Background
In 2010, Stephen Carman pleaded guilty to nine counts of dealing in child pornography under 11 Del. C. § 1109(4). The Superior Court sentenced him to twenty-five years on each count, suspended after two years, resulting in a total of eighteen years before suspension. Upon his release from prison in August 2024, probation officers secured additional special conditions, including prohibitions on contact with minors and internet access, based on Carman’s offense history, a mental health evaluation, and recommendations from the sex offender treatment program he completed while incarcerated. Those conditions were later modified to allow limited, monitored internet access after Carman’s community treatment provider confirmed he met the criteria for a computer monitoring program.
In July 2025, Carman’s probation officer filed violation-of-probation (VOP) reports alleging two principal violations: that Carman had been discharged without successful completion from his community-based sex offender treatment program, and that he had spent approximately ninety minutes at an ice cream and mini-golf establishment known to be a gathering place for children during peak hours. The discharge followed a series of concerning behaviors documented by the treatment provider and probation officer, including Carman hiding photographs of his minor grandchildren after being instructed not to have them, gathering and transmitting contact information about another offender’s victim, and collecting information about a past abuse victim.
An evidentiary hearing was held in September 2025. Carman contested the violations, and defense counsel challenged the admissibility of the treatment program’s discharge summary (whose author was unavailable to testify) and portions of the probation officer’s testimony as hearsay. The Superior Court permitted the probation officer, Officer Vorous, to testify to the extent of his personal knowledge about Carman’s treatment engagement and discharge. The court found a VOP by a preponderance of the evidence and revoked Carman’s conditional release and previously earned good-time credits, requiring him to serve the remaining time on his sentence through July 20, 2028, without imposing additional incarceration.
The Court’s Holding
The Delaware Supreme Court affirmed the Superior Court’s judgment in full. The court held that Officer Vorous’s testimony was properly admitted. While hearsay is generally admissible at VOP hearings, probation cannot be revoked solely on testimony from a witness with no firsthand knowledge of the alleged violations. Here, Officer Vorous had direct personal knowledge of many of the critical events: he had ongoing discussions with the treatment provider about Carman’s progress, personally reviewed Carman’s phone data and discovered the victim-information incident, and identified through GPS records that Carman visited the children’s establishment. That firsthand knowledge provided the requisite competent evidence to support revocation.
The court further held that the evidence was sufficient to establish a VOP by a preponderance of the evidence. Carman’s conditions of probation and conditional release expressly required participation in sex offender treatment. His discharge from that program without successful completion, driven by a documented pattern of troubling conduct culminating in the ice cream shop visit, satisfied that standard. The court rejected Carman’s argument that his mere presence at the shop, absent proof that children were actually there, could not support a violation, noting that the discharge from treatment — not the ice cream shop visit in isolation — was the operative violation.
The court declined to address Carman’s ineffective assistance of counsel claims, reiterating the well-settled Delaware rule that such claims will not be considered for the first time on direct appeal.
Key Takeaways
- Hearsay is admissible at VOP hearings in Delaware, but revocation cannot rest solely on testimony from a witness lacking any firsthand knowledge of the alleged violations — there must be “some competent evidence” from a witness with personal knowledge.
- A probation officer’s firsthand knowledge gained through GPS monitoring, direct communications with a treatment provider, and review of a defendant’s phone data is sufficient to satisfy the competent-evidence requirement at a VOP hearing, even where a treatment provider’s written discharge summary is excluded.
- Discharge from a required sex offender treatment program without successful completion constitutes an independent, standalone probation violation; a court need not separately establish that the conduct prompting the discharge was itself a violation.
- Ineffective assistance of counsel claims must be raised in postconviction proceedings under Delaware Superior Court Criminal Rule 61 and will not be entertained on direct appeal.
Why It Matters
This decision reinforces the broad evidentiary latitude afforded to the State in Delaware VOP proceedings while clarifying its limits. Practitioners representing defendants in VOP hearings should scrutinize whether the State’s key witness possesses genuine firsthand knowledge of the charged violations, as the absence of such knowledge remains a viable basis to challenge revocation even where some hearsay is otherwise permitted. The decision also illustrates how courts will assess a pattern of conduct collectively — rather than evaluating each incident in isolation — when determining whether a probationer has violated supervision conditions.
For prosecutors and probation officers, the case confirms that GPS monitoring data and direct communications with treatment providers can anchor the firsthand-knowledge foundation required to sustain a VOP, even when the treatment provider does not testify. Defense counsel advising sex offenders on community supervision should take note of the court’s implicit endorsement of the proposition that visiting locations frequented by children, even absent confirmed contact with minors, can be a significant factor in a treatment provider’s discharge decision and, by extension, in a court’s VOP finding.