Renee Michelle Dally was recently ordered to complete 30 days in the Humboldt County Jail and ordered to be dishonorably discharged from probation rather than serving an underlying sentence of 12–36 months in prison for a 2015 felony drug charge after several probation violation incidents.
Dally was convicted of possession of a controlled substance in April 2016. She had previously been given the chance to avoid the felony conviction by completing a diversion program, which would have allowed her to rescind her guilty plea upon completion of the program. She failed to comply with the terms of her probation more than once, leading the diversion to be rescinded and a felony conviction being put in its place.
After the felony conviction, Dally was sentenced to a term of 12–36 months in prison and placed on probation with a suspended sentence. Since being placed on supervision, she violated the terms of her probation in 2018 and 2019, and admitted to all the alleged violations in a recent court hearing. She asked Sixth Judicial District Judge Michael Montero to not be sent to prison, but rather to be given yet another chance.
Dally’s attorney, Alternate Public Defender Maureen McQuillan also asked that Dally be placed back on supervision and said her client has been clean and sober for over three years, and still counting. She explained to the judge that Dally absconded from her probation due to a domestic violence situation in which she fled across state lines to stay with a friend with whom she felt safe, without communicating to her probation officer.
Neither Deputy District Attorney Richard Haas or the department of parole and probation gave any recommendations to the court regarding Dally’s fate, leaving the decision completely to the discretion of the court.
In her allocution statement, Dally read a letter to the court she had written, sharing some details of her story, celebrating her sobriety and asking for another chance at continuing to live her life outside prison walls.
Montero shared some thoughts on Dally’s supervision history and inability to make choices in alignment with keeping her freedom.
“You make some decisions or choices that are not very smart, like absconding from probation; I don’t know what you expect, that the system will someday forget about you,” said Montero. “You tell me how good you’re doing with this clean time but you put the court in this situation and you’re here in orange and white.”
Montero ordered Dally to be reinstated on probation, with the only condition being to spend an additional 30 days in jail, after which time she would be released and dishonorably discharged from probation. He also ordered that she pay her owed fines either within 30 days or with signing a civil confession of judgment for the money owed.
