What is Delayed Reporting in Virginia?
In Virginia’s General District Court if you’re sentenced to jail time for a misdemeanor charge (such as Virginia DUI, reckless driving or possession of marijuana) we have some options to delay the jail time. One option is delayed reporting.
Delayed reporting is essentially a request to the judge to order that you report for your jail time on a certain day and time. If granted, you report directly to the jail at the designated time.
Personally, I think delayed reporting is the best option in most cases to delay the jail time so you can arrange things with your employer and your family to be able to serve a few days of jail.
Whether or not the judge will be willing to grant you delayed reporting is going to depend upon the overall facts of your case and how we present the request. The judges in General District Court know that if you don’t get delayed reporting, you can always appeal the case within ten days and come back later to serve your time that way. An appeal basically creates more work for the clerk’s office, so that’s one reason why the judge is a little bit lenient if you have a decent reason to get delayed reporting.
Planning for possible jail time is one reason why you need a solid attorney by your side. You need to know what you’re looking at when you go into court. In many cases, I can help advise you about what kind of jail time you may be looking at, and we can hopefully arrive at court with a plan to keep your work and family responsibilities on track.
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