Court Opinion

ID: 9677876
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 06:02:54.452896+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:59.350623
License: Public Domain

Opinion on Appellant’s Motion for Rehearing
Appellant’s motion for rehearing asks that we reconsider our holding overruling ground of error one. In ground of error one appellant complained that the evidence was insufficient to show the commission of aggravated kidnapping, as alleged in the State’s motion to revoke probation. We held that we did not have to consider the sufficiency of the evidence of aggravated kidnapping because the State’s motion also alleged that appellant committed the offense of sexual abuse while on probation, and he did not contest the sufficiency of the evidence to support that allegation. Therefore, we held, any insufficiency of evidence on the charge of aggravated kidnapping would be harmless, because when a motion *820to revoke probation alleges several violations of probation, the court’s order revoking probation will be affirmed if the proof on any one of the allegations is sufficient. Moore v. State, 605 S.W.2d 924 (Tex.Cr.App.1980); Jones v. State, 571 S.W.2d 191 (Tex.Cr.App.1978).
Appellant urges that we should not affirm, but should decide if the evidence of aggravated kidnapping is sufficient, and if not, remand this case to the trial judge for further hearings. He argues that when a reviewing court finds that evidence is insufficient to support a particular finding in an order revoking probation, a kind of mitigating circumstance has arisen which the trial court should have a chance to consider before exercising its discretion to revoke probation. He points out that a probation revocation hearing is unlike a judge or jury’s verdict of guilt, because it does not require that punishment be imposed. On the contrary, the trial court may, after a finding that the probationer has violated the terms and conditions of his probation, either continue him on probation, modify the terms of probation, or revoke probation, and even if revoked, the court may reduce the punishment if circumstances warrant it. Tex.Code Crim.Pro.Ann. art. 42.12, §§ 6 and 8(a) (Vernon 1982). Since the decision to revoke is not automatic even upon a finding of violation of probation, the fact that the trial court had the authority to revoke based upon a sufficient or unchallenged violation does not necessarily mean that the trial judge would have exercised its discretionary authority in exactly the same way, given all the statutory options, if the proof was sufficient on only one violation, rather than two. In that sense, appellant argues, our affirmance assumes too much because it exercises the trial court’s discretion for him, in circumstances significantly different from those which he considered. Appellant argues that it is certainly possible that, if the reviewing appellate court pointed out to the trial court that some violation upon which he had based revocation, even in part, was not supported by the evidence, the trial judge would, even upon a finding of some other violation, modify the terms of probation, continue the probation, or reduce the term of years of imprisonment upon revocation. This discretion, appellant argues, is placed by law in the trial judge, not in us. If we held that the evidence of a serious violation like aggravated kidnapping was insufficient, the trial judge would not necessarily be indifferent to our findings, as the original disposition assumes. He might exercise his discretion more leniently upon realizing that only one probation violation had been proved, not two, as he believed when revoking.
This is a creative argument, well made by learned counsel. Perhaps this is what the law should be, but we are not persuaded that it is what the law is. Appellant argues that we should modify the rule stated in Moore and Jones, supra, and many other eases with like holdings, and that we may do so without directly contradicting the holdings of the Court of Criminal Appeals in those cases because those opinions did not discuss the issue stated above. It is true that the opinions we have relied upon do not discuss the implications raised by appellant here. However, we believe that the same implications are inherent in every case so holding, and that proper respect for the highest criminal court of our State requires that we follow its long and consistent line of decisions to the contrary.
Appellant has accused us of wrongly exercising discretion belonging to the trial judge, and has made a persuasive argument that we are guilty. However, if we rule as urged, we believe we would be guilty of wrongly exercising discretion placed in the Court of Criminal Appeals, namely, the discretion to overrule its decisions. This we cannot do.
Appellant’s motion for rehearing is denied.
The judgment is affirmed.