Case Title: Wallace v. State

Citation: 

Docket Number: 631, 2010

State: delaware

Court: Delaware Supreme Court

Date: 2011-09-27T00:00:00Z

Document:
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE 
 
BRANDEN WALLACE, 
 
 
Defendant Below- 
Appellant, 
 
v. 
 
STATE OF DELAWARE, 
 
Plaintiff Below- 
Appellee. 
§ 
§ 
§  No. 631, 2010 
§ 
§ 
§  Court Below—Superior Court 
§  of the State of Delaware, 
§  in and for New Castle County 
§  Cr. ID 0907027836 
§   
§ 
 
 
 
 
 
Submitted: July 29, 2011 
 
 
 
 
  Decided: September 27, 2011 
 
Before STEELE, Chief Justice, JACOBS, and RIDGELY, Justices. 
 
O R D E R 
 
This 27th day of September 2011, upon consideration of the parties’ 
briefs and the record below, it appears to the Court that: 
 
(1) 
The defendant-appellant, Branden Wallace, filed this appeal 
from the Superior Court’s sentence for a violation of probation (VOP).  
Among other things, Wallace contends that the evidence presented at the 
VOP hearing was insufficient to sustain the Superior Court’s findings.  We 
find no merit to Wallace’s appeal.  Accordingly, we affirm the Superior 
Court’s judgment. 
  
(2) 
The record reflects that Wallace pled guilty in February 2010 to 
second degree conspiracy.  The Superior Court sentenced him to two years at 
 
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Level V incarceration to be suspended for one year at Level II probation.  
Upon reporting to the probation office, Wallace provided the intake officer 
with the address of his residence in Newark.  Several days later, Wallace was 
involved in a domestic incident with Johanna Garcia, another probationer who 
lived with Wallace in the Newark home.  Wallace was arrested for offensive 
touching and a no contact order was placed against him.  On his next visit to 
his probation officer on March 18, 2010, Wallace was informed that he 
needed to find a new residence because of the no contact order.  Wallace 
immediately provided the officer with a Wilmington address.  The probation 
officer testified that he did not officially change Wallace’s address in the 
probation office’s computer system because he first wanted to check out the 
address and determine it was appropriate.  
 
(3) 
On April 1, 2010, another probation officer (not Wallace’s 
assigned officer) was performing compliance checks, along with other 
members of a task force, in the Newark area.  They went to the Newark home, 
which was still listed as Wallace’s home address, looking for Wallace.  One 
of Garcia’s teenaged children answered the door and told officers that neither 
Garcia nor was Wallace was home.  The officers were allowed into the home 
and performed a safety sweep of the home to make sure neither probationer 
was inside.  During the sweep, the probation officer found drugs in plain view 
 
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in the bedroom that the teenager had identified as being shared by Wallace 
and Garcia. Thereafter, the office obtained authorization from his supervisor 
to conduct a full search of the premises.  The search of the house and a car 
parked in front of the house (registered to Wallace) uncovered cocaine, 
heroin, paraphernalia, bundles of currency totaling $2000, weapons and 
ammunition.  During the search, Garcia arrived home and was arrested.  She 
later admitted that the heroin and some of the money belonged to her but that 
that guns and cocaine belonged to Wallace.  At the conclusion of the 
contested VOP hearing, the Superior Court found Wallace in violation of the 
terms of his probation and sentenced him to two years at Level V 
incarceration to be followed by six months probation.  This appeal followed. 
 
(4) 
Wallace raises several issues in his opening brief on appeal.  
First, Wallace contends that he was denied his due process and equal 
protection rights because his probation officer failed to properly update his 
address in the probation computer system.  Next, Wallace contends that the 
evidence at the VOP hearing was insufficient to prove that he violated 
probation.  Third, Wallace contends that the Superior Court erroneously 
admitted Garcia’s statement at the hearing and violated his confrontation 
rights.  Wallace next asserts that the trial judge exhibited bias against him and 
 
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erroneously found him in violation.  Wallace also contends that the probation 
officer who conducted the search of Garcia’s residence committed perjury. 
  
(5) 
We find no merit to any of Wallace’s contentions.  Wallace had 
no constitutional right to have his address immediately updated in the 
probation system in order to avoid having probation officers look for him at 
the home where he actually resided.1  The probation officer testified that 
probation guidelines allow officers thirty days to conduct a home visit of a 
new address in order to make sure it is an appropriate environment for a 
probationer.  The officer was provided the Wilmington address on March 18, 
2010 and had not yet performed a home visit before officers conducted the 
search of the Newark address on April 1. We find no violation of Wallace’s 
rights due to his probation officer’s failure to immediately update his home 
address in his probation record.   
 
(6) 
Moreover, we find no merit to Wallace’s complaints about the 
admission of hearsay evidence and the sufficiency of the evidence presented 
against him at the VOP hearing.  In a VOP hearing, unlike a criminal trial, the 
State is only required to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the 
                                                 
1 Garcia told officers that Wallace had stayed at the address after the no contact order had 
been entered.  Officers also found mail addressed to Wallace, his driver’s license, men’s 
clothing and Wallace’s latest tax return, among other things, in Garcia’s house during the 
search.  Moreover, a later interview with Wallace’s mother, who lived at the Wilmington 
address provided by Wallace, revealed that Wallace had not been living there. 
 
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defendant violated the terms of his probation.2  A preponderance of evidence 
means “some competent evidence” to “reasonably satisfy the judge that the 
conduct of the probationer has not been as good as required by the conditions 
of probation.”3  Furthermore, the rules of evidence are relaxed in a VOP 
hearing, and hearsay evidence is admissible.4  Under the circumstances, we 
find no abuse of the Superior Court’s discretion in finding Wallace had 
violated his probation.  The evidence was more than sufficient to sustain the 
Superior Court’s findings of a VOP, and there is nothing in the record to 
substantiate Wallace’s claims of either perjury or judicial bias.   
 
NOW, THEREFORE, IT IS ORDERED that the judgment of the 
Superior Court is AFFIRMED. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
BY THE COURT: 
 
 
 
 
 
 
/s/ Henry duPont Ridgely 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Justice 
                                                 
2 Kurzmann v. State, 903 A.2d 702, 716 (Del. 2006). 
3 Id. (quoting Collins v. State, 897 A.2d 159, 160 (Del. 2006)). 
4 Id.