You might very damn well be a redneck (or related to some) if on Christmas day you need legal information regarding Jail house conversations:(
Short story is one relative is sueing another.
Of course this could easily turn into a he said she said type of thing.
One key piece of evidence could be follows:
Relative A was told something by Relative B.
At the time, A was visiting B who was in jail (prison?) at the time.
Not really interested in what said thing might or might not prove.
The questions are these: Are visitor/prisoner conversations even recorded? If so, can you get them for a civil suit to prove or disprove a point? If they are recorded, how long are they kept?
I saw a story on Dateline last night about Caylee Anthony, who lives in Florida. Not only were the visits (not face to face, btw, but over the phone at the jail) between Casey and her parents recorded, they were made public. I suspect all prisoner interactions are recorded, save those which are privileged (lawyer, spouse, clergy etc).
Not routinely. But it is legally allowed unless it’s a privileged visit like a lawyer.
This one I don’t know. You might be able to file a FOIL request.
Procedurely, we keep most records for at least five years. But realistically, it’s usually until we run out of storage room. Once we’ve put something in long-term storage, there’s not much incentive for us to dig it out just to dispose of it. I’ve seen fifty year old records still in storage. (That said, good luck on finding a specific record that old.)