When Entering a Plea, That There Are Two Components
Video Transcribed: What’s the difference between paper time and supervised time. Hi, my name is Ryan Cannonie and I’m an attorney in Tahlequah, and when you enter a plea on a case, a misdemeanor, or felony, if you end up with probation, there’s supervised and unsupervised probation.
So a lot of times people just see that and they think, “Oh, my 18 months…” Up to 18 months up to two years depending on what type of probation you plea or three years, if it’s something like community sentencing. “That’s all I have to worry about.”
Well, kind of. So that’s the only time you’re being supervised, but those rules you’re under and the issue that comes up is that your entire probation term, you’re still looking at being revoked or accelerated.
Now the difference between that is depending on if you get a deferred or a suspended sentence. If you have a deferred sentence, they accelerate your sentence. If you have a suspended, then they’re going to revoke it.
Now, if you are on one of these sentences, let’s say you have a 10-year sentence, 10 years, the amount of time you’re on probation. Two years of that is supervised.
That means eight years is called what we call paper time, meaning that you’re not being supervised, you have to pay the rest of your fines and costs if you haven’t, but really, there’s no one watching over you, but if you get a new charge, they can go after you and try to revoke and send you to prison on that probation sentence you’re on, as well as any new charge you get.
So it’s really important to understand when entering a plea, that there are really two components. There’s the time that you’re supervised or unsupervised. The unsupervised part really doesn’t matter because those don’t happen that often and, when they do, they’re really the entire length of your probation.
So your supervision is what you’re really kind of worried about here. Whether that’s a DA’s office, DOC probation, community sentencing, any other organization, whoever’s supervising you, whatever term they’re doing, that’s when you’re checking in monthly or sometimes weekly, doing all of the requests that they make you do. The drug testing and all that.
During that supervised time, there’s a lot of pressure put on you. When you get to the rest of it, the paper time, where there’s no supervision of you, you have a little bit more freedom, but that’s where a lot of people get in trouble.
So understanding that when you make a plea, it’s not just two years, it’s can be up to 10. If you have questions about this, then please give us a call, go on our website, Tahlequahattorney.com. Let us know if we can help you out.
