Croshon v. State
Croshon v. State
Opinion
The appellant, Robert Wesley Croshon, was charged with robbery in the first degree. *Page 294 On March 27, 2006, he entered a plea of guilty to the lesser charge of attempted theft of property in the first degree. The trial court sentenced him to 15 years' imprisonment; the sentence was split, with confinement for the 251 days he had already spent in jail and the balance of the sentence suspended, pending Croshon's good behavior for 5 years.1 The suspension was to be made permanent at the expiration of the five-year "good behavior" period. The court then placed Croshon on formal probation and advised him that "as a condition of his probation he will be periodically drug tested and the first time he checks positive for drugs — he will go to the Penitentiary."
On April 19, 2006, Croshon's probation officer filed a delinquency report, charging that Croshon had failed to avoid injurious or vicious habits because he had tested positive for cocaine in a drug screening. At a revocation hearing on June 30, 2006, Croshon's counsel stipulated that the result of the drug test was positive but argued that probation should not be revoked because the necessary forms had not been completed before the violation occurred. The trial court found that Croshon had been fully advised of the terms and conditions of his probation and that, by testing positive for drugs, he had failed to comply with these terms and conditions. The court then revoked his probation and remanded him to the Department of Corrections to serve his sentence.
The present case is essentially similar to Wilcox v.State,
"We hold, therefore, that where, as here, Defendant commits a felony while under a probationary sentence, although prior to the effective date of the probationary portion of the sentence, and its terms and conditions are not yet expressly prescribed, the sentencing court *Page 295 is nevertheless authorized to revoke Defendant's probation for violation of a condition implicit in every suspended or probationary sentence: that Defendant, while under such sentence, will not commit another criminal offense. In other words, the trial court did not err in finding that Defendant violated an implied condition of his probation when he committed the offense of grand larceny in Madison County."
The revocation of Croshon's probation was proper because, even though Croshon had not yet been given the express terms of his probation, refraining from committing further criminal offenses is an implied condition of every probationary sentence.
The general rules of preservation apply to probation-revocation proceedings. Puckett v. State,
For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the trial court is affirmed.
AFFIRMED.
SHAW, WISE, and WELCH, JJ., concur; BASCHAB, P.J., concurs in the result.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Robert Wesley Croshon v. State of Alabama.
- Cited By
- 4 cases
- Status
- Published