No. 14-09-00085-CR
Opinion filed May 27, 2010. DO NOT PUBLISH — TEX. R. APP. P. 47.2(b).
On Appeal from the 262nd District Court, Harris County, Texas, Trial Court Cause No. 1140294.
Panel consists of Chief Justice HEDGES and Justices ANDERSON and CHRISTOPHER.
ADELE HEDGES, Chief Justice.
This is an appeal from a judgment revoking probation. Appellant, Antwon Desha Slack, pleaded guilty to felony forgery. The trial court accepted appellant's plea of guilty and assessed punishment at two years' deferred adjudication probation. Subsequently, the State filed a motion to revoke appellant's probation, alleging numerous probation violations. At the adjudication hearing, appellant pleaded true to the State's allegations, and the trial court found the allegations to be true. Appellant was sentenced to 20 months in prison. In his sole issue, appellant contends that his plea of true to one of the State's violation allegations was involuntary. We affirm.
I. BACKGROUND
Appellant was charged with felony forgery of a commercial instrument in Harris County. He pleaded guilty to the offense. On November 16, 2007, the trial court deferred its finding of guilty and placed appellant on probation for two years. Among the conditions of appellant's probation, he was required to commit no criminal offense in the State of Texas and to report monthly to an assigned probation officer. After having been placed on probation, appellant moved to and resided in Tarrant County. However, appellant was not assigned a Tarrant County probation officer to whom he could report monthly. Accordingly, appellant did not report to a probation officer for the months after his move to Tarrant County. Just a month after having been placed on probation in Harris County, appellant was convicted of possession of a controlled substance, cocaine, in Tarrant County for which he served 30 days in county jail. Two months later, the State filed a motion to revoke appellant's probation in Harris County, alleging that appellant had (1) committed the criminal offense of possession of cocaine and (2) failed to complete his community service hours, maintain employment, report monthly to an assigned probation officer, and pay mandatory fees, fines, and court costs. At the adjudication hearing, the trial court admonished appellant regarding the State's violation allegations, and appellant pleaded true to each allegation. A stipulation of evidence — acknowledging appellant's commission of the possession offense in Tarrant County — was signed by appellant and admitted as evidence. At the hearing, appellant testified that he had failed to report to a probation officer after he moved to Tarrant County because, despite his request, no local probation officer was assigned to him. The trial court ultimately found the State's violation allegations true, revoked appellant's probation, and sentenced him to 20 months in prison. In one issue, appellant contends that his plea of true to the State's failure-to-report allegation was involuntary. II. STANDARD OF REVIEW
An appeal from a trial court's decision to proceed to an adjudication of guilt is reviewable in the same manner as a decision to revoke post-conviction supervision. See Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Ann. art. 42.12 § 5(b) (Vernon Supp. 2009). Accordingly, we review the trial court's adjudication decision for an abuse of discretion. Cardona v. State, 665 S.W.2d 492, 493 (Tex. Crim. App. 1984). In determining questions regarding sufficiency of the evidence in probation revocation cases, the burden of proof is by a preponderance of the evidence. Rickels v. State, 202 S.W.3d 759, 763-64 (Tex. Crim. App. 2006). We consider the evidence in the light most favorable to the trial court's ruling. Cardona, 665 S.W.2d at 493-94. A violation of a single condition of community supervision is sufficient to support a revocation decision. Moore v. State, 605 S.W.2d 924, 926 (Tex. Crim. App. 1980). III. VOLUNTARINESS OF APPELLANT'S PLEA OF TRUE
In his sole issue, appellant contends that his plea of true to the State's failure-to-report allegation was involuntary because he did not understand the legal consequence of his plea. Appellant concedes that he was "properly admonished, but evidently did not understand the consequences of his plea." Specifically, appellant contends that when asked to plea "true" or "not true" to the State's allegation of failure to report, he understood "true" to mean that he had in fact not reported monthly as required. Notwithstanding the fact of his failure, appellant claims that he had a valid excuse for not reporting: a Tarrant County probation officer was not assigned to him, despite his request, making it impossible to comply with the reporting requirement. Appellant contends he did not understand that by pleading "true" to the State's failure-to-report allegation, he was waiving his defense to this particular allegation. As noted above, the violation of a single condition is sufficient to affirm the trial court's decision to adjudicate guilt. See id.; see also Greer v. State, 999 S.W.2d 484, 489-90 (Tex. App.-Houston [14th Dist.] 1999, pet. ref'd). Here, in addition to the failure-to-report allegation, the State alleged that appellant had also violated the term of his probation to commit no criminal offense in the State of Texas. The record shows that appellant violated this particular condition by committing the criminal offense of possession of cocaine a month after having been placed on probation. The State admitted the judgment rendered in the possession case, and appellant signed a stipulation of evidence confessing his commission of the crime. Appellant has neither disputed committing the criminal offense nor challenged the voluntariness of his plea as to this particular probation violation. Accordingly, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in adjudicating appellant's guilt on the commission-of-a-criminal-offense allegation. Because there is sufficient evidence to show that appellant violated one of the several conditions of his probation alleged by the State, we need not address whether the trial court properly adjudicated appellant's guilt on the failure-to-report ground. See Moore, 605 S.W.2d at 926. We overrule appellant's sole issue and affirm the trial court's judgment.