Q: My husband has 2 criminal cases in another state that he reports for about monthly for the past 11 months.
The cases have not gone to trial yet. He has received discovery for at least one of the cases. He is on bond for each case, and they each involve felony charges.
Now in our home state he recently had an incident that caused him to have felonies charged.
He is now on bond here after a conditional release, and is restricted to home with 4 hours of free time per week with an ankle monitor.
Is there a way that he can continue to attend his court cases in the other state, and keep that information private? How can he ask for time away from being on his home monitor to attend those report hearings? Each of those out of town cases are usually the same month, but a few days apart. So we usually have to stay and come back home after the 2nd court date...It would be about 5 days out of state each month.
Thank you.
A: The description is not completely clear. If a person is on pre-trial release on two criminal cases in another state, and then gets a new criminal charge in Minnesota, it seems highly unlikely that the out-of-state court(s) will not eventually find out about the newer Minnesota criminal case. As a result, I'm not sure why it would make any sense to try to conceal that. Once court officials know the situation, I would expect them to make accommodations to allow the defendant to appear in all court cases in every state, one way or another. But this is just the type of situation that should be discussed with each of his criminal defense attorneys. They will have more information, which will allow them to provide sound counsel.
A: No, there is not going to be a way to attend the other hearings and keep them secret. First, the fact that he is charged in another state is already public information. Second, he is going to have to ask for time away from the ankle monitor to attend those out-of-state hearings, and the home monitoring folks are going to ask why he needs to be away and where he is going to be. The monitor will also be able to track where he physically is. He might as well be honest with the monitoring folks and the court in Minnesota about what he has going on.
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