime. The sentence for the crimes which violated his probation are a completely different sentencing. He would not be moving to have his sentence run concurrently because the crimes were sentenced at separate times; he would be moving to change his sentence from incarceration to probation. Seeing as he is currently incarcerated for a probation violation, I would not give him very good odds on convincing the judge to waive all jail time (particularly where he was charged with five counts and pled to two).

Aric M. Cramer agrees with this answer

Aric M. Cramer
Aric M. Cramer
Answered
  • Criminal Law Lawyer
  • St. George, UT
  • Licensed in Utah

A: What Mike said.

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