Case Title: Vermont v. Blaise

Citation: 

Docket Number: 2010-293

State: vermont

Court: Vermont Supreme Court

Date: 2012-01-06T00:00:00Z

Document:
State v. Blaise (2010-293, 2010-294, & 2010-295)
 
2012 VT 2
 
[Filed 06-Jan-2012]
 
ENTRY ORDER
 
2012 VT 2
 
SUPREME COURT
  DOCKET NOS. 2010-293, 2010-294 & 2010-295
 
MAY TERM, 2011 
 
State of Vermont
}
APPEALED FROM:
 
}
 
 
}
Superior Court, Chittenden Unit,
     v.
}
Criminal Division
 
}
 
 
}
DOCKET NOS. 1602-4-07
  Cncr,
Scott Blaise
}
2504-6-07 Cncr, & 2787-7-07 Cncr
 
 
 
 
 
Trial Judge: Linda Levitt
 
In the above-entitled
cause, the Clerk will enter:
 
¶ 1.            
Defendant Scott Blaise appeals from the decision of the Chittenden
Superior Court, Criminal Division, that he violated three conditions of
probation for his alleged failure to do the following: (1) adequately
participate in counseling as directed by his probation officer; (2) pay
required fines; and (3) complete 140 hours of community service.  On
appeal, defendant argues that neither the court nor his probation officer
imposed upon him a probation condition requiring him to attend and complete
counseling at Teen Challenge, the program he stopped attending, and that the
State failed to meet its burden of proving that he violated conditions related
to community service or the payment of fines.  We conclude that the State
failed to prove that defendant violated any of the probation conditions for
which he was charged and that the errors were not harmless because of a later
admitted-to violation.  Accordingly, we reverse. 
 
¶ 2.            
The material undisputed facts are as follows.  On May 17, 2007,
defendant pled guilty in Grand Isle District Court to several charges: one
count of driving with a suspended license, one count of grossly negligent
operation of a motor vehicle, and one count of violation of conditions of
release.  The court sentenced defendant to a total of two to four and a
half years, all suspended with probation.  The probation conditions
included a condition that if a probation officer or the court ordered defendant
to go to any counseling or training program, he was required to do so and to
participate to the satisfaction of his probation officer.  Special
conditions also required defendant to complete forty hours of community service
and to pay certain fines and surcharges.  Defendant was assigned to a
Burlington probation and parole officer.  
 
¶ 3.            
In April and June 2007, while on probation from the Grand Isle
convictions, defendant was charged with several new crimes in Chittenden
District Court.  On October 1, 2007, he entered into a plea agreement
involving the following charges: two counts of driving with a suspended
license, one count of leaving the scene of an accident, and one count of petit
larceny.  As a result of this agreement, defendant was sentenced to an
aggregate of six to eighteen months, all suspended with a two-year term of
probation.  The probation conditions resulting from this second plea
agreement again included a standard condition requiring defendant to attend any
counseling or training program ordered by his probation officer or the court
and to participate to the satisfaction of his probation officer.  Special
conditions additionally required defendant to perform 100 hours of community
service and to pay certain fines to his probation officer "as directed on a
schedule determined by your probation officer." 
 
¶ 4.            
Before entering into the plea agreement covering the Chittenden charges,
defendant enrolled himself in Teen Challenge, a faith-based residential
counseling and substance abuse program located in Johnson.  In August
2007, he reported to his Burlington probation officer that he was attending
this counseling program.  On October 10, defendant and the probation
officer signed a probation contract.  The contract stated that defendant
was enrolled in Teen Challenge but did not address whether such counseling was
required.  It also contained requirements with respect to payment of fines
and community service.
 
¶ 5.            
The Burlington probation officer initially continued to be assigned to
defendant after he pled guilty to the additional charges in Chittenden County
in October 2007.  However, because defendant was attending Teen
Challenge in a different county, his probation case was transferred later in
October to the Morrisville probation and parole office, and he was assigned a
Morrisville probation officer.  
 
