1 John T. Boyd, Chi ef Justice (R et.), Se venth Co urt of Appeals, si tting by

assignment. Tex. Gov’ t Code Ann. §75.002( a)(1) (Vernon Supp. 2004). NO. 07-03-0012-CR IN THE COUR

T OF APPEALS FOR THE SEVEN TH DISTRICT OF TEXAS

AT AMARILLO PANEL E FEBRUARY

9, 2004

______________________________ LAYTON W ILLARD ADAMS, JR., APPELLANT
v. THE STATE OF TEXAS, A PPELLEE

_________________________________ FROM THE 46 TH DISTRIC T COURT O F W ILBARG ER COUNTY;

NO. 9998; HON. TOM NEELY, PRESIDING

_______________________________ Before QUINN and REAVIS, JJ., an d BOYD S.J. 1
After his plea of gui lty to a c harged offense of possess ion of a controlled substance in an amount of m ore than four but less tha n 200 grams, appell ant’s adjudication was deferred on A pril 30, 2001 , and he was placed on probati on for five years. On Jul y 26, 2001, the State moved to proceed wi th adjudicatio n and, on August 14, 2001, appellant was adjudicated g uilty and was asses sed a five yea r penal sentence. However, on2

December

10, 2001, the trial court entered an order granting community sup ervisi on after sentence and appellant w as placed on communi ty superv ision for fiv e years. On November

18, 2002, upon the Sta te’s motion to r evoke, the trial court found app ellant had tested positiv e on urinaly sis tests on or aboutOctober 7, 2002, October 29, 2002, and November

4, 2002 , for amp hetamin es/meth amp het amines, and thus had violated t hat condition of his probation w hich requi red him to avoid injuri ous or vi cious habits, including the use of narcotic or habit-forming drugs. Accordingly, the trial courtrevoked appellant’s probation and ass essed the penal s entence giv ing ris e to this appeal

. In presenting his appeal, and in each of his thr ee issues, appel lantonly chal lenges the court’s fin ding that he tested positive on the October 7, 2002 urinaly sis. In mounting thatchallenge, he asserts the trial court abuse d i ts discretion because the result of his urinalysis was improperly admitted into ev idence inasmuch a s no proper pr edicate was

laid for its admission. To establish the pre dicate for the admission of a hearsay item as a business record excepti on, the proponent must establish:
1. the record was made and kept in the course of a regularly conducted busi ness activi ty; 2. it was the regular

practice of that

business acti vity to make the recor d; 3. the record w

as made at or near

the time of the ev ent being recorded; and 4. the person maki ng the record or submitting the information had per sonal knowledg e of the events bei ng recorded.
Tex. R. Evid. 803(6); Philpot v. State, 897 S.W.2d 848, 851-52 (Tex. App.- -Dallas 199 5, pet. ref’d).3

As appellant recognizes, in a hearing of this nature, t he State is merel y requi red to prove its allegations by a preponderance of th e evidence and, because ap pellant is challengin g the sufficiency of the evidence, it must be rev iewed in a light most favorable to the trial court’s deci sion. Garrett v. State, 619 S.W .2d 1 72, 1 74 (T ex. Crim. App. 1981); Kulhanek

v. State, 587 S.W.2d 424, 426 (T ex. Cri m. App. 1979). Fu rther, the i ssue presented is whether the trial judge abused his discretion , and if the State fails to meet its burden of pr

oof, the trial judg e abuses his di scretion in revoking the probation ( community supervis ion). Cardona v. Stat e, 665 S.W .2d 492, 493-94 (Te x. Crim. App. 1984).
The State presented two witnesses at the hearing, Bill Owen and John L. Laseter. Owen testified that he had been appellant’s p robation officer for some 11 months. It w as a part of his job to conduct random drug tests on his probatio ners. He con ducted the tests on appellant on Oc

tober 7, October 29, and November 4, 2002, and wi tnessed appellant giving the samples. As part of his training, he averre d, he takes the specimens back to his office, runs a “tes t strip” o n them, and they a re boxed up and sent to a lab for analysis . In this case, after the Octobe r 7 test, he watched as appell ant placed the specimen intoa container, sealed it, and initialed i t. Appellant al so i n itialed the carbon copy of the paperworkincluded w ith the spe cimen, whic h was sent by U.S. mail to Accu-Chem in Richardson or Fort W orth, Texas.
Laseter testified that hewas employ ed as the laborator

y director for the Accu- Chem Laboratoriesin Richardson, Texas. He went over his rather extensive education in bioc hem istry. He said that his company was engag ed in testing activit ies s uch as those4

involved here. Laseter

had been in that busines s for 20 year s and had testified about 250 tim es in state dis trict cour ts in Texas. He also li sted the entiti es that had certified th e laboratory

. Laseter averred that specimens such as that in question here, come to his organiz ation in a sealed container that has a chain of custody

tag on it, “which has relevant information, numbers, and other identifiers on it, plus i nitials and s ignatures, and so forth.” He said they

received the subject specimen on Octo ber 9, 2002. It had all the seals inta ct and all the necessary information on it. He admitted that he di d not personall y receiv e the specimen nor did he per sonally pe rform the tests on it. He ident ified the records of the tests performed, averred that he was the custodian of the records, tha t they were made in the usual courseof

business, that

the records were made at o r near the ti me the tests were performed, and that the records wer e made by pers ons with p ersonal know led ge of the activiti es they were documenting . All of the spec imens received t ested positive for the presence o f methamphetamine/amphetamine. H e also testified that the coll ection of specimens in the manner testified to by Owen would not contaminate the specimen such that there would be a false rea ding from the tes ts performed by the laborator

y. The trial court did n ot er r in ad mitt ing th e rec ords . Viewe d in t he lig ht by wh ich we must view

it, the ev idence wassufficient to sustain the trial cour t’s conclus ion that appella nt had violated the conditions of his probation in the manner alleged. Moreover, when more than one violat ion of the conditions of communi ty superv ision is found by the trial court, the revocatio n order w ill be affirmed ifone sufficient ground supports the order. Inasmuch as5

appellant

does not chall enge the trial court’s findings on the other two dates, those findin gs are sufficient to sup port the revocation order.
Acco rdin gly, all of appellant’s issues are overrul ed and the judgment of the trial court is affirmed.

John T. Bo yd Senior Justice Do not publish

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