Court Opinion

ID: 9386989
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-04-14 14:04:49.354573+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:18:10.359759
License: Public Domain

RENDERED: APRIL 7, 2023; 10:00 A.M.
                          TO BE PUBLISHED

                Commonwealth of Kentucky
                          Court of Appeals

                             NO. 2022-CA-0117-MR

JEREMY KENDRICK                                                    APPELLANT

              APPEAL FROM MCCRACKEN CIRCUIT COURT
v.            HONORABLE TIMOTHY KALTENBACH, JUDGE
                       ACTION NO. 18-CR-00061

COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY                                             APPELLEE

                                   OPINION
                                  AFFIRMING

                                 ** ** ** ** **

BEFORE: CALDWELL, COMBS, AND LAMBERT, JUDGES.

LAMBERT, JUDGE: Jeremy Kendrick appeals from the McCracken Circuit

Court’s decision to revoke his probation. We affirm.

            In 2018, Kendrick and the Commonwealth reached a plea agreement

whereby Kendrick would plead guilty to two counts of criminal possession of a

forged instrument, would receive concurrent twenty-five-month sentences on each

count, and would apply for drug court. Kendrick did not appear at sentencing, so
the trial court issued a bench warrant. It later came to light that Kendrick was

receiving residential treatment for his substance addiction on the sentencing date.

Kendrick said he informed someone at the facility of the sentencing date but, for

reasons not apparent from the face of the record, arrangements were not made for

him to appear.

             The trial court eventually sentenced Kendrick to concurrent twenty-

five-month sentences on each charge, to be probated for five years. Among the

conditions of probation were Kendrick’s completing drug court in Graves County

and thereafter “[r]efrain[ing] from violating the law in any respect” and complying

with the rules and regulations of the Department of Probation and Parole.

             Less than a year later, the Commonwealth sought a hearing on

whether Kendrick’s probation should be revoked because he had failed to report to

his probation officer as directed, had received a misdemeanor conviction, and had

left the area without the officer’s permission. Pursuant to Kendrick and the

Commonwealth’s agreement, the trial court issued an order which required

Kendrick to receive addiction treatment again. The order also explicitly kept in

place all the other original conditions of probation.

             A little over a year later, the Commonwealth filed a motion seeking

to revoke Kendrick’s probation. Attached to that motion was a report completed

by Kendrick’s probation officer which said Kendrick had admitted to recently

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using drugs. The report also said that Kendrick had agreed to undergo treatment

but failed to comply with the officer’s directive to go to the treatment facility. The

report stated that the officer believed Kendrick posed a risk to himself and others

and thus sanctions less than revocation would not be appropriate. The trial court

then issued a bench warrant for Kendrick.

             The Commonwealth later filed a notice that Kendrick had been

arrested in Tennessee on what was described as a felony charge of possession of

methamphetamine. Attached to the notice was a report from Kendrick’s probation

officer recommending that Kendrick’s probation be revoked. The Commonwealth

later filed a copy of a Tennessee judgment which states that Kendrick had pleaded

guilty to the misdemeanor offense of possession of methamphetamine.

             The trial court held an evidentiary hearing on whether to revoke

Kendrick’s probation in November 2021. Kendrick’s probation officer testified as

to Kendrick’s failures to comply with the terms of his probation. Kendrick also

testified but he did not meaningfully dispute the officer’s testimony about

Kendrick’s noncompliance. Soon thereafter, the trial court issued an order

revoking Kendrick’s probation. The order states that lesser sanctions were not

appropriate because Kendrick presented a significant risk to the community at

large and could not be appropriately managed in the community. Kendrick then

filed this appeal.

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             We review a trial court’s probation revocation decision under the

deferential abuse of discretion standard. McClure v. Commonwealth, 457 S.W.3d

728, 730 (Ky. App. 2015). A decision is an abuse of discretion if it is “arbitrary,

unreasonable, unfair, or unsupported by sound legal principles.” Id. (citations

omitted). In short, “we will not hold a trial court to have abused its discretion

unless its decision cannot be located within the range of permissible decisions

allowed by a correct application of the facts to the law.” Id.

             Kentucky Revised Statute (KRS) 439.3106(1)(a) requires a court to

make two findings before revoking probation: 1) the supervised individual must

be “a significant risk to prior victims . . . or the community at large”; and 2) the

supervised individual “cannot be appropriately managed in the community[.]” A

court must make both findings before revoking probation but retains the discretion

to choose whether to revoke probation or impose lesser sanctions. McClure, 457

S.W.3d at 732; Commonwealth v. Andrews, 448 S.W.3d 773, 780 (Ky. 2014).

             Here, the trial court made both mandatory findings. And it is

uncontested that Kendrick failed to comply with the conditions of his probation.

Nonetheless, Kendrick argues that the trial court erred by revoking his probation.

             First, it is unquestioned that Kendrick repeatedly failed to comply

with the terms of his probation. He did not always report to his probation officer

as directed. He continued using illegal drugs. He did not comply with the

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probation officer’s directive to report to treatment. He left Kentucky without

authorization and pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor offense in Tennessee.1

               Second, the trial court made the two statutorily required findings. We

disagree with Kendrick’s assertion that the findings were fatally perfunctory. First,

the trial court provided some degree of detail by listing some of Kendrick’s

violations in the revocation order. Second, a court is only required to make the

statutory findings, not explain them. New v. Commonwealth, 598 S.W.3d 88, 90

(Ky. App. 2019) (“A trial court is not required to provide explanations for those

[KRS 439.3106] findings; instead, it must only make the findings, which must be

supported by the evidence of record.”) (internal quotation marks and citation

omitted).

