By Daniella Dueñas
WOODLAND, CA – The accused here in Yolo County Superior Court Friday—not identified because the case involves only non-felonies—is facing possession of narcotics, possession of controlled substances, and possession of paraphernalia used to inject/smoke.
But, the accused’s biggest problem Friday was an issue raised in court dealing with an incident that occurred a couple of days ago when the accused’s GPS tracking device apparently died and was not working for eight hours.
And probation wanted him to go straight to jail because of it.
As a result, the accused’s supervised own recognizance agreement was revoked due to this failure to charge the GPS tracking device.
Defense Attorney Ava Delilah Landers said, “He wasn’t out of the house or anything, It was in the middle of the night while he was sleeping and his GPS died on him. He immediately contacted probation.” Her request was for the accused to continue to be released on his own recognizance.
“Your Honor, our records show that there was a warrant signed Oct 18,” stated probation officer Arthur Arustamyan—he and the probation department were opposed to the accused’s reinstatement of SOR.
Landers continued to argue, explaining that ever since the accused was put on SOR, he had not picked up any new cases or done anything wrong or suspicious. She argued that in the time that he was granted SOR, he had made his court appearances and there was not an issue up until he failed to charge his GPS.
The prosecution agreed with this, affirming that she was not going to object.
According to probation, though, there are still eight hours that are unaccounted for. The GPS was not tracking the accused’s location, so there is no definite answer as to what may have occurred in those eight hours, probation said.
The court agreed with the probation concerns, and asked probation, “Should I modify the order and make it straight OR?”
Arustamyan responded that since the accused was noncompliant with what probation directed him to do, they would be asking for him to be put on straight OR. However, if the court continues him on SOR, the GPS would be discretionary.
“If he has another violation of GPS where his unit dies, there will be zero tolerance and he will simply be taken to custody at that time,” warned probation officer Arustamyan.
Judge Stephen Mock decided to reinstate the accused on SOR with the same terms and conditions that were originally imposed. Furthermore, he recalled the warrant that had revoked the accused’s agreement of SOR.
Another early disposition conference was set for Nov. 3.
