Drug Crimes, Substance Abuse New misdemeanor in different state a probation violation?

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screwedN2states

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This involves both Ohio and Missouri.

In September 2009, police found drugs in my Ohio home. I wasn't arrested or charged.

In April 2010, I was pulled over in Missouri. The cop searched my car and found rolling papers and stems. I was arrested and charged with unlawful use of drug paraphernalia. They set a court date for late June.

A couple weeks later, in May, the cops in Ohio finally contacted me again about the situation from September. I was booked for a "felony 5" but pled down to a "misdemeanor 1" drug possession and got 2 years probation & suspended jail time.

Now my court date for the Missouri incident is coming up soon. I know paraphernalia is only a misdemeanor charge. But I don't know if getting convicted of something in Missouri will affect my Ohio probation situation. Will that be considered a violation of my probation, even though the Missouri arrest occurred before I was even charged with anything in Ohio? On the other hand, will the fact that I now have a conviction in Ohio mean I'll get a worse penalty in Missouri?

I really can't afford to hire a lawyer in MO (still paying fees and fines from Ohio incident) and I also can't afford to travel back and forth between the two states. How would I even report for probation in Missouri?

Should I just plead guilty and get this over with and save my money for the fines? Or am I looking at revocation of my probation in Ohio if the Missouri charges lead to a conviction?
 
Storm in a tea cup!

It is quite good that you are concerned enough (and probably worried as well) to want to know and cover all the bases and that how the outcome of one matter will affect the other; it keeps you on your toes and alert. But realistically and without making light of your situation, you do not have anything serious to worry about; in fact, nothing at all to worry about!

I am presuming that your misdemeanor probation in Ohio is of the summary kind which is by the court and does not require reporting to a probation officer or some other nonsense like that, and I cannot imagine that the worst-case-scenario outcome of your Missouri case will be anything other than a summary probation as well. So, no need to worry about making the trek from Ohio to report for probation in Missouri.

By the same token, you are not going to need to hire an attorney for the Missouri case as it does not warrant the expense in the first place, and besides, you will be appointed a public defender on your court date any ways, and that will be more than sufficient defense.

And as how the Missouri misdemeanor conviction will affect your Ohio probation; well, technically it is and can be considered as probation violation, but you will not be going to jail for it. You will just be serving two probations in two different states. And even if you were to receive the second misdemeanor conviction in Ohio as well, the court would have simply reinstalled probation from scratch with the terms of the new probation running concurrently with the previous one.

So, yes; you should just plead guilty and save your money for the fines and no, your Ohio probation will not be revoked for an out-of-state misdemeanor conviction.

fredrikklaw
 
Thanks for the response. The terms of my probation are still a bit up in the air. Right now it IS scheduled to be reporting with a monthly drug test. But I was just sentenced a few weeks ago.

I go in for a "drug and alcohol assessment" next week. The judge said that depending on the results of that and my first drug test, he would have no problem reducing the length of the probation. My lawyer said that sometimes in situations like this he sees the probation only last 60 days or so, but he said it's up to my PO and my PO seems like a real hard-nosed type. So, I'm not sure if my type of probation would be considered "summary" or not. Does that affect your answer at all?
 
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