Ask The Inmate. Real answers from people who've been there.

The short answer is that you should not, and involving the attorney in this creates problems that are significantly worse than the problem you are trying to solve. Attorney-client mail is privileged, meaning it is supposed to be opened only by the inmate and is not subject to the same mailroom inspection as regular correspondence. Some people try to exploit that privilege to get items into a facility that would otherwise be rejected. Facilities are aware of this and take it...

Not necessarily, but the transfer is a signal worth reading carefully because it points in one of two directions and which one matters a great deal. When an inmate gets into a fight, spends three weeks in the hole, and then gets transferred to a different facility, the move is almost always deliberate. Facilities do not transfer people after a fight without a reason, and there are two common ones. The first is that he was the aggressor or a willing participant...

His account balance is considered personal financial information and falls under the same privacy protections that cover everything else about an inmate's record. The facility is not required to share it with anyone outside, including parents, and most of the time they will not. That said, calling the counselor is your best shot at getting any information at all, and how you approach that call matters more than most people realize. Come in as a concerned, cooperative parent who is trying...

The $167 you are looking at is the ten percent option, which is what a bondsman typically requires as their non-refundable fee to post the full $1,700 on his behalf. If you can come up with that amount, a bail bondsman handles the rest and he gets out while his case moves through the courts. If that is not possible and he has to sit it out, the timeline depends entirely on the court's schedule and how backed up the docket...

For a first offense involving marijuana and paraphernalia, the outlook is generally about as good as it gets in the criminal justice system, and incarceration is often not part of the picture at all. Many jurisdictions have moved toward diversion programs for exactly this type of first-time, low-level drug offense. The most common is a pre-sentence intervention or pretrial diversion program, where the defendant agrees to pay a fine, complete a drug education class over a few days, and stay out...

For possession of child pornography, house arrest is not a realistic outcome regardless of health status or lack of prior criminal history. Federal law and most state statutes treat child pornography offenses as serious felonies with mandatory minimum sentences that require incarceration. A clean record and genuine remorse factor into sentencing to some degree, but they do not move the needle far enough to result in house arrest on these charges. Judges have very limited discretion to deviate from the...

Yes, every day counts, and it counts from the very beginning regardless of where that custody happened. This is called jail credit or presentence credit, and it is applied automatically to the sentence calculation when the judge issues the final order. Any time your person spent in custody before sentencing, whether that was in a county jail waiting for trial, held in another facility on a detainer, or even a brief hold in a different jurisdiction, all of it goes toward...

A Brady violation is one of the stronger grounds for appeal that exists in criminal law, but strong does not mean automatic, and the road from violation to overturn is long and difficult. Brady v. Maryland is the 1963 Supreme Court decision that requires prosecutors to disclose any evidence that is favorable to the defendant and material to guilt or sentencing. That includes exculpatory evidence that could prove innocence and impeachment evidence that could undermine the credibility of witnesses. When the...