I have a friend that has been indicted by the federal grand jury with felony child pornography. He has already turned himself in, has been processed and is now in a federal facility in the state of California. I want to know if he will have anymore court dates? Also he has already done state time (3 yrs), and can face up to 10-30 yrs. How do I find out what he has been sentenced with?
Robert David RichmanFederal Crime LawyerMinneapolis, MN ·
There is a website called Pacer that provides public access to all federal cases. You need to register to use it and then it costs ten cents per page. If you go to the Pacer site for the federal court where the case was and put in your friend's name, you should be able to review the docket which tells everything that happened in the case. You can also go the BOP inmate locator and put in his name. That will tell you if he is in a federal prison and if so, his release date. If the federal facility he is in is a federal prison, not near the court, then he has probably been sentenced. If it is a federal holding facility, then he may be in pretrial detention and his case is still going on.
I'm not sure I understand the question.
Your friend served state time for child porn, and now he's been arrested on federal charges for the same thing? Do we know if his federal case has been resolved or if it's still pending?
The Federal Bureau of Prisons has a website that you can use to locate any federal inmate. That should tell you whether or not he has been sentenced already. Good luck.
Until and unless he's convicted and sentenced, he will continue to have court dates. You should probably try to figure out his attorney's name and contact that attorney.
Jack Jay BoltaxFederal Crime LawyerSan Diego, CA ·
If your friend was recently arrested it is unlikely he has plead guilty already. he will first have to appear to enter a plea at a proceeding called an arraignment. Bail may be set but with a child pornography case the court likely set up a detention hearing to determine whether a =bail should be set and for how much or to detain your friend without bail. A motion date and trial setting date will also be set up. In the interim, if your friend reaches a plea bargain with the government then a change of plea hearing will be set up followed by a sentencing hearing.
If you friend ins being held on a case in LA then you can do one of two things to find out when his next court date is. First, you can call the district court's clerks office and give them his name and address and they will be able to tell you when his next court date is. They can be hard to reach. A second option is to open a Pacer account and use it to go to the district court's website to get you friend's next court date. Google in the word Pacer, go to the website and follow directions on how to open up an account and do so. Then you can find your friends next court date.
