About 10 years ago, my (now) ex was facing trial and sentencing for a felony. (The details are not relevant, so don’t ask.)
Prior to the actual trial, his attorney advised him to give me power of attorney. That way, in the event my ex was convicted, I could conduct any necessary business on his behalf. I had to have his name taken off our joint bank account, arrange for the disposition of his gun and other personal property, and transfer utility accounts to my name only. We rented from my parents, so disposition of the house wasn’t necessary, but if we’d owned the house, I could’ve sold it or not. When we divorced about a year or so after his conviction, I arranged to have the PoA transferred to his mother.
When he was initially released on bail, he got his own stuff back. The money he had on him was deposited into an account, and the sheriff’s office cut him a check to give it back to him.
I’m not sure how it would work if he were single. However, I’m sure he could assign a PoA to a friend or other family member.
I’m curious though if anyone knows more about this than I, because who actually commits crimes on vacation on the other side of the country? I knew of a case where someone was arrested for selling drugs and got hit with some sort of “maintaining a vehicle” charge only because he sometimes kept the product in the car. They told him they would have taken the car away, but it turned out to be his mother’s car so they let it slide.
There was a sort-of similar case locally a month or so ago. Guy in his late 80’s gets locked up for shooting his son with a shotgun. Son didn’t die. Mother is bedridden with diabetes. Guy who is now in jail had 15 dogs, chickens, geese, doves and a minature pony. Mother is physically incapable of caring for them, and Son refuses to because that is why he was arguing with his dad in the first place. Mother finally contacts a rescue group who finds homes for all the animals (thank goodness). A very good friend of mine got the minature pony, who is about the size of a Great Dane and thinks he’s a dog. We are hoping Dad gets some mental health care while he’s locked up.
I know you were joking, what with the smilely and all.
But you get two, one for family, another for lawyer.
Although most jails use the phone calls for financal gain
by putting in a PBX in that reverse charges $1 a call.
Taking these questions in approximately reverse order:
1 - The prison will give you a suit when you’re released if you don’t have any clothes of your own. Or you can wear your prison issue clothes if you wish to for some reason. You’ll also be offered transportation (usually a bus ticket) back to the county where you were originally arrested in.
2 - While you’re in prison, you’ll be issued clothing and basic toiletries for free. You can also buy your own clothing and toiletries, within certain restrictions, if you wish.
3 - You do not cease to exist as a human being while you’re in prison. While there are some legal limitations on convicts, they can still conduct their business and legal affairs while inside prison. There’s nothing preventing you from sending a monthly check to your bank or landlord to maintain ownership of your residence while you’re “away”.
4 - There’s always a delay between the time of your arrest and the time of your incarceration while things like your arraignment, your trial, your sentencing, etc are going on. In most cases, you’ll be out in the public on your own during much of this period. Even if you are under custody the whole time, you’ll be in contact with your lawyer and other outside people. If you sense that you’re going to end up in prison in the end, you’ll have plenty of opportunity to take care of your affairs before you go.
5 - The government does not have an automatic claim to your property or an automatic responsibility for its care. There are a few exceptions: under RICO laws, the government can seize your property; if you’re fined as part of your sentence, the government can seize your assets to collect on the fines if you don’t make other arrangements to pay; and if you make no arrangements for maintaining your legal affairs, you’ll eventually default on your property taxes and the government may seize your property in lieu of these unpaid taxes. And while the government does not have any responsibility to take care of your property, they’ll take care of it once they own it.
When I worked for an animal shelter, it wasn’t unusual for the local police to bring over the pets of people they arrested. We ended up with many dogs (some were very agressive), a few cats, iguanas, and a rooster. (I couldn’t help but imagine some guy in wifebeater and sweat pants, beer in hand, yelling "Ya wanna see my cock?!). The animals could be reclaimed by their owners, but they had to pay fees for the animals’ care while they were in the shelter. Typically, the pets were released to us by the owner by a phone call and put up for adoption.
Once, a very agressive rottie was brought in. This dog mauled one of my co-workers when she tried to put a bowl of food down in his kennel. The owner wanted his dog once he was out of jail, we refused to release it because of the danger it presented. Legal crap ensued. sigh Eventually, we got legal custody of the dog (it was in the shelter the whole time, very scary for us) and had to euthanize it.
this makes me ask a MUCH more serious question: what about children?
your fruits and tomato sauce may be sitting at home waiting for you. But so are your kids.