¶ 6.            
In January 2008, Teen Challenge notified the Morrisville probation
officer that defendant had left the program, and the officer filed a violation
of probation (VOP) complaint in defendant's Grand Isle case, alleging that
defendant had violated probation by leaving Teen Challenge without reporting
any change of address to his probation officer.  Thereafter, in March
2008, the probation officer filed a second VOP complaint, this time in
defendant's Chittenden County cases, alleging that defendant had violated
probation by failing to participate in counseling to the satisfaction of his
probation officer, by failing to pay his fines, and by failing to complete
required community service hours.[1]
 
¶ 7.            
On May 6, 2008, the Chittenden District Court held a merits hearing on
the March VOP complaint.  Both probation officers testified.  The
Burlington officer testified to what she understood was the specific direction
imposed under the court's probation condition that required defendant to attend
counseling as deemed appropriate by his probation officer.  
 
¶ 8.            
The Morrisville probation officer testified that he never received
verification from defendant or from Teen Challenge that defendant had completed
the full amount of community service hours required by his probation
orders.  He also explained that he had received no payment of fines from
defendant, nor any documentation of payment, until after he filed his VOP
complaint on March 26.  
 
¶ 9.            
Following the presentation of testimony, the trial court concluded from
the bench that defendant had violated the probation condition requiring him to
participate in counseling as directed by his probation officer.  The court
explained, 
 
He
went to Teen Challenge in . . . July or August of 2007.  He left Teen
Challenge in January, and at that point he was no longer attending counseling
as directed by his probation officer, specifically, alcohol or substance abuse
counseling.  So the Court can find a violation that he did not attend
counseling as directed.  
 
The court also
concluded that defendant had violated probation by failing to perform community
service and by failing to pay required fines.  The court declined,
however, to find that defendant had violated probation by failing to report a
change of address after leaving Teen Challenge.  Sentencing was set for
June 2, 2008.  
 
¶ 10.         Defendant's
hearing on June 2, 2008 involved both sentencing for the VOPs adjudicated on
May 6, 2008, and the consideration of an additional VOP claim, not at issue on
appeal, for engaging in violent or threatening behavior.  The parties came
to this hearing with a "global resolution" proposing a two-and-a-half- to
eight-year sentence to serve.  This sentence took into account the VOPs
determined at the May hearing and the VOP charge for violent or threatening
behavior, which defendant admitted.  As resolved by the parties, the court
sentenced defendant to two and a half to eight years to serve.  
 
¶ 11.         Approximately
two years after he was sentenced, defendant filed a petition for post conviction
relief (PCR), asserting that his defense counsel failed to properly advise him
concerning his right to appeal the court's May 6, 2008 determination that he
had violated three probation conditions.  On July 6, 2010, the trial court
approved a stipulation in which the parties agreed to a dismissal of
defendant's PCR petition in exchange for the reinstatement of petitioner's
right to appeal the May 6, 2008 findings and conclusions.  This appeal
followed.
 
¶ 12.        
At a probation revocation hearing, the State bears the burden of proving
a probation violation by a preponderance of the evidence.  State v.
Austin, 165 Vt. 389, 398, 685 A.2d 1076, 1082 (1996).  If this initial
burden is met, the burden of persuasion shifts to defendant to prove the
violation was "not willful but rather resulted from factors beyond his control
and through no fault of his own."  Id. (quotation omitted).  A
trial court's conclusion that a defendant violated a probation condition
involves a mixed question of law and fact.  State v. Miles, 2011 VT
6, ¶ 6, ___ Vt. ___, 15 A.3d 596.  "[T]he trial court must first make a
factual determination of the probationer's actions, and then make an implicit
legal conclusion' that the probationer's actions violated his probationary
terms."  State v. Woolbert, 2007 VT 26, ¶ 8, 181 Vt. 619, 926 A.2d 626 (mem.) (quoting Austin, 165 Vt. at 398, 685 A.2d at 1082).  We
accept the trial court's findings of fact if supported by credible
evidence.  Miles, 2011 VT 6, ¶ 6.  The court's legal
conclusions must stand if supported by the findings.  Id.
 
