Background
Adrianna Olivia Burmester pleaded guilty to fleeing or attempting to elude a police officer and received supervised probation. Her conditions required her to obey all laws and participate in the Sixth Judicial District Treatment Court Program. After an earlier probation-violation hearing, the court added a requirement that she successfully complete Treatment Court and extended her probation.
At an April 2025 Treatment Court hearing, Burmester received a four-day jail sanction and was told that she would be taken into custody. She walked out of the courtroom, left the courthouse, and remained on abscond status until her arrest in June. The trial court later found that she violated probation by leaving Treatment Court without the judge’s permission, revoked probation, imposed 180 days in jail, and denied eligibility for programs identified in ORS 137.750 based on a repeated pattern of behavior.
The Court’s Holding
The Oregon Court of Appeals affirmed. Burmester’s appointed counsel filed a brief under ORAP 5.90 and State v. Balfour without a Section B identifying any issue that Burmester wished to raise personally. After independently reviewing the record, including the trial court file, hearing transcripts, and counsel’s brief, the court found no arguably meritorious issue.
The court noted that any challenge to the trial court’s legal authority to revoke probation for leaving Treatment Court without permission would arise only as an unpreserved plain-error claim given the arguments made below. Relying on State v. Hamilton, the court concluded that a comparable challenge was not subject to plain-error review where the record permitted an inference that probation was revoked on a legally permissible basis.
Key Takeaways
- The court affirmed Burmester’s probation revocation and 180-day jail sentence after conducting an independent Balfour review.
- An unpreserved challenge to the legal basis for revocation did not warrant plain-error review because the record permitted an inference that the trial court relied on a legally permissible ground.
- The decision is a nonprecedential memorandum opinion under ORAP 10.30 and generally may not be cited except as that rule permits.
Why It Matters
The opinion illustrates the limited prospects for reversal in a Balfour appeal when independent review reveals no arguably meritorious issue and a potential challenge was not preserved below. It also underscores that an appellate court may decline plain-error review when the record supports an inference that probation revocation rested on a legally permissible basis.