A criminal offender’s sentence does not end upon the completion of the term of imprisonment, of course. A modern sentence includes all the various aspects of supervision the offender must undergo, including parole, post-release supervision, and restitution. Upon a prisoner’s release, the terms of her probation and supervised release, initially determined by the state legislature and imposed by the court, are enforced and regulated by parole officers. The trial court or the parole officer collects the amount of restitution, imposed during sentencing, after the sentencing hearing. This system of back-end sentencing, however, has long been obscured from public view. It is these types of sentencing proceedings, which can increase the length and the burden of an offender’s sentence, that must also be considered through the lens of the community jury trial right.

The first question to address when thinking about the world of post-prison procedures is whether post-release supervision should be subject to the community jury trial right. Most criminal sentences include a period of supervised release following the completion of the imposed sentence. Violating this condition can result in revocation of the conditional release and sometimes can even lengthen the duration of the original prison term. The trial or magistrate judge determines whether supervised release has been violated, using some minimum level of procedural due process, with the facts provided by a probation officer or the department of corrections.