¶ 13.         On
appeal, defendant first argues that he could not have violated a condition of
probation by leaving Teen Challenge because the probation officer never imposed
a requirement to attend and complete Teen Challenge, and if there was such a
requirement, the condition was so ambiguous that it failed to give him adequate
notice.[2] 
We agree.
 
¶ 14.         The
relevant legal standards are fully developed in our decisions.  Probation
contracts are a form of contract subject to normal rules of contract
construction.  See State v. Bohannon, 2010 VT 22, ¶ 8, 187 Vt. 410,
996 A.2d 196 (stating probation conditions operate as a contract between the
probationer and the court and acknowledging this Court must construe probation
agreement according to contract principles); State v. Murray, 159 Vt.
198, 205, 617 A.2d 135, 139 (1992) ("A deferred-sentence agreement, like all
probation agreements, is a form of contract, subject to the normal rules for
construction of contracts." (citation omitted)).  A contract term is
considered ambiguous where "a writing in and of itself supports a different
interpretation from that which appears when it is read in light of the
surrounding circumstances, and both interpretations are reasonable."  Isbrandtsen
v. N. Branch Corp., 150 Vt. 575, 579, 556 A.2d 81, 84 (1988). Where
ambiguous, a contract is ordinarily construed against the party who drafts
it.  Murray, 159 Vt. at 205, 617 A.2d  at 139.  
 
¶ 15.         As we
have consistently recognized, due process requires that a defendant know "what
conduct is forbidden before the initiation of a probation revocation
proceeding."  State v. Hammond, 172 Vt. 601, 602, 779 A.2d 73, 75
(2001) (mem.) (quoting State v. Bubar, 146 Vt. 398, 405, 505 A.2d 1197,
1201 (1985)); see also State v. Peck, 149 Vt. 617, 619, 547 A.2d 1329,
1331 (1988) (agreeing that "due process requires that a convicted offender be
given fair notice as to what acts may constitute a violation of his probation,
thereby subjecting him to loss of liberty").  While a defendant might be
given fair notice of what may constitute a probation violation "by the
instructions and directions given to defendant by his or her probation
officer," Peck, 149 Vt. at 619-20, 547 A.2d  at 1331, a condition of
probation must be "so clearly implied that a probationer, in fairness, can be
said to have notice of it," Austin, 165 Vt. at 398, 685 A.2d  at 1082
(emphasis omitted).
 
¶ 16.         Both
the Grand Isle and the Chittenden District Court probation orders required, "If
the probation officer or the court orders you to go to any counseling or
training program, you must do so.  You must participate to the
satisfaction of your probation officer."  By their terms, these conditions
impose a requirement only "[i]f the probation officer or the court orders . . .
any counseling or training program."
 
¶ 17.         In
this case, defendant's obligations were contained in a probation contract
between defendant and the Burlington probation officer, as prepared by the
officer and signed by both shortly after the Chittenden District Court imposed
its probation sentence.  The standard form document is titled "PROBATION
CONTRACT" and contains sections, among others, concerning financial payment,
community service, and counseling.  With respect to substance abuse
counseling, it states only that defendant is "currently in treatment @ Teen
Challenge."  
 
¶ 18.         The
Burlington probation officer testified that defendant signed the probation
contracta contract that she had filled out for his signature.  She
testified that the meaning of the contract was that "I agreed and he agreed
that [defendant] would be doing his substance abuse counseling through the Teen
Challenge program."  She stated that defendant met with her in August 2007
and informed her that he had enrolled himself in Teen Challenge and thought
that it was a good program for him.  According to the officer, during
this meeting, she let defendant know he was required to go to Teen
Challenge.  She admitted, however, that she had not recorded the
requirement "verbatim."  She believed that she had made clear to defendant
"that as long as he stayed enrolled in Teen Challenge and continued that
treatment to the full satisfaction of their programming requirements that I
would have no issue with that."  The State's position is that the
testimony shows that the requirement of counseling at Teen Challenge was
imposed orally and the written "contract" is only a memorialization of the fact
of his enrollment.
 
