Court Opinion

ID: 9646974
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 13:19:04.06942+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:44.375825
License: Public Domain

PHILLIPS, Judge,
dissenting.
The facts as set forth in the majority opinion establish without a doubt that of the two statutory options available to the trial court upon a motion to revoke probation, this trial court chose to continue the probationer on his probation notwithstanding his plea of true to the first ground of the motion to revoke probation. Although his attorney at the subsequent hearing on August 8, 1977, and the court were under the impression that it was appropriate to merely withdraw the privileges of probation, these individual subjective impressions are not sufficient to overcome the statutory restrictions on the trial court’s discretion established by Section 8 of Article 42.12, V.A.C.C.P. That statutory provision does not authorize holding revocations in abeyance. There is no indication that the trial court needed additional time to determine whether to reduce the term of imprisonment since the trial court stated expressly that rather than revoking the probation it would be continued on the understanding that when and if eventually revoked it would be for the full term of imprisonment originally assessed.
It being clear that appellant was continued on probation after the May 12, 1977, hearing, the revocation of the continued probation on August 8, 1977, without adducing a plea or evidence on any subsequently alleged violations clearly violates the stricture of Wester v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 542 S.W.2d 403. Thus, the entry of the revocation order and imposition of sentence was clearly an abuse of the trial court’s discretion as controlled by Article 42.12, V.A.C.C.P., and Wester v. State, supra.
There is no indication in this record, as there was in Traylor v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 561 S.W.2d 492, that the trial court was “recessing” the hearing on the revocation motion.1 Neither are the facts in Sappington v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 508 S.W.2d 840, as compelling as the facts in this case to conclude that, indeed, the trial court continued the probationer on his probation rather than revoke it. To the extent that Sap-pington v. State, supra, and Traylor v. State, supra, hold forth the proposition that a trial court’s discretion in the area of probation revocation can exceed the scope of the statutory options provided for under Section 8, Article 42.12, V.A.C.C.P., they should be overruled.
For the foregoing reasons, I vigorously dissent to the majority’s conclusion that the trial court did not abuse its discretion. The judgment should be reversed and remanded.
Before the Court en banc.

. I have serious reservations concerning the appropriateness of recessing any hearing for eight months as was done in Traylor v. State, supra.