Bryan K. Peters v. State of Indiana (mem. dec.) ( 2020 )

MEMORANDUM DECISION
Pursuant to Ind. Appellate Rule 65(D), FILED
this Memorandum Decision shall not be Apr 09 2020, 8:49 am
regarded as precedent or cited before any
court except for the purpose of establishing CLERK
Indiana Supreme Court
Court of Appeals
the defense of res judicata, collateral and Tax Court
estoppel, or the law of the case.
ATTORNEY FOR APPELLANT ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE
R. Patrick Magrath Curtis T. Hill, Jr.
Alcorn Sage Schwartz & Magrath, LLP Attorney General of Indiana
Madison, Indiana
Courtney L. Staton
Deputy Attorney General
Indianapolis, Indiana
IN THE
COURT OF APPEALS OF INDIANA
Bryan K. Peters, April 9, 2020
Appellant-Defendant, Court of Appeals Case No.
19A-CR-2017
v. Appeal from the Dearborn
Superior Court
State of Indiana, The Honorable Jonathan N.
Appellee-Plaintiff. Cleary, Judge
Trial Court Cause No.
15D01-1511-F6-369
Mathias, Judge.
[1] Bryan K. Peters (“Peters”) challenges the order of the Dearborn Superior Court
revoking his placement in community corrections and ordering him to serve the
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remainder of his sentence in the Dearborn County Jail. On appeal, Peters
claims that the trial court abused its discretion by revoking his placement.
[2] We affirm.
Facts and Procedural History
[3] On October 27, 2015, Peters was arrested for operating a vehicle with a
suspended license. This was not Peters’s first traffic offense, and, on November
12, the State charged Peters with Level 6 felony operating a vehicle as an
habitual traffic violator. Peters entered into a plea agreement with the State on
April 26, 2016, in which he agreed to plead guilty as charged in exchange for a
two-and-one-half-year sentence, suspended to probation. The trial court
accepted the agreement and sentenced Peters accordingly. One of the
conditions of Peters’s probation was to abstain from the use of illicit drugs.
[4] On March 26, 2019, Peters submitted to a random drug screen and tested
positive for methamphetamine use. The State then filed a notice of probation
violation. At the revocation hearing held on May 15, 2019, Peters admitted to
using methamphetamine. The trial court revoked Peters’s probation and
ordered that the remaining days of his sentence be executed in community
corrections on home detention. One of the terms of his placement in
community corrections was to abstain from the use of illicit drugs.
[5] On June 21, 2019, Peters contacted his home detention case manager and asked
to meet. When they met, Peters informed her that he had been using
methamphetamine. Peters then submitted to a drug screen and again tested
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positive for methamphetamine. Accordingly, on July 3, 2019, the State filed a
notice of violation of the terms of Peters’s placement, and the trial court held an
evidentiary hearing on this notice on August 1, 2019.
[6] At the evidentiary hearing, Peters admitted to using methamphetamine and
admitted that he had been struggling with substance abuse issues since 2015.
The trial court solicited input from the community corrections director, who
stated that he did not believe that Peters would benefit from being returned to
home detention and that he instead believed the best option was to order Peters
to undergo substance abuse treatment in jail. Tr. p. 6. The trial court then
revoked Peters’s placement in community corrections and ordered him to serve
the remaining portion of his sentence at the county jail. Peters now appeals.
Discussion and Decision
[7] Our standard of review for a trial court’s revocation of placement in community
corrections is well settled:
For purposes of appellate review, we treat a hearing on a petition
to revoke a placement in a community corrections program the
same as we do a hearing on a petition to revoke probation. The
similarities between the two dictate this approach. Both
probation and community corrections programs serve as
alternatives to commitment to the DOC and both are made at the
sole discretion of the trial court. A defendant is not entitled to
serve a sentence in either probation or a community corrections
program. Rather, placement in either is a matter of grace and a
conditional liberty that is a favor, not a right.
While a community corrections placement revocation hearing
has certain due process requirements, it is not to be equated with
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an adversarial criminal proceeding. Rather, it is a narrow inquiry,
and its procedures are to be more flexible. This is necessary to
permit the court to exercise its inherent power to enforce
obedience to its lawful orders. . . .
Our standard of review of an appeal from the revocation of a
community corrections placement mirrors that for revocation of
probation. A probation hearing is civil in nature and the State
need only prove the alleged violations by a preponderance of the
evidence. We will consider all the evidence most favorable to
supporting the judgment of the trial court without reweighing
that evidence or judging the credibility of the witnesses. If there is
substantial evidence of probative value to support the trial court’s
conclusion that a defendant has violated any terms of probation,
we will affirm its decision to revoke probation.
Monroe v. State, 899 N.E.2d 688, 691 (Ind. Ct. App. 2009) (quoted in Holmes v.
State, 923 N.E.2d 479, 482–83 (Ind. Ct. App. 2010)) (internal citations and
quotations removed).
[8] Peters does not deny that he violated the terms of his placement, but he claims
that his violation was merely “technical,” because he was not arrested for a new
crime or convicted of a new offense. We disagree. Simply because Peters was
not caught with methamphetamine in his possession and criminally charged for
this possession does not lessen the seriousness of his violation; he possessed and
used a dangerous and illicit drug contrary to the criminal laws of this state and
in violation of the terms of his placement. This was not a mere technical
violation.
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[9] Peters also notes that he was gainfully employed and that his girlfriend had
recently given birth to their child. The child tested positive for
methamphetamine at birth and was removed from its mother. Peters therefore
asked the trial court to continue his placement in home detention so he could
work with the Department of Child Services to be reunited with his child. Also,
Peters’s elder son was terminally ill, and Peters asked to remain on home
detention so he could attend to his son. Peters argues that these circumstances
put serious psychological stress on him, thereby triggering his relapse into
methamphetamine use. These facts, however, are not favorable to the trial
court’s judgment.
[10] The facts favorable to the trial court’s judgment show that Peters has an
extensive criminal history in four states. Fifty-three-year-old Peters has
accumulated over thirty criminal convictions. Many of his prior convictions
involve the possession of controlled substances and offenses related to alcohol;
others involve the possession of weapons and theft. He has been convicted of
driving while suspended or driving with a revoked license twelve times. Despite
this criminal history, the trial court twice showed lenience to Peters: first when
he accepted the guilty plea calling for an entirely suspended sentence, then
again when Peters violated the terms of his probation. The trial court placed
Peters in community corrections, and instead of taking advantage of this grace,
Peters continued to use methamphetamine.
[11] Additionally, the trial court did not ignore Peters’s substance abuse problem.
The trial court determined that Peters would not benefit from continued
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placement in community corrections and would instead be better served by
participation in a drug treatment program in jail.
Conclusion
[12] Under these facts and circumstances, we are unable to agree with Peters that the
trial court abused its discretion when it revoked Peters’s placement in
community corrections and ordered him to serve the balance of his sentence in
jail. We therefore affirm the judgment of the trial court.
[13] Affirmed.
Kirsch, J., and Bailey, J., concur.
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