We have received many phone calls and an uptake in legal US mail from all 35 State Prisons' inmates.
In order to keep up with the "New Normal" given the constraints, our Legal Team adapted our new model of parole hearing preparation to respond to the limitations on in-person legal visiting due to the constraints of COVID-19.
The new Model includes advocating for private attorney-client phone calls, Longer time limits on the prison phone calls, we expanded our legal staff hours of operations (behind the scene assistance) to reach more clients and provide more resources and information to people inside. We are also on-boarding attorneys “of counsel” to assist us provide more parole consultation resources via personnel written communication feedback directly from the attorney, on most of the written responses.
The client prison communication now includes reviewing their Parole Packets organization as well as reviewing their Relapse Prevention Plan and their Apology letters to the victim(s). We worked with the families of the incarcerated in order to supplement the Parole Packet, getting support letters. We have increase our in-office equipment to assist with scanning and uploading our clients' Parole Packet (PP) directly to the Board of Parole Hearings (BPH) to ensure the electronic delivery of the PP. This eliminates the need for the inmate to "bring" any copies to his parole hearing since the Commissioners are NOT in the room in the prison but actually Remotely located, with only an electronic copy of the inmates' Central file(s) and the electronic Parole Packet provided by our law office.
We have allowed more of an "open-door policy" for family members to contact our law office via telephone or emails to get updates on their loved ones and the latest CDCR information, that we have available. Our email monitoring as been increased to include Saturday and on occasion Sunday responses, depending on the urgency of the communication.
Our staff continues their work providing direct services such as accepting collect calls - sometimes beyond our 5pm office hours. In addition we are providing additional written resources to our clients on the inside, and most importantly, bringing Lifers (and long Term Offenders) safely home from prison, as soon as possible.
We do not do any Civil Litigation regarding COVID19 medical Issues. We focus on Parole Suitability Hearings (via Audio/Video) at this time. We DO appreciate your cooperation and patience while we try hard to respond to all the surplus incoming Legal mail from the prisons.
Regards,
Attorney Diane T. Letarte, MBA, LLM and
M.S. Forensic Psychology
Former President - NC Lawyers Club
Judge Pro Tem - Superior Court of California
1080 Park Blvd., Suite 1008
San Diego, CA 92101
619-233-3688
888-400-6082 E-fax
www.dianeletarte.com
dletarte@earthlink.net and ynavaro@eartlink.net
