State v. Tanner, COA24-166, ___ N.C. App. ___ (Oct. 15, 2024)

In this Guilford County case, defendant petitioned for a writ of certiorari to review the revocation of his probation and activation of his suspended sentence for willfully absconding from supervision. The Court of Appeals allowed the petition but affirmed the trial court’s judgment. 

In December of 2022, defendant was placed on supervised probation and ordered to report to the probation office within 48 hours. Defendant did not report, but called his probation officer, who urged him to appear in person the next day. After several more phone calls and failures to appear in-person, the probation officer visited defendant’s address on file, which was an apartment, and left a hang tag. Based on information from defense counsel, defendant’s wife had secured a G.S. 50B domestic violence prevention order against him, and he was not in the apartment but living in a hotel. At one point defendant told a probation officer that he was in Winston-Salem, although he had not reported traveling outside the area prior to leaving. In March of 2023, the probation officer filed violation reports and the trial court entered a judgment revoking defendant’s probation and activating his sentence. 

Looking at the evidence, the Court of Appeals noted that “failed to give his probation officer his new physical address or the name and address of the hotel he was purportedly staying in” and the trial court could reasonably conclude defendant had absconded. Slip Op. at 5. The court also noted that there was some confusion about the form AOC-CR-607 Judgment and Commitment, as it was possibly unclear whether the trial court determined that defendant either (a) admitted to violating the conditions of his probation, or (b) committed a new criminal offense. The court concluded the record was sufficient to show the trial court’s conclusion that defendant absconded under G.S. 15A-1343(b)(3a).

Chief Judge Dillon dissented, and wrote to emphasize that he did not believe the State met its burden to show defendant absconded based on the conduct in the probation reports.