How do you get early termination of probation? Generally it must be agreed to at the time of the plea in felony cases; all of the fines, court costs and restitution must be paid off; and any other conditions of the probation must be completed. Most judges will not consider early termination unless the person has completed at least half of their probationary sentence.
In the remarkable case of Debra Lafave, or Debra Beasley, the middle school teacher who got 3 years of house arrest (or community control) followed by 7 years of probation when she pled to having sex with a student in 2005, it appears one may even be able to violate their probation and qualify for early termination. (See St. Petersburg Times 9/22/11)
A condition of sex offender probation is always to have no unsupervised contact with minors. In her case, she admitted to talking to a 17 year old co-worker about the 17 year old's boyfriend and sex life. Ms. Lafave is 27 years old. The judge found that this particular violation was not willful or substantial. Interestingly, not only was she having unsupervised contact, she admits they were discussing sex. One can only imagine what would happen if she were a man in the same circumstances.
I would be the first to admit that probation officers and the Florida Department of Corrections in general are out to get probationers and often violate people for ridiculous reasons. But sex offenders are a different bunch, and I would agree they should be watched more closely. More closely than someone on probation for felony possession of marijuana (over 25 grams), which appears to be what this probation officer was doing. It's interesting how they let this woman off and my clients who are on felony probation for very minor crimes are always violating. Did I somehow miss that drug offenders are more dangerous to society than child sex offenders?