Suppose you leave your 13 year old at home babysitting for your 9 year old. You go out for a short evening to visit old college friends who are in town for a day. Your friends offer you some drugs, like in the old days at college, and you (who haven’t done anything like that for 20 years ) allow yourself to be tempted, and join in the “fun”. Somehow, you all get busted, and hauled off to the county jail for booking, and you will be held for 24 hours or more.
They’ll probably be spending the night on the babysitters folks’ floor while they try to figure out where the hell you are. Ideally you’ll be bonded out before too much panic ensues. If you can’t bond out immediately, you probably call an adult friend or relative to take them temporarily while you’re in the pokey, and the babysitters folks gladly hand them over. If you don’t get out toot sweet or no such relative shows up, here comes CPS to put them in a foster home.
This happened in real life. I don’t recall the details, but basically a woman got arrested for drugs and was held for several days (over the weekend maybe?), and didn’t bother to inform the authorities that she had kids at home. She also didn’t bother to inform her family or friends or anyone else that she had been arrested. The authorities found out about it somehow, and immediately whisked the kids off to child protective services. The mother was then charged with abandoning her children.
We got our dog thanks to someone who went to prison. We got her when she was roughly five months old from San Francisco Animal Care and Control. The only information they could give us as to her prior life was that she was surrendered by someone on their way to prison.
Hey, he probably had spent years in making that dog so mean! All that work, down the tubes. :rolleyes:
Remember the story of poor Diane Whipple? The dogs in that case were being kept by a couple while their owner was in prison. (The couple, both lawyers, had adopted the inmate-- who was a white supremecist convicted of arranging murders for the Aryan Brotherhood-- while he was in prison. Prosecutors alledge that the dogs were being raised to be weapons to be used against members of the Mexican mafia.)
IANAL but once you were identified the hospital or police would try to track down your next-of-kin. If that wasn’t possible or your relatives refused to have anything to do with you then social services would step in. The court would declare you incompetent and appoint a guardian/conservator to take care of your property. A hospital committee would likely decide on your medical care (since there’d be nobody to give consent). You’d end up in a nursing home. If your health insurance wasn’t able to pay for your treatment (or if you’re uninsured) the conservator would start liquidating your assets to pay for your care.
I actually (indirectly) know a woman who’s in just this situation - she’s been convicted of a crime, the details of which are unimportant.
She was sentenced sometime in June (May?) I think an is going to prison sometime this week.
She had to make arrangements for her 3 children (all are being taken in by either their fathers or their father’s families - there are 3 different fathers), plus had to give notice on her appartment, etc.
It’s quite a huge mess for everyone involved, really. Well, except her - she just gets to go to jail and live rent free for a couple of years.
Someone I knew in college was arrested for a felony crime while visiting another state. He was too embarrassed to tell anyone about his arrest, and could not post bail. While he was in jail, his van back at college was ticketed and then towed away for parking on the street for more than 48 hours without being moved. The police eventually declared the van abandoned after failing to get a response from a notice sent the van’s registered owner, and the tow yard sold off parts of the van (doors, tires, etc.)
To make it worse, a newspaper reporter I also knew was browsing through the tow yard lot for used auto parts, and came across the van. He found evidence of the crime, stored in the van, and reported it to the police. The police eventually found the van owner was in jail in another state, and the journalist wrote a front page story about his discovery. I read the story and contacted my friend in jail to ask if there was anything I could do for him. He asked me to try to recover his van for him, but it was undriveable by the time I checked.
A few months later, a national magazine published an article about this category of crime, and began the article by telling about my friend’s arrest.
That was 16 years ago. Just last February he was fired from a job when they found about his felony conviction.
When my wife’s family was sent to the internment camps in 1942, they were given a short amount of time (2 weeks, IIRC) to get their affairs in order, and were allowed to take only what each person could fit in a duffel bag.
They sold what they could, gave away what they could and walked away from the rest. My wife’s grandmother had to walk away from her tailoring shop, which was eventually seized by the county and sold for back taxes.
Before I came over to Japan, the house next to where I used to live in Salt Lake was up for sale. The realitor was there, and she explained that the owner was just sent to prison for several years and was trying to sell the house.
The problem, of course, was that he needed to sell it before the bank seized it for default, which is what eventially happened.
