If you are on probation and you are picked up by the police on a new case, or you are picked up by the police or the probation department for a technical violation of your probation you are entitled to a certain amount of due process from that detention.
Within a short period of time after the detention, you are entitled to a hearing to determine whether you should be held in custody while awaiting to see the judge or waiting to have a full hearing with the judge. If the trial commissioner or the judge, think that you should not wait in custody for your full hearing, the trial commissioner or the judge can release you. This is proceeding is called a Gagnon I hearing. In Philadelphia county, the defendant is not present at the Gagnon I hearing.If the commissioner or judge rule that you must stay in custody until the Gagnon II hearing, this is called a detainer.
After the Gagnon I hearing is complete, a final hearing, the Gagnon II hearing, must be scheduled within 30 days of the initial hearing. This final hearing is where the defendant goes before the judge and the judge decides whether to violation the defendant, and if so, gives the defendant a new sentence.
The judge can violate the defendant for either a technical or direct violation. An example of a technical violation is not reporting to the probation officer, dirty urine, or not complying with any term or condition of the probation. An example of a direct violation is a new conviction in a new case. Usually the new sentences for direct violations are greater then new sentences for technical, but the judge can always give a big sentence for a technical violation.
