David A. Howell v. State of Indiana (mem. dec.)

MEMORANDUM DECISION
Pursuant to Ind. Appellate Rule 65(D),
this Memorandum Decision shall not be FILED
regarded as precedent or cited before any Dec 07 2020, 8:50 am
court except for the purpose of establishing CLERK
the defense of res judicata, collateral Indiana Supreme Court
Court of Appeals
estoppel, or the law of the case. and Tax Court
ATTORNEY FOR APPELLANT ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE
Samuel J. Beasley Curtis T. Hill, Jr.
Muncie, Indiana Attorney General of Indiana
Megan M. Smith
Deputy Attorney General
Indianapolis, Indiana
IN THE
COURT OF APPEALS OF INDIANA
David A. Howell, December 7, 2020
Appellant-Defendant, Court of Appeals Case No.
20A-CR-1337
v. Appeal from the
Delaware Circuit Court
State of Indiana, The Honorable
Appellee-Plaintiff. Marianne L. Vorhees, Judge
Trial Court Cause No.
18C01-1901-F5-6
Kirsch, Judge.
[1] David A. Howell (“Howell”) appeals the trial court’s revocation of his
probation and imposition of his previously-suspended sentence. Howell raises
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one issue, which we restate as whether the trial court violated his due process
rights by not providing him with sufficient notice of the allegation that he
violated his probation by committing new offenses.
[2] We affirm.
Facts and Procedural History
[3] On December 26, 2018, A.S. had been staying with Howell at his residence for
several days. Appellant’s App. Vol. II at 22. When A.S. informed Howell that
she was leaving and began to pack up her belongings, Howell became angry,
pulled a knife on A.S., hit her in the face causing a “busted and bloody lip,” and
refused to let her leave the residence. Id. A.S.’s brother was helping A.S. move
her belongings, and Howell also charged at A.S.’s brother with a knife. Id.
A.S.’s brother grabbed a stick from the yard, and Howell retreated. Id. Howell
was arrested and charged with Level 5 felony domestic battery and Level 6
felony criminal confinement. Id. at 17-18, 20.
[4] Howell and the State entered into a plea agreement in which Howell agreed to
plead guilty to Level 5 felony domestic battery in exchange for the State’s
dismissal of the criminal confinement charge. Id. at 41-43. The plea agreement
specified that Howell was to be sentenced to the Indiana Department of
Correction (“DOC”) for thirty months, all of which was to be suspended. Id. at
43. On October 23, 2019, the trial court accepted the plea agreement and
sentenced Howell to thirty months suspended to supervised probation pursuant
to the plea agreement. Id. at 73-81, 84-85. Among other conditions, Howell’s
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conditions of probation required him to “obey all Town, City, County, State,
and Federal laws and Ordinances.” Id. at 79.
[5] On January 16, 2020, the State charged Howell with two counts of Level 5
felony domestic battery under cause number 18C01-2001-F5-8 (“Cause No. 8”)
as a result of domestic violence incidents occurring on January 7, 2020 and
January 11, 2020. State’s Exs. 6-7. On January 21, 2020, the State filed a
petition to revoke Howell’s probation alleging as follows:
1. The defendant has been charged in [Cause No. 8]: Count 1:
Domestic Battery has been previously convicted of battery
against [sic], Level 5 Felony and Count 2: Domestic Battery has
been previously convicted of battery against [sic], Level 5 Felony.
2. The defendant has failed to report to Probation Officer as
directed.
WHEREFORE, this Officer now informs the Court that the
defendant, David Howell, is and should be determined to be in
violation of the Courts orders in Cause No. 18C01-1901-F5-
000006.
Appellant’s App. Vol. 2 at 86. (emphasis in original).
[6] On June 17, 2020, the trial court held the fact-finding hearing on Howell’s
alleged violations. Id. at 12. Muncie Police Department Patrolman Zachary
Surver (“Officer Surver”) testified that on January 11, 2020, he was dispatched
(along with the other officer who was training him at the time) on a domestic
violence call to an abandoned house where he encountered A.S., who had
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bruising and swelling to her hands and face, abrasions on her arm, an abrasion
on her chin, and her right eye was black and blue. Tr. Vol. 2 at 6-9; State’s Exs.
1-2. Officer Surver met A.S. in a camper that was located on the property,
stating that A.S. told him that on January 7, 2020 Howell hit her on the right
side of her face with a frying pan. Tr. Vol. 2 at 8, 10-11. Officer Surver testified
that A.S. said she used her left hand to protect herself, which resulted in an
injury to her left ring finger. Id. at 11; State’s Ex. 2. Officer Surver also
indicated that on January 11, 2020, A.S. told him that Howell cornered her in a
camper, damaged the camper’s door, and sprayed some kind of liquid on her.
