Hise v. State

OPINION

W. C. DAVIS, Judge.

This is an appeal from an order revoking probation. On December 18, 1975, appellant entered a plea of guilty to the charge of attempted burglary of a building. Punishment, assessed by the court at 10 years confinement, was suspended and the term probated for 10 years.

In his first ground of error, the appellant contends the trial court erred by summarily revoking appellant’s probation fourteen months after a hearing on a motion to revoke probation.

The record reveals that seven motions to revoke probation were filed after appellant was placed on probation. The Sixth Motion to Revoke Probation, alleging five technical violations, was filed on January 29, 1979. Appellant entered a plea of true to the motion on March 8, 1979.

*272At the hearing, the trial court stated the following:

“THE COURT: All right, I’ll tell you what I’ll do: If you want to enter a plea of true to this, I’ll defer further proceedings and put you back out under the supervision of the probation department, which simply means you’ve pled to having violated your probation, and if I didn’t like the way you acted, well, I could just send you on to the penitentiary.
* % * sfc sfc *
All right, I’ll accept your plea of true and find that you have violated the terms and conditions of your probation, but I’m going to defer further action at this time. I’m not going to sentence you. I could go ahead and sentence you now for any term from 2 to 10 years, but I’m not going to do that. I’m going to release you back to the probation officer while I determine what to do with you. That will take me some time, and if you stay out of trouble, I may take a long time making that determination.
If you get in any more trouble, I’ll just call it up and sentence you to the penitentiary because your probation has already been found to have been violated. Do you understand that?
THE DEFENDANT: Yes, sir.
THE COURT: Okay. Good luck to you. Stay out of trouble this time, because there’s no hearing or anything except to determine that you are the same Randall Hise that is on probation.”

Approximately eight months later, on November 16, 1979, another motion to revoke probation was filed. On May 15,1980, the trial court entered an order revoking appellant’s probation, assessing his punishment based on the violation of probation found on May 8, 1979. Appellant’s punishment was reduced to 5 years confinement.

Pursuant to this Court’s recent decisions in Rogers v. State, 640 S.W.2d 248 (Opinion on State’s Motion for Rehearing), and Wright v. State, 640 S.W.2d 265. We sustain this ground of error.

This Court made clear in Rogers and Wright that once a probationer is returned to probation, after a hearing on a motion to revoke whether the court’s action be termed “continuing probation” or “continuing the hearing”, probation may not subsequently be revoked without any determination of a new violation.1 See Rogers v. State, supra; Wright v. State, supra. To make such a determination, a hearing must be held at which evidence of a new violation be presented. See Wright v. State, supra. Because the appellant’s probation was summarily revoked one year after his hearing, we sustain this ground of error.

We will discuss ground of error two, although the disposition of this case rests upon ground of error one. The appellant contends his conviction of attempted burglary cannot stand as it is based on a void indictment. A fundamentally defective indictment may be collaterally attacked in an appeal from a revocation of probation. See Reed v. State, 586 S.W.2d 870 (Tex.Cr.App.1979).

The appellant argues that the indictment is fundamentally defective as it does not sufficiently allege acts which “amount[ed] to more than mere preparation that tend[ed] but fail[ed] to effect the commission of the [burglary] intended.” See Morrison v. State, 625 S.W.2d 729 (Tex.Cr.App.1981).

The indictment in the instant ease charged in pertinent part that the appellant:

“did then and there attempt to enter a building owned by Al Beloff by removing a window therein, having at the time the specific intent to commit the offense of burglary, ...” (Emphasis added)

We find the act of removing a window from the building the appellant intend*273ed to burglarize was clearly an act which tended to effect an “intrusion” or “entry” to the building. Cf. Pickett v. State, 542 S.W.2d 868 (Tex.Cr.App.1976). This ground of error is overruled.

Based on determination of appellant’s first ground of error, we reverse and remand the order revoking probation.

Before the court en banc.

. At least four judges on this Court disagree that this should not be the law but the majority have decided otherwise and we are obligated to follow their view. See dissenting opinion in Rogers v. State, supra.