I am kind of fact-checking things here, and these are things I can’t find out on the internet.
The question: If you are on probation for a misdemeanor in California, can the probation office insist that you remain in California?
It looks to me like you have to ask permission to leave the state, which means the probation officer wouldn’t necessarily have to grant it. But in this case the person was only visiting in California at the time of the offense.
He took a plea deal without realizing this meant he wouldn’t be able to go home for three years. For this offense, the jail time maximum was 1 year, and he thought probation wouldn’t be any longer. (Not that he wanted to stay in California for one year, either.)
Apparently, bail was set really high for this, and he was told he’d sit in jail until the trial unless he took the plea deal.
it’s not CA, but in TX and probably elsewhere, the conditions of probation are set by negotiation between the prosecutor and defense atty, then approved by the judge. the probation officer has no say over those details, he/she only enforces the conditions. it is apparently standard in TX that the probationer is not allowed to leave the COUNTY without prior authorization. i suppose a ban on leaving the state is a no brainer for the average probation deal. you wouldn’t want someone you’re supervising to leave your jurisdiction where it would be difficult/costly to locate him.
a transfer to another jurisdiction can be requested and i’m assuming there’s no reason it would be denied if your acquaintance was just visiting CA from his home state, also assuming he can show he had a life somewhere prior to visiting CA. he would contact his attorney to put in a request to the judge to transfer the probation agreement to his home jurisdiction.
I think that technically probation is simply “you should be in jail but we think you behaved well enough we’ll let you serve your remaining sentence on the outside”. So essentially you are still serving a sentence, you would not be free to roam beyond the jurisdiction of the state that let you out of jail. Plus, they can impose whatever else conditions on your release that they choose - curfew, gainful employment, abstain from alcohol, report weekly, stay 500 yards away from schools, etc.
Can you just leave the state without the permission of the probation officer? Most likely no. Can you get your probation transferred from California to your state of residence? Most likely yes. Technically , California can refuse to submit the application, but there’s no reason for them to refuse- they don’t gain anything by it.
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Agree. I can’t speak for CA, but in Washington it wasn’t that hard to get probation transferred to another state. Given the defendant wasn’t even a resident of California, I would expect little resistance.
Actually, most states are glad to do this – it saves them money!
Once they have paid the cost of processing the transfer, the probationer is gone from their state. Their probation officer no longer has to spend any working hours keeping track of them. And it’s fairly likely that the probationer will commit another crime in the future – but the state doesn’t care (much) because it’ll happen in some other state.