Opinion
No. COA11–925.
2012-04-17
STATE of North Carolina v. Bruce DIXON.
Attorney General Roy Cooper, by Assistant Attorney General Tiffany Y. Lucas, for the State. Crumpler Freedman Parker & Witt, by David B. Freedman, for Defendant.
Appeal by Defendant from judgments entered 15 March 2011 by Judge Stuart Albright in Guilford County Superior Court. Heard in the Court of Appeals 16 April 2012. Attorney General Roy Cooper, by Assistant Attorney General Tiffany Y. Lucas, for the State. Crumpler Freedman Parker & Witt, by David B. Freedman, for Defendant.
BEASLEY, Judge.
Bruce Dixon (Defendant) appeals from the trial court's judgments revoking his probation. Defendant contends that the trial court abused its discretion by revoking his probation after he admitted violating the special conditions of his probation. We affirm.
On 30 June 2009, Defendant pled guilty to twenty counts of second-degree sexual exploitation of a minor. The convictions were consolidated into eight judgments, each imposing a term of fifteen to eighteen months imprisonment. The terms were suspended and Defendant was placed on thirty-six months of supervised probation. In relevant part, the special conditions of Defendant's probation included: “Defendant is not to be in the presence of any minor child, unless the child is supervised by their parent or other superior and approved by the probation officer.”
On 15 February 2011, Defendant's probation officer filed reports alleging two probation violations. At the revocation hearing, the officer testified that on 6 February 2011, he received a report from a neighbor that Defendant was unsupervised in the presence of a young boy. Defendant was found alone with his thirteen-year-old grandson. Prior to committing the violations, Defendant had asked the officer several times whether he could be alone with his grandson. The officer told Defendant he was not allowed to be alone with the boy.
Through counsel, Defendant admitted to the alleged violations, but argued that he had parental permission to be alone with his grandson. Defendant's son and daughter-in-law, the grandson's parents, told the trial court that Defendant did have their permission to be alone with their son. After considering that Defendant had parental permission, the trial court revoked Defendant's probation in only three of the eight cases, and set those activated sentences to run consecutively. Defendant gave notice of appeal.
Defendant's sole argument on appeal is that the trial court abused its discretion by revoking his probation in three of the eight cases after he admitted violating the special conditions of his probation. We disagree.
Because “probation is an act of grace by the State to one convicted of a crime [,] ... an alleged violation of a probationary condition need not be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.” State v. Hill, 132 N.C.App. 209, 211, 510 S.E.2d 413, 414 (1999) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). “All that is required is that the evidence be sufficient to reasonably satisfy the judge in the exercise of his sound discretion that the defendant has willfully violated a valid condition of probation.” State v. White, 129 N.C.App. 52, 58, 496 S.E.2d 842, 846 (1998), aff'd in part, disc. review improvidently allowed in part, 350 N.C. 302, 512 S.E.2d 424 (1999). “Any violation of a valid condition of probation is sufficient to revoke [a] defendant's probation.” State v. Tozzi, 84 N.C.App. 517, 521, 353 S.E.2d 250, 253 (1987).
In this case, Defendant admitted to violating a valid condition of his probation by being alone with his thirteen-year-old grandson. The probation officer testified that he repeatedly informed Defendant that being alone with his grandson violated the terms of his probation, thus there is no question that Defendant's violation was willful. Defendant argues his willful violation of probation should be excused because his son and daughter-in-law consented to his unsupervised presence with his grandson. The trial court, however, expressly considered any mitigating effect of the parental consent by revoking Defendant's probation in only three of the eight cases. Accordingly, we decline to conclude that the trial court abused its discretion.
Affirmed. Judges CALABRIA and STROUD concur.
Report per Rule 30(e).