i spoke with my wife friday night and she told me that the time she spent in the county jail(6 Months) wasn't credited to her. what can i do for her? she tried to contact her attorney but the idiot will not contact her back. Do i need to get in contact with him? what do i do if he won't talk to me? this guy is a moron! when he was appointed to represent my wife, he told her that he really wasn't a ciminal lawyer, i think she said he told her he was civil attorney. he told her he did ciminal cases for "fun". what do i need to do about this mess?

My fiance also did not get credit for 3 of the 6 months that he spent in the county jail. We were told that, those 3 months, were not counted because he had not had his revocation hearing yet. He was arrested on March 7 and not revoked until June 4. As for your problems with your lawyer, I would talk to the Judge and let him know what the lawyer said about "doing it for fun", it may be possible to get her back into court. Good luck in whatever you choose to do!

George - your wife needs to write a letter to the county jail where she was housed and request that her time be turned in to the DOC so she can get credit for it. It's part of their job to do this - they ususally won't however, until asked to do so. She needs to write them every week until she gets an answer, but there's no reason she shouldn't get credit for that time served.

The lawyer does sound like a moron.

My husband didn't get credit either from December 2001 until April 2002 - when his revocation hearing was held. It's different (though I don't know why)!! It stinks!

PS George! :)

The letter should be addressed to the "Records Department" or "Records Clerk" and should read something like this:

I was incercerated from ? until ? and would like a time sheet as well as have this time submitted to the DOC so I may obtain credit for time already served. :)

thanks for the help. i spoke to to an lawyer friend today and he told me what i needed to do. he told me he would help me as long as i got the info from my wife. apparentlly this is a common thing.

http://www.alacourt.org/Publications/Rules/Criminal/rule26-9.htm

Alabama court sponsored site (Page) giving low-down on how a sentencing is supposed to go.

Jail credit IS to be awarded during the final sentencing.. (In my state--that was the way it worked too.) Final Sentence order then stated plainly at then end just how many months, days, etc were to be 'jail time credit' toward the sentence to be served ultimately. This gives the DOC the X to put in that particular box on their form for the calculation for a serve-out date.

Just what did the lawyer you spoke with tell you to do?

The only time that Jail credit isn't awarded day for day is if there was some other charge in the mix and say 2 months into it she plead to something else, or had that 2 (theoretical) months to serve out on a misdemeanor county charge.. Some judges can stand on ceremony and fail to credit those first 2 months.. If any part of the time she was waiting a disposition to this case was possibly considered service of a county charge.. you might not see all the time.

If there was only the one case ever in it... and she now has a state sentence to serve the jail credit should apply in its entirety. Amazing that the atty didn't notice it wasn't happening as part of the final sentence proceeding. Maybe not so amazing for a Civil Atty.

If it makes you feel any better, I went into a death penalty trial with a Civil Atty assigned...He was the prosecutor's business partner and actually answered to Jimbo. Jail credit was the least of my worries...

I haven't looked into this further,,. but will if you want,.. to see which way this error in the judgement is corrected in Alabama. (In KY it's a motion to Correct or Amend the Final Sentence,..filed to the trial court with copies of a certified jail record (showing booking date, continuous custody til date of Final Sentence... Any Time after the sentence and before transport to state is accounted for by the 'continuous custody' theory... Only math that counts is Jail credit prior to sentencing. Everything else is geared from Date of Conviction at the DOC...

Again...Just what did your lawyer friend tell you needed to be done?

this lawyer told me that the time she served prior to getting out on bond(3 months) she would get credit for and all the time she served before being transfered to tutwiler would also be credited to her. she had total of five charges against her( i know, i'm married to thug!) the state made her a deal if she plead guilty to three of them, they would drop the other two.

my lawyer friend is a criminal defense attorney so i guess he knows what he is talking about. he told me to get the date she was in the county jail and he would contact DOC. he said it happens all the time.

by the way, i checked out the site you posted. i can't make heads or tails out of it. you need to be a lawyer to figure it out! LOL!

Sorry if it was confusing..What it outlines is the stuff that was supposed to be said, done and documented at the time of final sentencing....Credit for time served prior to the 'date of Conviction---final sentence date..--was supposed to be put in the record, stated in court and typed into her final sentence order.

If she was out on bond,...and only served 3 months -really- before she was sentenced... It would seem she only gets those 3 months...
Everything else is calculated from the Final Sentence (Date of Conviction) by the DOC...

If she got locked up in June... spent 3 months in before bond... Got Final sentenced on New Year's...., and wasn't transported til March... She is only due the 3 months jail credit.. The DOC will calculate that sentence of X years from the Date of Conviction (New years plus X ... and then subtract the 3 months she really gets credit for before the bond.

Does that make sense? The DOC doesn't count her sentence from when she arrived there...They count it from the Date Of Conviction...in her paperwork..

Huh? you confused the hell out of me on that one!

she did three months before bonding out, got sentenced on dec. 3,2002.got sent to the county jail the same day, she was in county til may 14,2003. when she was transferred to the "big house"

i forgot to add, she got a 2 split 5 sentence. so how much time will she actually get credit for?

Three months is what she served in jail before sentencing right? Jail credit of 3 months would be all she'd get.
Being out on bond doesn't count. Only 'in jail.. in custody.'

December 3, 2002 is the only date that the DOC needs..
They add her time to Dec 3, 2002.
Sorry my example lost you.. I didn't know what date she got or time she got..

Lets try again... Dec 3. 2002 is the Start of a 5 year sentence.
DOC would first give Dec 3, 2007 as her out date.
Then they would (should) back out the 3 months jail credit..
September 3, 2007 would --be three months sooner--out date

From that Sept '07 out date the DOC will do magic with good time/split time... whatever they'll be giving her, or she'll earn while she's serving that sentence.

Again....It doesn't matter at all what date she arrived in Prison. It matters when she got sentenced and to how much time....and if the atty had been on the stick..he'd have also managed to get her credit for the 3 months in jail when she got sentenced... He didn't, now it needs to be done late.
But the answer would be 3 months jail credit ONLY. The 3 months that she was in Jail BEFORE the Sentencing.

Am I doing any better with explaining this?

so she will get credit for 9 months then. thanks for making me understand all this better. she will get out dec.4 2004, according to the DOC website.

she took a 2 split 5 sentence. meaning she has to serve 2 years and the rest will be she'll be on parole. from what i understand there is no good behavior time with a split sentence. she is supposed to go to rehab and then come back to bullock county and they are supposed to have a probation/parole hearing before the judge.

the kicer is though, she will go thru rehab and is supposed to go to Birmingham work release until the judge calls her back.
her idiot attorney told me to give him a call when she comes back to bullock county.

i hope this makes sense to you.