Court Opinion

ID: 9674688
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:33:54.941891+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:29.101007
License: Public Domain

OPINION
DALLY, Judge.
This is an appeal from an order revoking probation. The appellant was convicted of the offense of passing a forged instrument; the punishment is imprisonment for three years.
Probation which was granted has now been revoked. The court has found that appellant violated the conditions of probation that she would commit no offense against the laws of this State in that she committed the offense of theft.
The appellant asserts that the trial court abused its discretion in revoking probation because the evidence is insufficient to show she violated any law of this State, and because the court did not suppress a statement made by the appellant which it is alleged was unlawfully obtained because of an unlawful arrest.
The appellant urges that the circumstantial evidence admitted to prove that she committed the offense of theft is insufficient without the statement she made after her arrest. Although it appears the statement was lawfully obtained and admitted in evidence, the evidence without the statement is sufficient. In a revocation of probation proceeding the trial judge is the finder of facts, Battle v. State, 571 S.W.2d 20 (Tex.Cr.App. 1978); Davila v. State, 547 S.W.2d 606 (Tex.Cr.App. 1977) and it is presumed that he did not consider inadmissible evidence. Maden v. State, 542 S.W.2d 189 (Tex.Cr.App. 1978); Howery v. State, 528 S.W.2d 230 (Tex.Cr.App. 1975); Reed v. State, 477 S.W.2d 904 (Tex.Cr.App. 1972). Therefore, even if the statement were inadmissible but the evidence without considering the statement is sufficient the court’s order may be sustained.
The appellant was employed at a flower shop in Rosebud in Falls County. A customer testified that in the late afternoon she gave the appellant two twenty dollar bills to pay on her account. The appellant gave the customer a receipt; the receipt was admitted in evidence. Just before closing time the Chief of Police came to the flower shop and told the appellant that a capias for her arrest had been issued in Milam County, and unless she paid a fine of $86.50, he would have to take her into custody. The appellant told the officer she could not make the payment. He permitted her to close the shop, waiting for her in his car outside. After she closed the shop, the appellant approached the officer’s car asking him how much money she needed. He *293told her; she said she had the money, and she paid the officer. The money that appellant gave the officer included two twenty dollar bills. Later that evening the officer received a telephone call from the appellant’s employer. Thereafter the employer signed a complaint accusing the appellant of theft. The officer obtained a warrant, went to the appellant’s apartment, and placed her under arrest.
The appellant’s employer testified that the appellant closed the flower shop and left in an envelope the money received that day. The envelope did not contain any twenty dollar bills; it contained one dollar bills and checks. The appellant did not have her employer’s permission to take any money. The circumstantial evidence, without considering the appellant’s statement, is amply sufficient to prove the theft by a preponderance of the evidence and is sufficient to support the trial court’s order.
The appellant also argues that the appellant did not commit the offense of theft, because she took the money under duress or because she was entrapped. The appellant uses these terms in a general sense; she does not analyze the evidence and organize her argument using V.T.C.A. Penal Code, Sections 8.05 and 8.06 in which the defenses of duress and entrapment are defined. The appellant says the capias issued in Milam County for her arrest was not a capias pro fine. She urges the officers were attempting unlawfully to collect a fine before she had been tried and found guilty of an offense. She argues she was forced to “borrow” money from her employer before she could get her employer’s permission so that she could pay the fine, which the officers were unlawfully collecting. This argument has little basis in the record except some of the imprecise testimony of the officers concerning the nature of the capias. The capias was not offered in evidence and is not in the record. The record before us does not show that either the defense of duress or of entrapment was developed in the trial court. See V.T.C.A. Penal Code, Sections 8.05 and 8.06. In any event these are defenses which are to be determined by the finder of fact, in this instance the trial judge.
The dissent raises a matter the appellant did not. Why? The dissent finds the appellant “borrowed” the money; the trial judge found that she stole it. Who was the lender? The complainant wasn’t; he testified he did not give her permission to take the money. Doesn’t this disprove the exculpatory portions of the confession? To repeat, the evidence without the appellant’s confession is sufficient to support the revocation order. The trial judge, not this Court, is the finder of facts in a revocation proceeding. On the record before us the trial court did not abuse its discretion in revoking probation.
The judgment is affirmed.