wrong charges

[richardney]

My wife met with a counselor today for the first time and found out her file had erroneous info in it. She was convicted of possession of crack but her file says possession with intent to traffic . She was also on probation at the time for possession of tools to commit a crime [crack pipe]. Her file says she was convicted of possession of burglery toools. Will this affect her chances of parole? I am going to call her lawyer and ask tham what can be done. Does anyone else have any suggestions?

[life2thesequel]

Any basic errors in a record file held by the institution needs to be addressed.

The possession charge might well be construed as possession with intent/traffic because
1. the DOC computer has only the poss/traff code in it to choose from,
or 2. they managed not to read the Order of Final Judgement that came with your wife to prison.

The Probationary thing could be the same problem
either Possession of Tools (any kind) defaults to their handy code of Possession of Burglary tools-- or
They never have seen the final judgement from the first go round when she was put on probation.

You'd never want the file to be grossly inaccurate, you'd always want the time calculations /credits RIGHT, but you may just find out that there is something you can do about the file contents, or not.

The 'tools to commit a crime (crack pipe) is odd to me. In my world that would be 'Possession of Drug Paraphernalia" ..GA must have a different take on that.

Records are kept in house at the institution and copied to or from Central records in a given state. There may well be someone known as the 'Records Officer' at the prison. You certainly are welcome to contact this person, or call warden and find out who is their equivalent of Records Officer.
They would be able to explain to you just how the codings and the information is applied and they actually are the people who can fix it at that level if it is simply clerical.

When I went upstate for 'Complicity to Murder'--Life. I found my Resident Record Card was for 'Criminal Facilitation'. I found that the jury's idea of a 12 year minimum for parole was not what the DOC had in mind, they called it 8 years out.
Good corporate citizen that I am, I went looking for the other 4 years and wanted to know why my card didn't match my Final judgement. Records officer... friendly and helpful.
DOC computer system has no cod for Complicity to Murder. They picked the next best thing.. Matters not that they've handed me a 'charge' that would carry 5 years... As long as they got my out date right.---Life.
My jury's recommendation --a form attached-- didn't get written into the text of the final judgement and that judgement order is what the DOC works from. As a 'do-er' I'd have a 12 year minimum parole--unless Order said differently. As a 'complicitor' I'd do the DOC's sliding scale 8 to the board.
At another point, post conviction relief things cause one county to boot us to another counties venue for a hearing. Orders cut from that transaction made the Records lady change my county of conviction. We changed it BACK together once the hearing was over with.

Moral of the story, Records need to be right,.. can be reading oddly for some very practical reasons, and can be corrected at 'ground level' within the institutuion if you have a nodding acquaintance with the Records Keeper. Find this person. Find out why the Records read as they do. See what can be done.