Court Opinion

ID: 9896469
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-11-13 10:10:37.458322+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:15:02.632333
License: Public Domain

In the
        Court of Appeals
Second Appellate District of Texas
         at Fort Worth
     ___________________________

          No. 02-23-00069-CR
     ___________________________

TREVIONTA TERRELL SANDERS, Appellant

                      V.

          THE STATE OF TEXAS

    On Appeal from 372nd District Court
          Tarrant County, Texas
        Trial Court No. 1645518D

  Before Sudderth, C.J.; Kerr and Walker, JJ.
  Memorandum Opinion by Justice Walker
                           MEMORANDUM OPINION

      The State indicted appellant Trevionta Terrell Sanders for robbery by threats.

See Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 29.02(a)(2). In 2021, the trial court placed Sanders on

deferred-adjudication community supervision.1 Thereafter, the State filed a series of

petitions to proceed to an adjudication that ended with its fifth amended petition.

After a hearing on the State’s fifth amended petition, the trial court found that

Sanders had violated the conditions of his community supervision as alleged in six of

the eleven paragraphs of the State’s petition. After a punishment trial, the trial court

sentenced Sanders to ten years’ incarceration in the penitentiary.2

      On appeal, Sanders argues that the trial court violated his right to confront

witnesses under the Texas Constitution.         See Tex. Const. art. I, § 10.   Because

      1
       The deferred-adjudication order incorrectly recites that Sanders committed the
offense of robbery by causing bodily injury. See id. § 29.02(a)(1). The trial court later
corrected this error with an order nunc pro tunc.
      2
        At one point, the trial court stated that it found Sanders “guilty” of robbery by
causing bodily injury. At first blush, this appeared to be an adjudication of guilt for
the wrong underlying offense, which was robbery by threats. But the trial court later
corrected itself and stated that it was finding “true” the allegation in paragraph 2 of
the State’s fifth amended petition, which alleged that Sanders had committed a new
offense—robbery by causing bodily injury—as a basis for proceeding to an
adjudication of quilt on the underlying offence—robbery by threats. After the
punishment trial, the trial court sentenced Sanders without expressly finding him
guilty of the underlying offense. Under these circumstances, the finding of guilt is
implied. See Emeyabbi v. State, No. 06-10-00172-CR, 2011 WL 647242, at *1–2 (Tex.
App.—Texarkana Feb. 23, 2011, no pet.) (mem. op., not designated for publication);
Sanchez v. State, 222 S.W.3d 85, 88 (Tex. App.—Tyler 2006, no pet.). The judgment
adjudicating guilt correctly reflects that Sanders had committed the offense of robbery
by threats. See Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 29.02(a)(2).

                                            2
Sanders’s complaint on appeal does not address all of the bases of his revocation, we

affirm the trial court’s judgment on the unchallenged bases. And on those bases that

Sanders attacked, we overrule his complaint as moot.

                                 I. BACKGROUND

      In its fifth amended petition to proceed to an adjudication, the State alleged

that Sanders had violated the conditions of his community supervision in eleven

paragraphs. Of the eleven paragraphs, the trial court found six to be true. Of the six,

two (paragraphs 2 and 4) dealt with new offenses that Sanders had committed against

a woman and her son on August 26, 2022. Two others (paragraphs 3 and 5) dealt

with Sanders’s evading arrest on August 26, 2022, and again on August 27, 2022. And

the last two (paragraphs 9 and 11) dealt with Sanders’s failure to report to his

probation officer and failure to provide a urine sample, respectively.

                           II. SANDERS’S ARGUMENT

      Sanders contends that, based on violations of the Texas Constitution’s

confrontation clause, see id., the trial court abused its discretion when it admitted

State’s Exhibit 2 and State’s Exhibit 3:

          • State’s Exhibit 2 is a recording of the 911 call made by the woman who
            was the subject of the offense alleged in paragraph 2.

