Background
Ulester A. Cross pleaded guilty in November 2020 in Madison County Circuit Court to three counts of driving while his license was suspended, simple possession of marijuana, and introducing contraband into a penal facility. He received an effective four-year sentence as a Range I offender, suspended to probation after serving forty-five days in the local jail. His supervision history was troubled from the outset, with arrests, sanctions, and at least two prior probation violations — one resolved in September 2023 with a ninety-day jail term and one resolved in October 2024 with a 150-day term — before the sentence was renewed each time.
In February 2025, a new violation warrant was filed alleging that Cross had been arrested four separate times in Hardeman County between December 2024 and January 2025, on charges including aggravated criminal trespass, stalking, driving on a revoked license, possession of methamphetamine, tampering with evidence, resisting arrest, and possession of drug paraphernalia. The warrant also alleged he failed to report those arrests to his probation officer as required by his supervision rules.
At the August 2025 revocation hearing, Cross’s probation officer testified about his poor compliance and minimal contact. Bolivar Police Officer Matthew Nethery testified that he arrested Cross on January 13, 2025, after Cross fled from a residence where he had been prohibited from appearing, threw an object into the shadows as he ran, and continued to resist after being apprehended. A field test of a substance found in Cross’s pocket and a glass pipe recovered nearby returned positive results for methamphetamine. Cross neither testified nor presented evidence at the hearing.
The Court’s Holding
The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the trial court’s revocation of probation and order to serve the balance of the original four-year sentence in confinement. The court held that the trial court’s findings satisfied the two-step framework established in State v. Dagnan, 641 S.W.3d 751 (Tenn. 2022): first, crediting Officer Nethery’s testimony to find by a preponderance of the evidence that Cross had committed new offenses; and second, determining that full incarceration was the appropriate consequence given Cross’s repeated failures on supervision.
The court rejected Cross’s principal argument that the field-test results were inadmissible hearsay. Because Officer Nethery personally conducted the multi-detect field test and testified from his own training and observations — rather than relaying an out-of-court statement by another person — the testimony did not constitute hearsay. The court relied on a line of Tennessee decisions holding that a trained officer’s live testimony about field-test results is admissible evidence of the presence of a controlled substance.
The court further noted that even setting aside the methamphetamine evidence entirely, Cross had not contested the evidence supporting the remaining new charges — resisting arrest, criminal trespassing, stalking, tampering with evidence, and possession of drug paraphernalia — any one of which independently supported the revocation finding. As to the consequential step, the court observed that a defendant already on probation is not entitled to a second grant of alternative sentencing, and the record amply supported the trial court’s conclusion that Cross was not a proper candidate for continued probation.
Key Takeaways
- Under Dagnan, a trial court revoking probation must separately address (1) whether a violation occurred and (2) what consequence to impose; both steps were satisfied here.
- A trained officer’s live testimony about a drug field test the officer personally administered is not hearsay and is admissible at a probation revocation hearing to establish the presence of a controlled substance.
- A single proven new criminal offense is sufficient to support revocation; where multiple unchallengeable new offenses exist, a dispute over one category of evidence does not undermine the revocation finding.
- A probationer is not entitled to a second grant of probation or alternative sentencing after revocation, particularly where the record documents repeated violations and exhausted supervisory options.
Why It Matters
The decision reinforces the broad discretion Tennessee trial courts retain when revoking probation, and clarifies that officer field-test testimony — based on the officer’s own trained observation — clears the hearsay bar at revocation hearings. Defense practitioners should note that challenges to the reliability of field-test results go to the weight of the evidence, not its admissibility, and must be raised through cross-examination rather than a motion to strike.
More broadly, the case illustrates the cumulative-violation problem: when a probationer accrues multiple new arrests across different categories, successfully contesting evidence on one charge provides no safe harbor if the remaining unchallengeed charges independently support revocation. Attorneys representing defendants at probation violation hearings should assess the full evidentiary picture, not just the most serious allegation.