That is an excellent question and one that I encounter often. The short answer is maybe. Now, the reason I say “maybe” is the type of violation and the location of the violation would be very important. For example, if it’s a violation in a misdemeanor case, you’re more likely to get a bond than you are for felony case. There is also a major difference between urban areas with large populations in small counties. For example, counties such as Escambia, Santa Rosa, Okaloosa and Walton normally will issue no bond warrants in all felony cases and most misdemeanor cases. The same is true for other small population counties around the state such as Madison County that’s just a little bit west of Tallahassee, Jefferson, Jackson County, those are counties where you normally don’t have bonds at all.

There’s Clay County, south of Jacksonville and Lake County, which is relatively near Orlando and all of these small rural/ suburban types of counties generally do not issue bail bonds when judges sign a warrant for felony cases and in most misdemeanor cases. However, there is a caveat. You want to hire an experienced criminal defense attorney as quickly as possible. If the violation is not a major violation, it is sometimes possible to work with the probation officer and work with the state and do so in such a manner that allows the person to have a bond if the violation is not that serious. Another technique that is used by some lawyers is when someone has a violation of probation warrant, when they go to turn themselves in, they try to arrange the service of the warrant when the judge issuing the warrant is going to be the duty judge handling first appearance.

That makes it possible to argue for a bond at first appearance after someone has turned themselves in. It’s not always successful but that’s the highest degree of likelihood for obtaining a bond in a violation case.

Can My Girlfriend Go To The State Attorney’s Office And Drop Battery Charges?

She Says She Won’t Come To Court And Told The Police She Didn’t Want Me Arrested And Taken To Jail

This sounds like a domestic violence case and with domestic violence cases, all 20 of the circuits that are run by elected state attorneys have a very aggressive prosecution policy and they try to avoid dismissing cases simply because the complaining witness, someone they will call a victim, wishes to have the charges dropped. There is a famous case out of South Florida where a woman does not show up for court and begged the judge not to put her in jail for contempt, she had to give her baby to a stranger in the back of the courtroom and the judge listened to her reasons for not coming to court, which, among other things, included the fact that she was the single mom, the only caregiver for her child, had no family in the area and that under the threat of child support enforcement and jail time and the license laws, her ex would pay child support and she and her baby could baby survive barely but they can survive.

The judge listened to her and sure enough put her in jail for 6 months for not showing out to court. Now, this involved a complaining witness who resided within the state of Florida, there are circumstances where someone does not have to respond to a subpoena but this is something you want to discuss with your criminal defense attorney because you don’t want to be giving off-the-cuff legal advice as a layperson for handling such a serious case by yourself because that is one of the fastest routes to courthouse surprise and unexpected prison sentence. I’ve handled these types of fact patterns and scenarios that this questionnaire is posing for over 27 years now and we have a very good system for handling these types of cases no matter where they occur.

Will The Judge Just Give Jail Or Prison Time Or Can I Get Put Back On Probation Or House Arrest?

The answer is an unqualified maybe, and the reason I say that it’s an unqualified maybe is because they don’t have enough factual information. So in the absence of specific facts involving a specific case, let me give some general advice that might be helpful. First of all, judges are under tremendous pressure to hand out jail time and prison time like candy. That’s politically popular among the voting base across the state of Florida. So you always have to know in the back of your mind that there is that type of political pressure.

Nevertheless, there are circumstances, numerous in fact, where I’ve negotiated for someone to be restored on probation, sometimes we arrange to have probation revoked and terminated, sometimes we’ve been able to get a warrant for someone’s arrest for violation of probation withdrawn although that’s extremely rare, and then finally if it’s a felony case, the technically correct phraseology is not house arrest, it is community control.

House arrest is usually done in misdemeanor cases with an electronic monitor with the GPS locator and that is used to make sure someone stays in their house unless they’re leaving for approved reasons such as going to work at the doctor’s office. Generally speaking, house arrest is not available across the state and is only in some but not all of the counties. However, anyone who is charged with a violation of probation or suspects that they might be charged with the violation of probation should contact an experienced criminal defense attorney, preferably a certified specialist, immediately because the sooner we get involved the sooner we can produce some beneficial results.

You don’t have a lot of time in violation of community control or violation of house arrest or violation of probation cases. All three of those types of violations may very quickly and you don’t want to run out of time to get needed work done, you also don’t want someone sitting in jail for prolong period of time if you’re not able to get them out on bond. So I like to get involved in these cases early and deliver the maximum impact as quickly as possible because when someone’s been arrested for a violation, it’s very painful for them and their family. The sooner we can start making it better the better it is for them, their families and their lives.

Disclaimer: This article is in response to questions frequently asked of Mr. Cobb and is an unedited dictation transcript. Just like talk to text on your smartphone, there may be misspelled words or sentence fragments.

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