¶ 19.         Our
leading decision in this area is Peck.  It recognizes the binding
force of instructions from the probation officer and imposes no requirement
that the instructions be in writing.  There is no indication in Peck
or in the decisions after Peck that the probation officer's instructions
were in writing; nor have there been disputes over the content of the
instructions,[3]
as is present in this case.  We agree that the use of a written contract
between the probation officer and the probationer is a desirable step forward
to ensure clear understandings of what is required.  Indeed, the evidence
of the nature of the agreement in this case shows the desirability of a written
memorandum of the agreement.  The Burlington probation officer testified
generally that she required defendant to attend Teen Challenge, but what she
specifically recollected conveyingthat she would have no problem if he attended
Teen Challengewas more vague.  Although her statement endorsed
defendant's choice as complying with the officer's direction, it stopped short
of imposing a mandate.  In essence, the probation officer's testimony is
parol evidence that can be used in construing the written contract if that
contract is ambiguous.  See Isbrandtsen, 150 Vt. at 577, 556 A.2d 
at 83.  Even considering the context, we cannot find the contract
ambiguous with respect to whether it requires defendant to attend Teen
Challenge such that he committed a probation violation by leaving the
program.  The contract clearly contains no such requirement.  
 
¶ 20.         Because
the probation contract does not contain a requirement that defendant attend
Teen Challenge, we hold that defendant did not violate his terms of probation
by leaving Teen Challenge.  This conclusion disposes of the issue, and we
decline to reach defendant's related constitutional claims.  
 
¶ 21.         The
second issue on appeal is whether defendant violated probation by failing to
pay required fines.  The condition defendant allegedly violated required
that he "pay [his] fine(s) . . . to [his] probation officer as directed on a
schedule determined by [his] probation officer."[4]  This condition was also
covered by the probation contract between the Burlington probation officer and
defendant.  The contract specifies that defendant owes a fine of $78 plus
$138 from the previous docket, apparently the fine owed under the Grand Isle
probation condition, for a total of $216.  However, the contract contained
no schedule for payment. 
 
¶ 22.         The
testimony on this alleged violation added little.  The Burlington
probation officer who signed the probation contract gave no testimony about the
fine-payment requirement.  The Morrisville probation officer testified
that defendant owed fines and did not pay them before the officer brought the
violation complaint.  The court found a violation of the fine-payment
condition because defendant had not paid the fines when the officer filed the
VOP complaint.
 
¶ 23.         We
cannot conclude that the State met its burden of proof.  Defendant was on
probation for two years, from October 2007 to October 2009.  The probation
condition authorized the probation officer to set a payment schedule for
repayment during that period.  The probation contract itemized the amount
defendant owed but failed to establish a payment schedule.  There was no
testimony that a payment schedule was established.  In the absence of a
payment schedule, and well before the expiration of defendant's probation,
there was no support for the claim that defendant had violated the probation
condition by failing to make a payment before the VOP complaint was
filed.  We cannot find a violation.
 
¶ 24.         Our
conclusion about the third alleged violation is similar.  The relevant
probation condition said: "You must faithfully work 100 hours at a community
service job to the satisfaction of your probation officer."  Apparently,
there was a similar condition in the Grand Isle probation order, and defendant
needed to complete forty more hours of community service to fulfill his
responsibility under that order.  Thus, the probation contract between the
Burlington probation officer and defendant stated that he had to complete 140
hours, "40 from [the] previous docket," and that defendant had "already
started."  Again, no completion schedule was included.  The VOP
complaint charged that defendant did not complete any "verified community
service hours."  The Burlington probation officer testified that it was
agreed that defendant could perform his community service hours through Teen
Challenge.  The evidence also indicated that the head of the Teen
Challenge program had told the Morrisville probation officer orally that
defendant had done the community service.  However, the Teen Challenge
program had provided no verification of the hours of service performed, and the
officer charged the probation violation because of the lack of
verification.  
 
