Court Opinion

ID: 9370134
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-02-10 21:02:03.588334+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:16:19.550212
License: Public Domain

REL: FEBRUARY 10, 2023

Notice: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the advance sheets of Southern Reporter.
Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Alabama Appellate Courts, 300 Dexter Avenue,
Montgomery, Alabama 36104-3741 ((334) 229-0650), of any typographical or other errors, in order that corrections
may be made before the opinion is published in Southern Reporter.

                 Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals
                               OCTOBER TERM, 2022-2023
                                _________________________

                                         CR-2022-1106
                                   _________________________

                                Jeremy Dewayne Glasscock

                                                      v.

                                         State of Alabama

                         Appeal from Cullman Circuit Court
                                   (CC-17-263.70)

KELLUM, Judge.

        The appellant, Jeremy Dewayne Glasscock, appeals from the circuit

court's revocation of his probation.

        The record indicates that in June 2017 Glasscock was convicted of

child abuse. The circuit court sentenced him to 15 years' imprisonment;
CR-2022-1106

that sentence was split, and Glasscock was ordered to serve 182 days'

imprisonment followed by 5 years' supervised probation.

      On May 10, 2021, Glasscock's probation officer filed a delinquency

report alleging that Glasscock had violated the terms and conditions of

his probation as a result of his arrest on a new criminal charge of rape in

the first degree. On March 30, 2022, Glasscock's probation officer filed

an amended delinquency report alleging Glasscock had been arrested for

a second criminal offense, namely, rape in the second degree, in violation

of the terms and conditions of his probation.

      On August 16, 2022, the circuit court conducted a probation-

revocation hearing at which Glasscock was present and represented by

counsel. At the hearing, Officer Austin Black with the Cullman County

Sheriff's Office testified that on September 28, 2019, he was called to the

sheriff's office to accept a report on a sex crime involving a 15-year-old

girl, K.B.   K.B., along with her mother and another woman, arrived at

the sheriff's office to file a report that Glasscock had had sexual

intercourse with K.B. At the time of the offense, Glasscock was 34 years

old. Officer Black completed his report and turned the case over to

investigators.

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CR-2022-1106

     Officer Brandi Suh with the Cullman County Sheriff's Office was

assigned to investigate the case. Officer Suh testified:

           "We immediately – since [K.B.] was 15 years old, we set
     up a CAC interview to have her interviewed. She went for the
     interview on October 3rd. She had disclosed that Jeremy
     Glasscock had – she described forcefully raped her. She said
     he pulled her down on the bed. She was alone with him
     because her mother was in a halfway house and was gone to
     a rehab meeting, and so this happened while he was with her.
     He had a four-hour time span that he was alone with her
     before her mother came back.

           "She described that this happened inside the camper,
     then outside in a shop that he had and then outside by his
     vehicle. And I spoke with the mom later on, and the time line
     was everything that she gave, I was able to verify some of the
     things that she disclosed of.

           "She stated that he stopped when she saw – when he
     saw mom's headlights coming up the driveway. And she said
     that he jumped behind the hot-water heater and pretended to
     be working on it. Mom stated when she got home, he was in
     the floor working on the hot-water heater.

           "They went to Burger King, and then when they got back
     from Burger King, her mom sent her outside to get some
     drinks, and that's where it happened behind his vehicle. And
     he stopped because mom came outside and yelled for her to
     come inside. Mom also verified that that was true, she did go
     outside and yell for her to come back in.

           "Well, I'm sorry, mom said that she would oftentimes go
     outside and yell for her to come back in. She couldn't say for
     sure on that night that she did it, but she said she would
     oftentimes do that, so it was probable.

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CR-2022-1106

           "And the other time in the shed. It was all in the same
     day on September 22nd, but she did not make a disclosure of
     it until later on when she told her friend. Her friend told her
     mother, then her mother called the victim's mother, and they
     immediately came to the sheriff's office and did the police
     report."

(R. 8-10.) Officer Suh attempted to interview Glasscock, but Glasscock

refused on advice of counsel.

     At the conclusion of the hearing, defense counsel argued that the

evidence presented in support of revocation was solely hearsay. The

circuit court disagreed, and, on August 17, 2022, the circuit court entered

an order revoking Glasscock's probation. This appeal followed.

     Glasscock's sole contention on appeal is that the circuit court erred

when it revoked his probation based solely on hearsay evidence. The

State concedes that the circuit court relied on hearsay evidence alone to

revoke Glasscock's probation. We agree.

           "It is well settled that hearsay evidence may not form
     the sole basis for revoking an individual's probation. See
     Clayton v. State, 669 So.2d 220, 222 (Ala. Cr. App. 1995);
     Chasteen v. State, 652 So.2d 319, 320 (Ala. Cr. App. 1994);
     and Mallette v. State, 572 So.2d 1316, 1317 (Ala. Cr. App.
     1990). 'The use of hearsay as the sole means of proving a
     violation of a condition of probation denies a probationer the
     right to confront and to cross-examine the persons originating
     the information that forms the basis of the revocation.'
     Clayton, 669 So.2d at 222."

                                    4
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Goodgain v. State, 755 So. 2d 591, 592 (Ala. Crim. App. 1999).

     However, "hearsay evidence is admissible in a revocation

proceeding," Beckham v. State, 872 So. 2d 208, 211 (Ala. Crim. App.

2003), and a combination of both hearsay and nonhearsay evidence may

be sufficient to warrant revocation. See, e.g., Askew v. State, 197 So. 3d

547, 548-49 (Ala. Crim. App. 2015). "[W]hen the State presents a mixture

of hearsay and nonhearsay evidence to show that a defendant violated

his probation by committing a new offense, the circuit court cannot

revoke a defendant's probation for that violation unless the nonhearsay

evidence connects the defendant to the alleged offense." Walker v. State,

294 So. 3d 825, 832 (Ala. Crim. App. 2019).

     In this case, the State presented only hearsay evidence to support

a finding that Glasscock had violated the terms and conditions of his

probation by committing two new criminal offenses. At the revocation

hearing, two law-enforcement officers testified on behalf of the State.

Neither officer had firsthand, personal knowledge of Glasscock's

violation. The officers based their testimony on information they were

told by K.B. and her mother – neither of whom testified at the probation-

revocation hearing. Glasscock gave no statement to the investigating

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CR-2022-1106

officer regarding the rape allegations. In short, the testimony of the

officers recounting the information provided by the victim and her

mother was the only evidence presented at the probation-revocation

hearing.

     Because the State did not present sufficient nonhearsay evidence

indicating that Glasscock had committed a new criminal offense, the

circuit court erred in revoking Glasscock's probation. Accordingly, we

reverse the circuit court's order revoking Glasscock's probation and

remand this case to the circuit court for further proceedings consistent

with this opinion.

     REVERSED AND REMANDED.

     Windom, P.J., and McCool, Cole, and Minor, JJ., concur.

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