Los Angeles Criminal Lawyers Blog
In May 2011, actress Lindsay Lohan was charged and convicted of shoplifting. The Judge sentenced her to 480 hours of community service , to be completed by April 2012.
Lohan was scheduled to complete her hours by providing service to the Los Angeles Downtown Woman’s shelter. However, the Downtown shelter has recently terminated their agreement with Lohan because she has failed to appear for several shifts and on days that she appeared, only completed a minimal amount of hours. According to Los Angeles District Attorney, Jane Robison, her hours will be transferred from the Woman’s shelter to the Red Cross. In addition, Lohan also has 120 hours of janitorial work that she is signed up for at the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office.
To date, the young actress has only completed 21 of the 480 required hours. In addition to not completing required community service hours, Lohan has also not been attending court mandated counseling sessions. Lohan defends that she has missed community service hours and counseling sessions because she has been out of the country possibly filming a movie.
The type of violations committed by Lohan are referred to as Internal Probation Violations. They are violations due to a failure to comply with orders and terms of the probation rather than because of a new criminal charge.
The Judge will review progress on probation service at an upcoming court date. If the adolescent has not been upholding her obligations to the court and the community, there may be additional charges and serious consequences to her already growing list of violations.
The Judge will consider several factors when assessing the progress of the probation sentence. She will consider the seriousness and the nature of the violation. In this case, it is not as serious as some probation violations can be. A serious violation would be committing an additional crime of the same nature while on probation for the another case on the same charge. Another serious violation would be disappearing from town and failing to inform a probation officer while on formal probation.
Lindsay was sentenced to informal probation (where she does not have to check in with a probation officer on set schedule). Therefore, the nature of her violation is not as serious as some other probation violations.
However, that is not to say that the consequences she faces will not be significant. Based on the facts, and Lohan’s failure to adhere to her obligations, the Judge will likely not take the situation lightly. In the last 7 months, she has only completed 21 hours of service, whereas she has 480 to complete. Within 7 months, she should have a significant amount of time completed if she is to follow the deadline of April sentenced by the court.
If she does not start to take her obligations more seriously, she may be facing some jail time in lieu of the community service. Jail time may be a part of the penalty for a shoplifting case. A knowledgeable Los Angeles Probation Violation attorney can persuade the Judge to allow the person to complete community service instead of jail time, as long as they can show that they will take their service seriously.
Lindsay Lohan’s actions show otherwise and she may be asked to complete some of her community service time as jail time.