¶ 25.         We
reiterate that the State bears the burden of proving a probation violation by a
preponderance of the evidence.  Austin, 165 Vt. at 398, 685 A.2d  at
1082.  As with the payment-of-fines charge, the record does not support a
conclusion that the probation officers had required defendant to complete his
community service by the time that the Morrisville probation officer filed the
VOP complaint.  Even if there were such a requirement, we cannot conclude
the State proved that defendant had violated the requirement.  The only
evidence on the question was the hearsay statement of the head of Teen
Challenge that defendant had done his community service.  The State had to
prove the violation but offered no evidence to the contrary.  Instead, the
probation officer claimed that there was a requirement that the information be
verified in writing.  Such a requirement is not contained in the probation
condition or the probation contract, and defendant had no notice that he
committed a violation of probation for not producing a written verification of
his community service.  We cannot uphold the court's conclusion that
defendant violated the community-service term of probation.
 
¶ 26.         Finally,
we must resolve the State's argument that any error is harmless because
defendant also admitted to committing a more serious breach of probation
conditions and the revocation of defendant's probation is supported by this
breach alone.  The admitted violation was for violent or threatening
behavior, specifically that he physically and verbally abused his
ex-girlfriend.  The State argues that the court would have revoked
defendant's probation even without findings of violation pertaining to counseling,
community service, and fines.
 
¶ 27.         We
disagree that the erroneous violation adjudications are harmless in terms of
sentencing.  We cannot know what sentence the court might have imposed if
it had found fewer probation violations.  See State v. Higgins, 147
Vt. 506, 508, 519 A.2d 1164, 1166 (1986) (per curiam) ("This Court cannot know
what sentence might have been imposed by the sentencing judge for a single
violation of probation, rather than the three violations found by the trial
court.  We therefore remand for resentencing.").  The sentence
imposed in June 2008 was based on a "global resolution" between the parties
that took into account both the VOP adjudication from May 2008 and
the additional admitted-to violation.  We also note that the stipulation
agreed to by the parties and approved by the court on July 6, 2010,
specifically gave defendant the right to appeal "the May 6, 2008 VOP findings and
sentences on those violations" (emphasis added).  Thus, the
stipulation allowing this appeal anticipated that the sentence resulting from
the trial court's May 2008 VOP findings might be reconsidered.  Given that
we conclude the court erred in finding three of the four violations, we must
remand this case for resentencing.  
 
Reversed and remanded for further
proceedings consistent with this order.
 
 
¶ 28.         BURGESS,
J., dissenting in part.      As the majority
recognizes, there is more than one way to impose a condition of
probation.  Here, defendant was ordered to probation by the court and to
engage in substance abuse programming if so directed by his probation
officer.  Defendant was directed by his probation officer to attend the
substance abuse counseling.  Defendant attended such counseling, but left
to attend a different counseling program at Teen Challenge.  
Defendant then stopped attending the Teen Challenge program.  The court so
found, and its findings are supported by the officer's testimony.  On
notice of what was required of him, defendant was fairly found in violation of
probation when he failed to abide by the condition, and I respectfully dissent
from this unwarranted reversal.
 
