Background
A jury convicted Leonel Noe Torres of two counts of intoxication manslaughter and assessed ten years’ imprisonment for each count, recommending that the terms be suspended. The trial court suspended the sentences and placed Torres on community supervision for ten years.
The State later moved to revoke community supervision, alleging three new offenses and Torres’s failure to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings as directed. After Torres pleaded “not true” to all allegations, the trial court found the fourth allegation—failure to attend the meetings—true, revoked community supervision, imposed ten years’ imprisonment on each count, and ordered the sentences to run concurrently. Appointed appellate counsel filed an Anders brief and moved to withdraw, and Torres did not file a response.
The Court’s Holding
After independently reviewing the record, the Eleventh Court of Appeals agreed that no arguable grounds for appeal existed. Torres’s community supervision officer testified that he had been instructed to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings twice weekly but had not done so. Viewing the contested evidence in the light most favorable to the trial court’s ruling, the appellate court held that the evidence sufficiently supported the finding by a preponderance of the evidence.
Because proof of one violation is sufficient to support revocation, the court affirmed the revocation decision. It nevertheless identified a nonreversible error in each judgment: although the judgments correctly named the offense as intoxication manslaughter, they incorrectly listed Texas Penal Code Section 31.03(e)(4)(A), a theft provision, as the statute of conviction. The court modified both judgments to identify Section 49.08, granted counsel’s motion to withdraw, and affirmed the judgments as modified.
Key Takeaways
- A community-supervision violation must be proved by a preponderance of the evidence, and appellate courts review revocation decisions for abuse of discretion.
- A single proven violation of a community-supervision condition is sufficient to sustain revocation.
- An appellate court may modify a judgment to correct an erroneous statutory reference and affirm the judgment as modified.
Why It Matters
The decision illustrates the deference given to trial courts in revocation proceedings, particularly on witness credibility and evidentiary weight. Even contested testimony from a community supervision officer may support revocation when it creates a reasonable belief that a condition was violated.
It also shows that an Anders review does not prevent an appellate court from correcting a nonreversible error in the judgment. Here, the court found no arguable appellate issue but still ensured that the written judgments identified the correct intoxication-manslaughter statute.