               Kendrick relies on our often misconstrued statement in another

published case that “perfunctorily reciting the statutory language in KRS 439.3106

is not enough.” Helms v. Commonwealth, 475 S.W.3d 637, 645 (Ky. App. 2015).

1
  The trial court erroneously stated in the revocation order that Kendrick was convicted of a
felony in Tennessee. However, that error is harmless because Kendrick violated the terms of his
probation by receiving any criminal conviction at all. Moreover, even if the Tennessee
conviction were disregarded, there were ample additional grounds for revocation – some of
which the trial court listed in the revocation order. Because the error in referring to the
Tennessee conviction as a felony had no impact on the propriety of the revocation decision, it
must be harmless. See Kentucky Rule of Criminal Procedure (RCr) 9.24 (“The court at every
stage of the proceeding must disregard any error or defect in the proceeding that does not affect
the substantial rights of the parties.”).

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Perhaps our language about perfunctory recitations was imprecise, but Helms does

not afford Kendrick relief.

             In Helms, we explained that there was “a complete lack of evidence”

that Helms was “a danger to a prior victim or to the community and he cannot be

appropriately managed in the community . . . .” Id. We stressed the insufficient

evidence, notwithstanding the trial court’s perfunctory regurgitation of the findings

required by KRS 439.3106:

                    If the penal reforms brought about by HB [House
             Bill] 463 are to mean anything, perfunctorily reciting the
             statutory language in KRS 439.3106 is not enough.
             There must be proof in the record established by a
             preponderance of the evidence that a defendant violated
             the terms of his release and the statutory criteria for
             revocation has been met.

Helms, 475 S.W.3d at 645.

             In other words, we cannot affirm the revocation of probation simply

because the revocation order contains the requisite statutory findings. A

revocation unsupported by evidence of record would not be “within the range of

permissible decisions allowed by a correct application of the facts to the law.”

McClure, 457 S.W.3d at 730. Instead, we may affirm a decision to revoke

probation only if: a) the court made the required findings, and b) those findings

are supported by the record. We emphatically reiterate that Helms does not mean

that a court must provide detailed explanations for the findings required by KRS

                                         -6-
439.3106. New, 598 S.W.3d at 90 (“New’s seeming argument to the contrary

notwithstanding, we did not require detailed findings in Helms . . . .”).

             We now examine whether the record contains evidence sufficient to

support the decision to revoke Kendrick’s probation. Kendrick’s arguments to the

contrary notwithstanding, it does. As to his being a significant risk, Kendrick

absconded, continued to use illegal drugs, and pleaded guilty to a drug-related

offense in Tennessee. As to his inability to be appropriately managed in the

community, Kendrick continued to use drugs, failed to meet with his probation

officer, and failed to comply with the officer’s directives. In fact, the officer’s

testimony at the revocation hearing that Kendrick presented a danger to himself or

others and could not be appropriately managed in the community was not

meaningfully challenged. Compise v. Commonwealth, 597 S.W.3d 175, 182 (Ky.

App. 2020) (holding that “a defendant who will not cooperate with the conditions

of her supervision may indeed constitute a significant risk to the community at

large and be unmanageable in the community”); New, 598 S.W.3d at 90-91

(holding that a probationer’s usage of drugs and submission of false paperwork to a

drug court satisfied the statutory factors). In sum, this is not an instance where the

trial court mechanically made findings unsupported by the record.

             Finally, Kendrick seemingly argues the trial court had to impose

lesser sanctions in lieu of revocation. Citing information from the National

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Institutes of Health, Kendrick argues that relapses are common and so his addiction

would have been better addressed with additional treatment, not incarceration.

             “Nothing in the statute or in the Supreme Court’s interpretation of

it requires the trial court to impose lesser sanctions prior to revoking probation.”

McClure, 457 S.W.3d at 732. We do not diminish Kendrick’s addiction or the

difficulty of attempting to overcome it. However, the issue is not whether some

other sanction would have allowed Kendrick better treatment opportunities. The

question is whether Kendrick engaged in behavior sufficient to satisfy the statutory

requirements for revocation. He clearly did, and the trial court explicitly stated in

the revocation order that sanctions other than revocation would be inappropriate.

Thus, “[o]ur proper role is merely to evaluate the sufficiency of the evidence and

whether an abuse of the trial court’s discretion occurred. To hold, or to do,

otherwise would be to invade the province of fact finding best occupied by our trial

courts.” Id. at 734.

             In sum, the trial court’s decision to revoke Kendrick’s probation was

well within the “range of permissible decisions allowed by a correct application of

the facts to the law.” Id. at 730. Therefore, we affirm.

             For the foregoing reasons, the McCracken Circuit Court is affirmed.

             ALL CONCUR.

                                          -8-
BRIEF FOR APPELLANT:    BRIEF FOR APPELLEE:

Karen Shuff Maurer      Daniel Cameron
Frankfort, Kentucky     Attorney General of Kentucky

                        Jenny L. Sanders
                        Assistant Attorney General
                        Frankfort, Kentucky

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