¶ 29.         State
v. Peck, 149 Vt. 617, 547 A.2d 1329 (1988), governs this case.  In Peck,
we noted that "due process requires that a convicted offender be given fair
notice as to what acts may constitute a violation of his probation."  Id.
at 619, 547 A.2d  at 1331.  Such notice need not be in writing, but may be
in the form of "instructions and directions given to the [probationer] by his
or her probation officer."  Id. at 619-20, 547 A.2d  at 1331. 
Thus, the officer's verbal instructions may sufficiently notify the probationer
of the probation conditions.  In part on this basis in Peck, we
upheld a finding of violation resulting from the defendant's refusal to admit
that he committed a sex offense as part of his required counseling, where the
probation officer orally informed the probationer that successful completion of
counseling conditions would require this admission.[5]  Id.; see also State v.
Foster, 151 Vt. 442, 447, 561 A.2d 107, 110 (1989) (affirming probation
violation where defendant failed to abide by written probation condition and
probation officer's oral instructions).
 
¶ 30.         The
majority agrees on the law to this point, but then misreads the facts to 
conclude the probation officer failed to make the attendance condition clear to
defendant.  See ante, ¶¶ 15-20.  Defendant's probation officer
testified that when she spoke with defendant about counseling he told her that
he was already attending Teen Challenge.  She further testified that she
then told defendant that "as long as he stayed enrolled in Teen Challenge and
continued that treatment to the full satisfaction of their programming requirements
that [she] would have no issue with that."  
 
¶ 31.        
The probation officer's statement that she had "no issue" with defendant
attending Teen Challenge was not, as the majority characterizes it, too vague
to establish a counseling requirement.  See ante, ¶ 19.  The
probation officer's testimony was that she made this comment during a longer
conversation with defendant about his counseling requirement.  This
discussion did not proceed from the premise that defendant was free to decide
whether to attend counseling.  Rather, the officer said she informed
defendant of his counseling requirement and expressed her approval of his
choice of Teen Challenge to meet that requirement.  The totality of
the officer's testimony supports the court's finding that when defendant left
Teen Challenge "he was no longer attending counseling as directed by his
probation officer, specifically, alcohol or substance abuse counseling."[6] 
¶ 32.        
These findings are further supported by the evidence of defendant's
probation order and the probation contract form.  As recited by the
majority, the order stated defendant was to attend counseling if directed by
his probation officer and that he was to participate to the officer's satisfaction. 
In the box labeled "Counseling" on the form contract signed by defendant in the
course of the officer's above-described discussion about his counseling
requirement, the officer noted that defendant is "currently in treatment @ Teen
Challenge."  Unless the officer was writing defendant's biography, or
keeping a diary of his volitional activity irrelevant to probation compliance,
there was, of course, no reason for that notation except as a memorial of her
explicit direction, as found by the court, that defendant attend counseling.
 
¶ 33.        
The perception of the majority, that the officer's endorsement of Teen
Challenge "as complying with the officer's direction" stopped "short of
imposing a mandate," ignores the one and only context for this conversation to
have occurred at all.  What is vague to the majority was clear to the
trial court and, based on his probation order, contract form, and direction
from the officer, just as clear to defendant.  But for the court's
probation order, there was no reason for defendant to converse with the
probation officer.  But for the officer's direction that defendant attend
counseling pursuant to that order, there was no reason for defendant to inform
the officer about his switch to Teen Challenge.  There was no evident
reason for defendant to attend Teen Challenge except for the court's order and
the officer's direction that defendant do so. 
 
¶ 34.         The
majority's focus on the written probation contract and this Court's decision in
Isbrandtsen v. North Branch Corp., 150 Vt. 575, 556 A.2d 81 (1988), is
the wrong road for this case.  But even if Isbrandtsen did govern
these facts, defendant's counseling violation should still be affirmed.  Isbrandtsen
calls for the use of extrinsic evidence to interpret an ambiguous writing. See
150 Vt. at 579, 556 A.2d  at 85 (1988) (directing use of "subordinate rules of
construction" to interpret ambiguous contract terms).  Assuming, as the
majority does, that the phrase "currently in treatment @ Teen Challenge" is ambiguous,
the probation officer's testimony as to the surrounding circumstances and
substance of the oral probation contract was not.  This court has long
held it "appropriate, when inquiring into the existence of ambiguity, for a
court to consider the circumstances surrounding the making of the
agreement."  Isbrandtsen, 150 Vt. at 579, 556 A.2d  at 84.  The
testimony supported the probation requirement, the probation requirement
supported the court's findings, and defendant's failure to attend supported the
court's conclusion that he violated probation.  
 