Tr. Vol. 2 at 11. Officer Surver testified that A.S. signed a battery affidavit
concerning the January 7, 2020 and January 11, 2020 domestic violence
incidents, and Howell was arrested for domestic battery. Id. at 13-14; State’s Ex.
3.
[7] Muncie Police Department Officer Daniel Vogel (“Officer Vogel”) also
responded to the January 11, 2020 domestic violence call, testifying that he
observed that A.S. had “bruising around one eye and one of her fingers was
pretty severely swollen.” Tr. Vol. 2 at 17-18. Officer Vogel also testified that on
January 11, 2020, A.S. said Howell “sprayed something on her because she
complained that her face and her lips were burning.” Id. at 19; State’s Ex. 4.
[8] Delaware County Probation Officer Vickie Reed (“Reed”) also testified. Tr.
Vol. 2 at 24. She testified that she met with Howell after he was sentenced on
October 23, 2019 and that Howell reviewed and signed the rules of probation.
Id. at 28; State’s Ex. 5. Reed stated that she scheduled Howell’s intake
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appointment for October 29, 2019, but Howell did not appear for the intake
appointment. Tr. Vol. 2 at 28. She testified that she attempted to mail Howell
multiple letters to two different addresses, but Howell never followed up or
reported to probation. Id. One of her letters was returned as “undeliverable,”
and she mailed another letter but learned on January 13, 2020 that Howell was
in jail on the two new domestic battery offenses. Id.
[9] Howell’s counsel acknowledged that Howell had failed to report to probation as
directed and that the State had shown Howell was charged with a crime. Id. at
32. His counsel argued that being charged with a crime is insufficient to
constitute a probation violation, and that the trial court should find that Howell
had not violated his probation merely by virtue of being criminally charged in
Cause No. 8. Id. The trial court revoked Howell’s probation “based upon the
fact that the State has met its burden of proving by preponderance of the
evidence that defendant committed other crimes while on supervised probation
and he failed to report as directed.” Id. at 34. On June 22, 2020, the trial court
held the dispositional hearing at which it revoked the entirety of Howell’s
probation and ordered that he serve the remainder of his previously-suspended
thirty-month sentence in the DOC. Appellant’s App. Vol. II at 12-13; Tr. Vol. 2 at
43. Howell now appeals.
Discussion and Decision
[10] Howell argues that the State violated his right to due process under the
Fourteenth Amendment to the constitution of the United States because he
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contends that he did not receive sufficient notice that he violated his probation
by committing new offenses. Probation hearings are civil in nature, and the
State must prove an alleged probation violation by a preponderance of the
evidence. Votra v. State, 121 N.E.3d 1108, 1113 (Ind. Ct. App. 2019); see also
Ind. Code § 35-38-2-3(f). “Probation is a matter of grace left to trial court
discretion, not a right to which a criminal defendant is entitled.” Prewitt v. State,
878 N.E.2d 184, 188 (Ind. 2007). “The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment imposes procedural and substantive limits on the revocation of the
conditional liberty created by probation.” Braxton v. State, 651 N.E.2d 268, 269
(Ind. 1995) (citations omitted). Probation revocation is a two-step process:
first, the trial court determines whether a violation has occurred and second, the
trial court determines whether the violation warrants revocation. Overstreet v.
State, 136 N.E.3d 260, 263 (Ind. Ct. App. 2019), trans. denied. (citations
omitted). Probation revocation implicates a defendant’s liberty interests, which
entitles a defendant to some procedural due process, but a defendant is not
entitled to full due process rights, as probation revocation does not deprive
defendant of an absolute liberty but only a conditional liberty. Parker v. State,
676 N.E.2d 1083, 1085 (Ind. Ct. App. 1997). “Basing a probation revocation
upon claimed violations for which the defendant had received no notice is error
because it violates due process.” Bussberg v. State, 827 N.E.2d 37, 44 (Ind. Ct.
App. 2005), trans. denied.
[11] Howell contends that the State failed to provide him with sufficient written
notice because the revocation petition alleged that he had been charged in
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Cause No. 8 with two counts of domestic violence as opposed to committing
two new offenses.1 The State maintains that Howell has waived his due process
argument concerning the charges in Cause No. 8 by failing to object on that
basis in the trial court. We agree with the State that Howell has waived his due
process argument. See Pigg v. State, 929 N.E.2d 799, 803 (Ind. Ct. App. 2010)
(due process rights are subject to waiver and may not be raised for first time on
appeal), trans. denied.
