Court Opinion

ID: 9615338
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:35:19.248373+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:03:46.987550
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE GRAY
delivered the Opinion of the Court.
Robert Dean Rogers (Rogers) appeals from an order of the Eighteenth Judicial District Court, Gallatin County, granting the State of Montana’s Motion to Dismiss Appeal. We reverse.
Rogers was charged in Gallatin County Justice Court with the misdemeanor offenses of assault and resisting arrest pursuant to §§ 45-5-201 and 45-7-301, MCA, respectively. He ultimately entered guilty pleas to both charges and was sentenced to six months in jail, suspended on conditions including that he obey all laws.
Rogers subsequently was arrested and charged with driving under the influence, driving without liability insurance in effect, and driving without a valid driver’s license. On the basis of those charges, the State of Montana (State) filed a Petition to Revoke Suspended Sentence in the Justice Court. A revocation hearing was scheduled for, and held on, October 30,1992. The Justice Court Minutes reflect that the State presented evidence via three witnesses; Rogers presented no evidence. The Justice Court found that Rogers had violated the conditions of his suspended sentence. The court again suspended his sentence, adding additional conditions to those originally imposed.
Rogers appealed to the District Court for a trial de novo on the petition for revocation of his suspended sentence. The State moved to dismiss the appeal, arguing that no appeal is available pursuant to § 46-17-311, MCA, because a suspended sentence revocation is an administrative, rather than a criminal, proceeding. Rogers responded that a broader reading of the statute and several Montana Supreme Court cases was appropriate and necessary in order to provide for an appeal de novo under these circumstances. Following a hearing, the District Court granted the State’s motion. Rogers timely filed his notice of appeal to this Court.
In granting the State’s motion to dismiss Rogers’ appeal, the District Court determined that a revocation is an administrative *192proceeding rather than a criminal adjudication. Thus, the court reasoned, the revocation of a suspended sentence is not a judgment from which an appeal de novo may be taken pursuant to § 46-17-311, MCA.
The procedures to be followed in a proceeding for revocation of a suspended sentence are set forth in § 46-18-203, MCA. It is clear from that statute that a revocation proceeding is not equivalent to a criminal trial: only a hearing, rather than a trial, is required; the prosecution’s burden of proof is only a preponderance of the evidence; and the issue is not one of guilt or innocence, but is whether the person has violated a condition of a suspended sentence. Section 46-18-203, MCA. Our cases recognize these basic differences between revocation proceedings and criminal trials. See, e.g., State v. Watts (1986), 221 Mont. 104, 717 P.2d 24; State v. Robinson (1980), 190 Mont. 145, 619 P.2d 813; State v. Oppelt (1979), 184 Mont. 48, 601 P.2d 394; State v. Ryan (1975), 166 Mont. 419, 533 P.2d 1076. The cases do not, however, characterize revocation proceedings as “administrative” hearings, as the State argues and the District Court concluded.
Section 46-17-311, MCA, provides for appeals from justices’ and city courts to district courts, and requires trial de novo in the district courts. Located as it is in the Criminal Procedure Title of the Montana Code Annotated, the statute can be construed as providing for appeals only in criminal matters. This interpretation is further clarified by the language contained in § 46-17-311(2), MCA, which requires written notice of intention to appeal within 10 days “after a judgment is rendered following trial.” As discussed above, a revocation hearing is not a criminal trial.
Moreover, as the State points out, a “judgment” — as the term is used in § 46-17-311(2), MCA— includes an adjudication of whether a defendant is guilty or not guilty and, if guilty, the pronouncement of sentence. See § 46-1-202(10), MCA. Here, while the multi-purpose form utilized by the Justice Comb indicates that the court “found defendant guilty” of violating the conditions of his suspended sentence, § 46-18-203, MCA, does not speak to “guilt” or “innocence” in the context of revocation hearings. Rather, it simply requires the court to determine whether or not the prosecution has proved a violation of the conditions of the suspended sentence by a preponderance of the evidence. Section 46-18-203(6)-(8), MCA. Thus, a straightforward reading of § 46-17-311, MCA, and our cases, appears to support the District Court’s conclusion that an appeal de novo is not available here.
*193The problem with that conclusion, however, is that it forecloses any appeal to, or review by, any court from a justice court’s revocation of a suspended sentence. Nor does the conclusion take the legislature’s intent into account. Appeals for de novo proceedings in district courts are statutorily provided for in criminal and civil matters pursuant to § 46-17-311 and Title 25, Chapter 33, MCA, respectively. We conclude that, taken together, these statutes reflect the legislature’s intent to provide for appeals de novo to the district courts from all final justice court proceedings.
The only remaining question, then, is whether the legislature intended appeals de novo from justice court revocations of suspended sentences to be governed by § 46-18-203, MCA, or Chapter 33 of Title 25 of the Montana Code Annotated. The legislature placed § 46-18-203, MCA, governing revocation proceedings in the Criminal Procedure Title of the Montana Code Annotated. It included in that statute the following provisions which are substantially similar to those relating to criminal trials:
1. An arrest warrant may be issued upon the filing of a petition to revoke a suspended sentence;
2. Statutes relating to bail are applicable;
3. The “defendant” must be advised of, and provided, many of the same rights as in criminal proceedings, including the right to court-appointed counsel in the event counsel cannot be afforded; and
4. Jail time may result. Section 46-18-203, MCA.
Furthermore, we have recognized that revocation proceedings are matters over which the original sentencing court in a criminal case “retains jurisdiction.” Oppelt, 601 P.2d at 397. Thus, revocations are a postconviction continuation of criminal cases. Indeed, it is clear that a criminal defendant whose sentence has been suspended has a liberty interest in retaining the suspended nature of his or her sentence, and faces the possibility of a loss of that liberty via a revocation proceeding in justice court. We have specifically recognized that a liberty interest is at stake in revocation proceedings. See, Robinson, 619 P.2d at 814-15.
Based on these cogent and numerous similarities between criminal and revocation proceedings, we hold that appeals de novo from justice court revocations of suspended sentences are available under, and governed by, § 46-17-311, MCA. In this regard, however, the § 46-17-311(1), MCA, language that appeals from justice court to district court “may be tried before a jury ...” clearly is inapplicable to the appeals at issue herein because the issue of whether a suspended *194sentence will be revoked is not subject to trial by jury initially in the justice court. We conclude by observing that nothing in this opinion impacts on our prior cases distinguishing, for purposes of the issues presented therein, between revocation proceedings and criminal adjudications.
Reversed and remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
CHIEF JUSTICE TURNAGE, JUSTICES HARRISON, and HUNT concur.