¶ 35.         It is
not a finer point of the Geneva Convention we are interpreting, but an everyday
probation condition.  Its terms and requirements were plain enough to the
defendant, the officer, and the court.  Accordingly, I would affirm
defendant's violation of probation for failure to attend counseling.  
 
¶ 36.         I am
authorized to state that Chief Justice Reiber joins in this dissent.
 
 
Dissenting:                                                     
BY THE COURT:
 
 
________________________________       
_____________________________________
Paul L. Reiber, Chief
Justice                         
John A. Dooley, Associate Justice
 
________________________________       
_____________________________________
Brian L. Burgess, Associate
Justice               
Denise R. Johnson, Associate
Justice                                                

                                                                       
_____________________________________
                                                                  
     Marilyn S. Skoglund, Associate Justice
 
 
 

[1] 
The Morrisville probation officer also filed an additional VOP complaint in the
Chittenden cases on May 6, 2008.  In this VOP complaint, he alleged
defendant had violated his probation condition prohibiting violent or
threatening behavior based on allegations from defendant's ex-girlfriend in a
request for relief from abuse order.  This last VOP complaint is not at
issue in this appeal, except as it may affect whether error in the judgment on
the other violations can be considered harmless, see infra ¶¶ 26-27.
[2] 
Defendant also argues that if the probation officer required that he attend
Teen Challenge, the requirement violates his constitutional rights under the
United States and Vermont constitutions because Teen Challenge is an overtly
religious program.  We do not reach that argument.
[3] 
We recognize that there have been disputes over the effect of the
instructions.  The central question in Peck was whether the
undisputed requirement that he complete sex offender counseling to the
satisfaction of his probation officer meant that he had to take responsibility
for the conduct for which he was convicted, a requirement for successful
completion of the counseling program to which he was assigned.  See Peck,
149 Vt. at 620, 547 A.2d  at 1331.  The issue in this case is not about the
effect of a probation officer's requirement; it is instead about whether there
was any requirement, and, if so, its content.
 
[4] 
The State argues that defendant failed to preserve his claim that the violation
for failure to pay fines was unsupported by sufficient evidence.  A
probation-revocation proceeding is a hybrid criminal/civil proceeding.  State
v. Leggett, 167 Vt. 438, 446, 709 A.2d 491, 496 (1997) (Dooley, J.,
dissenting).  In a nonjury criminal trial, "the law does not require the
criminal defendant to . . . mov[e] for a judgment of acquittal in
order to preserve his right to question the sufficiency of the evidence on
appeal. . . .  So long as the appeal is timely filed, the sufficiency of
the evidence in a criminal case tried by the court may be considered." State
v. Rifkin, 140 Vt. 472, 475, 438 A.2d 1122, 1124 (1981).  Here,
defendant denied the charged probation violation, resulting in a contested
probation violation hearing.  During the hearing, defendant put on
evidence in his defense, and it was always his position that he did not violate
probation for failure to pay.  Thus, we can properly consider the
sufficiency of the evidence on appeal.
 
[5] 
It should be noted that in Peck the defendant did sign a probation
contract requiring him to attend counseling, a fact on which this Court also
relied in affirming the violation.  Id. at 620, 547 A.2d  at
1331.  We emphasized, however, that the contract required the defendant to
complete the counseling "to the full satisfaction of [the] probation officer,"
the meaning of which the probation officer communicated orally to the
defendant.  Id.  The defendant's failure to abide by his
probation officer's verbal instructions, therefore, was the basis of his
violation.  Id.
[6] 
To be clear, the requirement was to attend counseling, not to attend Teen
Challenge.  Defendant could have satisfied this requirement by attending
counseling at another program approved by his probation officer.