[12] At the revocation hearing, Howell never made an objection on the basis that the
State did not provide him with sufficient notice that he committed new criminal
offenses in Cause No. 8 as a basis for revoking his probation. Rather, Howell
objected on relevancy grounds to testimony and exhibits, including photographs
of A.S.’s injuries, A.S.’s battery affidavit, and the probable cause affidavit in
Cause No. 8, tending to show he committed the new offenses. Tr. Vol. 2 at 10,
12, 14, 19, 21; State’s Exs. 1-4. Howell did not object to the admission of his
probation conditions, the CCS showing the filing of charges in Cause No. 8, or
the charging information in Cause No. 8. Tr. Vol. 2 at 26-27; State’s Exs. 5-7. At
the close of the evidence, Howell did not argue that the State provided him with
insufficient written notice that his commission of new criminal offenses in
Cause No. 8 was a basis for revoking his probation. Tr. Vol. 2 at 32. Instead, he
1
Howell does not extend his due process challenge to the other alleged probation violation that he failed to
report to probation and does not dispute that he received sufficient notice of that allegation; indeed, he
concedes that he failed to report to probation as set forth in the revocation petition. See Appellant’s Br. at 11
n.1.
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conceded to failing to report as alleged in the revocation petition and contended
that while the revocation petition alleged that he had been charged with other
crimes that being criminally charged does not constitute a violation of
probation. Id. Howell did not raise an objection, request a continuance, or file
a pretrial motion asserting that the revocation petition failed to provide him
with sufficient notice that committing new offenses in Cause No. 8 was a basis
for revoking his probation as he does now on appeal. Id. at 4-34; Appellant’s
App. Vol. II at 10-11. Therefore, Howell has waived this argument.2
[13] Waiver notwithstanding, we will address Howell’s due process argument,
which relies on Long v. State, 717 N.E.2d 1238 (Ind. Ct. App. 1999) and Harder
v. State, 501 N.E.2d 1117 (Ind. Ct. App. 1986), in which panels of this court
reversed revocations of probation based on violations of due process. In Long,
the State alleged that Long violated his probation by “tamper[ing]” with his
ankle transmitter by attempting to remove it, but at the revocation hearing the
State only presented sufficient evidence that he had attempted to “fix” his
transmitter after he had broken it after falling on it. 717 N.E.2d at 1240.
Regardless, the trial court found that there was a separate home
detention/probation rule that prohibited probationers from attempting to fix an
2
Howell does not specifically challenge the sufficiency of the evidence that he violated his probation or the
imposition of the sentence. We note that the trial court’s written order imposing Howell’s previously-
suspended sentence as a sanction states that for the technical violation of failure to report it “usually” would
“give a Defendant a second chance if the sole basis for revocation is failure to report.” Appellant’s App. Vol. II
at 106, 108. The trial court’s order also stated, as to the commission of new criminal offenses in Cause No. 8,
that it had “found by a preponderance of the evidence that Defendant committed a domestic battery offense”
upon the same victim, and that the victim’s injuries were “egregious and obvious.” Id. at 106.
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ankle transmitter and revoked probation on that basis. Id. On appeal we
reversed, holding that probation could not be revoked based upon an act that
was similar but not identical to the charged act. Id. at 1241
[14] In Harder, the State alleged that Harder violated the terms of his probation by
committing the offense of operating while intoxicated per se (.10% BAC). 501
N.E.2d at 1121. However, the State only presented evidence that Harder was
driving while impaired, and the trial court revoked Harder’s probation based on
Harder’s impairment. Id. We reversed the revocation of probation, finding that
the revocation could not rest on his commission of driving while impaired even
though that offense was similar to the offense for which he was charged. Id.[15] Those cases are distinguishable. In Long and Harder, the probationers were
alleged to have committed one act and then found to be in violation of
probation based on the commission of another act. Here, Howell received
sufficient notice of the allegations against him under Cause No. 8. The
revocation petition alleged that Howell had “been charged in [Cause No. 8],”
which was an allegation that he committed the two new offenses set forth in the
charging information putting him on notice that the State was seeking to revoke
his probation on the basis of the commission of the acts underlying those
criminal offenses. Appellant’s App. Vol. II at 86. In addition, Howell was on
notice that a condition of his probation was that he was required to “obey all
Town, City, County, State, and Federal laws and Ordinances.” State’s Ex. 5.
Moreover, the trial court did not revoke Howell’s probation simply because he
had been charged with new criminal offenses in Cause No. 8; instead, it revoked
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Howell’s probation because the State had met its burden of demonstrating by a
preponderance of the evidence that Howell had in fact committed the acts
underlying those new offenses and failed to report to probation as directed.
Howell’s reliance on Long and Harder is misplaced, and we cannot say that
Howell’s due process rights were violated. Therefore, we affirm the trial court’s
order revoking Howell’s probation and ordering him to serve the balance of his
previously-suspended sentence.
[16] Affirmed.
Bradford, C.J., and May, J., concur.
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