DISCLAIMER: I am not a lawyer. Nothing I say constitutes specific legal advice.
Okay, with the additional information about what it says on the legal papers, now I think I understand. Tell me if I've got it:
Your daughter was on probation for something else and a couple of weeks later got charged with assault with a deadly weapon.
If they were talking about 7 years, and she's 15, then they had to have at one point talked about charging her as an adult?
Okay, so anyway, they charged her as a juvenile, and she went to family court and got convicted either of assault with a deadly weapon or some lesser charge. Am I right so far?
That violated her probation on the earlier charge, so she now has the two charges to deal with. Altogether, the maximum sentence for what she's found guilty of probably exceeds four years, so that would put her potentially there until she's 19. This is where I have a question:
What was the exact charge she was convicted on for hitting her father with the pan? It matters (a lot) whether it was assault with a deadly weapon or a lesser charge.
Instead of sentencing her to a particular amount of time in juvie, the judge court ordered her to this Program---in effect, he sentenced her to be there. His sentence was for an indefinite period of time, so she could be there until her 19th birthday.
It doesn't matter to the courts or the law how long you were willing for her to be gone---if she's sentenced, she's sentenced. And she has been. It doesn't matter (to the law) how long they told you she'd be there, since what they verbally told you or told you in writing doesn't have any legal weight next to that sentence from the judge.
What you have here is your child has been convicted of a crime and sentenced to jail---with this wilderness camp being the particular form of jail she was sent to.
If I got convicted of breaking into someone's house and got sentenced to 5 to 10 years, then I wouldn't know how long I was going to be in jail. I'd know I wouldn't be in jail any longer than 10 years, but when I actually got out would depend on if I could get any time off for good behavior or if I came up for parole and could talk the parole board into letting me go. Mostly parole boards let people go because the jail is crowded and they need the cell for more dangerous people who have done worse stuff more recently. We get told all sorts of fancy reasons, but overcrowding and the costliness of keeping people in jail is the real one.
Your child is in a very similar situation. She won't be in wilderness jail any longer than her 19th birthday. However, with "good behavior" and if they get enough kids in the wilderness jail that they're getting kindof crowded and need that "bed" for a new inmate, they may let her go home sooner.
With her already convicted, sentenced, and serving her time, usually at this point there isn't a whole lot a defense attorney can do.
Your daughter's honest to God best shot at coming home soonest is to not rock the boat and to learn to play their game and tell them what they want to hear. Hard truth? She needs to learn how to act and manipulate like a master.
The facility wants to keep the state happy. The state wants to keep the voters happy by looking like the juvenile justice system is doing a good job, cheap. The facility and state will want to kick loose some of these kids early. If your daughter is the best actress pretending to be a good little Stepford Teen, she'll be one of the top ones on the list to be kicked loose to come home.
But when she comes home will still be highly variable because it depends on how much crowding there is in the system generating pressure to turn people loose early.
For future reference, the time to mortgage your house and your firstborn grandchild to pay a good criminal defense attorney is before the court date.
As late as it is now, the more you rock the boat, the more you'll piss them off and the more likely it is that your daughter will be there until her 19th birthday.
I do not *want* all this to be true. I merely understand that it more than likely *is* true.
You should consult a good criminal defense attorney with experience in juvenile cases. You should have all your documentation gathered together when you meet with him to reduce how much time it takes him to go through it all. There might be something he can turn to your daughter's advantage.
You should listen to what your attorney says and follow his advice---even if that advice is totally what you don't want to hear.
He may well tell you that the only thing your daughter can do at this point is kiss lots of ass.
Like I said, I don't like telling you this. It sucks, and, as a mother, I can just imagine how you must feel.
Julie
