Families of Prisoners Support Group
This community is dedicated to families that have been disrupted by prison. Having a loved one incarcerated or having been incarcerated comes with its own unique challenges that require support and understanding. Join the group to find others who know what you're going through, and to seek advice or share your experience.
I'm simply just not okay. My husband of 7 years, was sentenced to 12 mnths in prison on Monday of this week. We were not prepared for a verdict like that, so it was 10x as devastating. We have two young boys at home as well, who are not handling things particularily well either. I am a wreck in every way, and I can't imagine being without my husband, and the boys without their father, for that long - or at all. We've been thru a lot over the years - but this hurts to a degree I can't explain in words. I need help/advice/etc. We don't know much in terms of what to expect at all. We've learned a very little bit the last couple days, but getting information from anyone is like pulling teeth. Everyone working at the jail he's currently being held at, is very standoff-ish. Please, please help me - help us. We are in Wisconsin, and he will be placed in a Wisconsin prison, so if anyone has experience with/lives in Wisconsin, please let me know. Thanks in advance. It's super appreciated.
Right now set a budget you will need it! The prison his should have information on the web about visit, what you can and cant send him so have a look there. If you do call the prison do not ask about him and if his ok only ask them on information about visiting and mail...theres rules around both.
Ok i think (rew will be able to give you more information ) that he should be able to get good time/ good behavior wich basically means if his a good boy and does everything he has to in there he may get some time taken off....iam not 100% sure on that one.
Right now the best thing you can do and your boys can do is write to him! Letters are gold in there they really are. There other thing is set up the phone for him to call you on...think theres a few different companies that do that...inculed his calls in your budget they can get expensive. Also in your budget include the sending of care packages when his at his home prison.
When you do get to see him make sure you know the dress code for visiting yes its a thing and every place has there own take on them.
Tell him to stay away from gangs, prison dept, and drugs he should be ok oh and tell him get rid of your address on the envelope this is to keep you and your kids safe and really really important.....we had a po box so we didn't really worry to much but my man still got rid of our address.
This is doable it may not feel like it right now but it is.
You asked, “Does it pay to appeal?”
If he only received a 12 month sentence, unless there are some GLARING constitutional violations which would make an appeal almost certain, then I would leave it alone. He can just do his 12 months and come home. If he had received a life sentence or a very lengthy sentence, he might want to roll the dice and appeal since he would have nothing to lose, but I would leave a 12 month sentence alone. Appealing a 12 month sentence would be a huge mistake, in my opinion.
A defendant who went to trial and was convicted rarely wins an appeal from an appellate court. Granted there may have been some issues within the trial that were wrong, but unless those issues were egregious in nature, the court will rule these issues “harmless error,” ignore them, and affirm the verdict.
A defendant who has pled guilty through a negotiated plea has two chances to win an appeal----slim and none. With a plea bargain, the defendant has already admitted his guilt and unlike a trial, there are no constitutional or procedural issues which can be raised. About the only grounds an offender can use if he pled guilty is ineffective counsel, and that almost never works. In prison I helped with cases in which the defendant’s attorney was drunk, and we still could not get the case overturned.
Many defendants believe that if they win an appeal, they are free and everything is hunky dory. That is not true. If a defendant does win his appeal, the appeal court in most instances will just remand the case back to the country from which he was convicted and the DA will start all over. At this point, the prosecutor can----1) just drop the charges, which almost never happens, 2) try to plea again with the defendant, or 3) go to trial again. In other words an appeal won results in the defendant starting over from day one.
The problem when the case is won on appeal and sent back to the original county of conviction is that the defendant can be worse off than if he never appealed in the first place. In prison, I worked on a guy’s case in which he appealed an eight year conviction and won. He was ecstatic, but when the case was remanded back to the original county of conviction, the prosecutor refused to offer a plea and forced the guy to go to trial. On retrial, he was found guilty and received 80 years. As you can see, his appeal was a huge mistake.
As far as your husband’s safety, with a 12 month sentence, he will be sent to a lower security prison where there is very little violence. Inmates in lower security facilities---minimum security prisons----are close to their release date and as a result, are not willing to cause any trouble. Any trouble or physical confrontation with another inmate would result in their release date being pushed back after they receive a misconduct and some of their good days credit is taken away. In some instances if they misbehave, they will be sent to a medium security facility, and that is where all the “bad guys” are. So they do not want that for sure.
As a result, the inmates where your husband will be sent are laid back and he will have no problems unless he does something monumentally stupid by snitching on someone or getting in debt and not paying. Snitching and getting in debt are the two main reasons inmates get into trouble with other inmates in any security prison; another reason is drug deals made in prison. Don’t snitch, don’t get in debt, don’t borrow, don’t get involved with gangs, don’t gamble, don’t get involved with the homosexuals, don’t get chummy with the prison staff, and don’t disrespect anyone. If he will mind his own business, keep a low profile, and be respectful, he will be fine, trust me.
No matter his personality, he will meets others in prison just like himself. Some will be new to the system and scared, as your husband might be. He will NOT be put in with seasoned convicts, e.g. murderers or rapists as the prison systems of this country does not mix first timers with these types of convicts. Doing so would be a security nightmare for the prison system, so they do not mix different security levels.
Good luck. The 12 months will go rather quickly and he will be home soon.
If you ever have any questions or if he has a problem in prison, message me.
rewdiazepam
Save that money for an appeal and use it wisely while he is in prison. There will be money needed for calls, commissary, and possibly visits.
rewdiazepam
Actually once his at his home prison it should get easier because you know where he is, you know about the visit, and what you can and cant send. We found the prison bit kinda easy compared to parole!
Ok one step at a time.
1 budget.....cut out the stuff you guys don't need right now yes your boys will still want stuff but you will just have to tell them no for now.
2 stop calling the prison it wont help and they will see you as a pain!
3 look up the next place find out the visit stuff seeing that his only there for a few weeks it may not be worth it
4 talk to your family see if they are able to help you in any way
5 set up the phone be warned calls are expensive
6 check the prison web site they will have all the information on there.
Iam not in the usa but you can add me if you want .my man did 4 years so yeah i know how hard it is.
There are also has to be grounds for an appeal. A defendant cannot just say, “My trial was not fair,” as he has to give specific reasons why he was illegally convicted. One reason it is difficult to appeal a plea deal is that, other than ineffective counsel, there are no grounds for an appeal. During a trial, there are instances in which there may have been mistakes made, but not in a plea. After all, in a plea the defendant has already admitted guilt.
People seem to think that the appellate judge will look at all the evidence, read the transcript of the witnesses to determine if they were truthful, and generally act as jurors to retry the case.
The appellate court is only looking for procedural errors that might have been made which violated the defendant’s constitutional rights. They do not judge the witnesses’ testimony as to whether it was truthful or not as they trust that the jury heard the evidence and got it right.
Things that will overturn a conviction are procedural errors, i.e. they want to make sure the state followed the law and the constitution to arrive at the verdict.
Some things that will overturn a case are improper jury instructions by the judge, evidence which was never admitted, but should have; evidence which should not have been admitted, but was; improper witnesses in that a witness was certified as an “expert witness” when he or she did not have the proper credentials; a confession that should have been thrown out but wasn’t, etc. Some other examples are sentencing errors, false arrest, juror misconduct, prosecutorial misconduct, and ineffective assistance of counsel.
Also, if the defense attorney does not object at the time the mistake was made during the trial, the defendant usually loses the chance to bring that mistake up on appeal. This is why good criminal defense attorneys object often and loud to preserve any errors for an appeal.
Just thought I would help everyone understand the appeal process better.
rewdiazepam