Many reasons for Electronic Home Monitoring
Judge Greg Galler
Legal Columnist
A friend of mine, who is also well-known in Washington County as a criminal defense attorney, asked if I would write about the jail’s Electronic Home Monitoring program.
Electronic Home Monitoring (EHM), is a system where a person who is sentenced to serve jail time can satisfy that sentence by being confined to their home instead of going to jail.
Here’s how it works: Assume that a person has pled guilty to a minor crime. As part of the plea agreement, both sides agree that the defendant will serve 10 days in jail.
The defendant (typically through their attorney) asks that the jail sentence be served on EHM.
The state may agree, disagree, or take no position.
In any event, the judge must always decide if the defendant may satisfy the jail sentence on the EHM program.
There are three main schools of thought on the matter. Each has their respective merits.
First, some judges routinely allow most defendants to serve sentences on EHM. The thinking is that the law specifically permits this method as a jail alternative.
Further, it is argued, there is little to be gained by having the defendant sit in a small cell for 10 days.
Additionally, being confined to one’s home with no freedom to go to the store, to a movie, etc., is a sufficient deprivation of liberty to serve as a punishment.
While defendants may still go to work they must be home according to a very strict schedule.
Additionally, the monitoring equipment is expensive and the defendant has to pay those costs.
The second theory starts with the understanding that sitting at home watching TV and sleeping in your own bed is not much of a punishment compared to sitting in jail.
Accordingly, to equalize this, some judges use a multiplier on the sentence. For example, with a 50 percent multiplier, a 10-day jail sentence is converted to a 15-day sentence on EHM.
This, it is believed, evens things up.
The final view recognizes that EHM was designed to allow some form of punishment in those cases where jail time is simply not feasible.
For example, EHM is suitable for defendants who are single parents and their children will go to foster care if they are incarcerated.
Similarly, in some cases the jail informs the judge that a defendant has a medical condition that the jail can’t accommodate.
These types of hardship cases, it is argued, are what EHM is best for.
Additionally, judges who rarely order EHM reason that, barring a real hardship, a defendant either deserves time in jail or doesn’t.
So, which conclusion is correct?
All of them are correct.
There is no “one size fits all” system of justice. Each judge sentences in the manner that they deem best.
Sentences frequently reflect a judges’ individual ideas and philosophies about life, society and the law.
As long as the sentence falls within the range allowed by law, the judge has properly fulfilled their legal duty.
Greg Galler is a District Court Judge in Washington County. Before that he practiced law in Stillwater. These columns provide general legal information and do not constitute legal advice.
If you have a general question about the law or courts for Judge Galler, send your question to the editor of this newspaper. Learn more about Judge Galler at www.judgegreggaller.com.