          • State’s Exhibit 3 is an officer’s body cam video that contained
            conversations between EMS personnel and the paragraph-2 complainant

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             during which they discussed primarily her injuries and, to a lesser extent,
             her son’s injuries.3

Thus, the exhibits about which Sanders complains address, at most, paragraphs 2 (the

offense against a woman) and 4 (the offense against the woman’s son) of the State’s

fifth amended petition.

                          III. STANDARD OF REVIEW

      An appellate court reviews an order to proceed to adjudication in the same

manner as a decision revoking regular community supervision.             Powe v. State,

436 S.W.3d 91, 93 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth 2014, pet. ref’d). We review a trial court’s

decision to revoke community supervision and to adjudicate guilt for an abuse of

discretion. Id. Proving a single violation suffices to support revocation. Garcia v.

State, 387 S.W.3d 20, 26 (Tex. Crim. App. 2012); Leach v. State, 170 S.W.3d 669, 672

(Tex. App.—Fort Worth 2005, pet. ref’d) (“Proof by a preponderance of the evidence

of any one of the alleged violations of the conditions of community supervision is

sufficient to support a revocation order.”). Thus, we cannot hold that a trial court

      3
         In the video, the complainant stated that she had received burns on her hands
and arms the previous Wednesday. We take judicial notice that the date of the
offense—August 26, 2022—was a Friday. See Tex. R. Evid. 201. During the
August 26, 2022 altercation with Sanders, the sterile wrappings on the complainant’s
burns had come off, and the medics questioned whether the complainant should go
to a hospital. Around the 5:00 point in the recording, one of the medics asked if “he”
ripped the gauze off, and around 6:15 of the recording, the same medic asked about
the little boy’s lip. During the revocation hearing, testimony showed that at some
point during the altercation, the complainant’s two-year-old son received a “busted
lip.” The complainant’s son is the subject of the offense alleged in paragraph 4.
Photographs of their injuries were admitted without objection.

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abused its discretion when an appellant does not challenge all of the grounds on

which the trial court based it rulings. See Moore v. State, 605 S.W.2d 924, 926 (Tex.

Crim. App. [Panel Op.] 1980) (“The appellant has failed to raise any contentions

concerning the finding that he committed the offense of escape. . . . We need not

address appellant’s other contentions since one sufficient ground for revocation will

support the court’s order to revoke probation.”); Garcia v. State, No. 02-15-00138-CR,

2017 WL 370924, at *2 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth Jan. 26, 2017, pet. ref'd) (mem. op.,

not designated for publication) (“[T]he trial court’s judgment should be affirmed if the

appellant does not challenge each ground on which the trial court revoked community

supervision.”).

                                 IV. DISCUSSION

      Sanders does not challenge the trial court’s findings in paragraphs 3, 5, 9, and

11. The violations in those paragraphs, as well as those in paragraphs 2 and 4, were

the bases on which the trial court revoked Sanders’s community supervision and

adjudicated him guilty. Thus, based on the findings in paragraphs 3, 5, 9, and 11, we

hold that the trial court did not abuse its discretion. See Tex. R. App. P. 47.1; Moore,

605 S.W.2d at 926; Garcia, 2017 WL 370924, at *2 (“Because we can affirm the trial

court’s judgment based on the unchallenged . . . finding, any putative error in

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connection with the [challenged] finding becomes moot.”).4 We overrule Sanders’s

sole issue.

                                 V. CONCLUSION

       Having overruled Sanders’s sole issue, we affirm the trial court’s judgment.

                                                      /s/ Brian Walker

                                                      Brian Walker
                                                      Justice

Do Not Publish
Tex. R. App. P. 47.2(b)

Delivered: November 9, 2023

       4
        In Sanders’s brief, he argues that the erroneous admission of State’s Exhibits 2
and 3 impacted his punishment. But absent error, harm is a moot issue. Alawad v.
State, 57 S.W.3d 24, 26 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2001, pet. ref’d) (Yates, J.,
concurring). Under the procedural posture of this appeal, if we addressed the merits
of Sanders’s complaint to determine error, we would be providing an advisory
opinion. We are prohibited from issuing advisory opinions. Tucker v. State,
136 S.W.3d 699, 701 (Tex. App.—Texarkana 2004, no pet.).

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