Dansby, Michael Edward Sr.

448 S.W.3d 441, 2014 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 1897, 2014 WL 6733698
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Texas
DecidedNovember 26, 2014
DocketNO. PD-0149-14
StatusPublished
Cited by35 cases

This text of 448 S.W.3d 441 (Dansby, Michael Edward Sr.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Dansby, Michael Edward Sr., 448 S.W.3d 441, 2014 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 1897, 2014 WL 6733698 (Tex. 2014).

Opinions

OPINION

Alcala, J.,

delivered the opinion of the Court

in which Meyers, Price, Womack, Johnson, and Cochran, JJ., joined.

This, the second petition for discretionary review filed by Michael Edward Dans-by, Sr., appellant, presents only a question of preservation of error. In his present petition, appellant challenges the court of appeals’s determination on remand that error was not preserved with respect to his complaint regarding his conditions of community supervision, which led that court to affirm the trial court’s judgment revoking his deferred-adjudication community supervision and ordering his imprisonment for indecency with a child. Dansby v. State, No. 05-10-00866-CR, 2014 Tex.App. LEXIS 903, 2014 WL 259014 (Tex.App.-Dallas Jan. 22, 2014) (mem. op. on remand, not designated for publication). In his sole question presented for review, appellant contends that the court of appeals erred by determining that his failure to raise a Fifth Amendment objection to the conditions of community supervision at the time that they were imposed resulted in procedural default of his complaint on appeal.1 Appellant argues that he cannot be faulted for failing to object to the conditions on the basis that they violated his Fifth Amendment constitutional right because he was not placed on notice that he would be required to “incriminate himself’ as part of those conditions. We agree with appellant. We, therefore, reverse the judgment of the court of appeals and remand the case to that court to address the merits of appellant’s Fifth Amendment complaint.

[444]*444I. Background

In December 2005, appellant’s granddaughter was twelve years old. While driving her home- one day, appellant stopped on the side of a street, asked her to take her pants down, and tried to touch her sexual organ. He stopped when she became uncomfortable and he resumed driving, but then pulled over again onto the side of a street. He placed her hand on his genital organ after pulling down his sweat pants. Though appellant was initially charged with aggravated sexual assault of a child for this conduct, that charge was reduced to the second-degree felony of indecency with a child pursuant to a plea bargain.

In July 2008, following appellant’s entry of a plea of guilty, the trial court placed appellant on five years of deferred-adjudication community supervision. During those courtroom . proceedings, the trial court ordered appellant to comply with “sex offender terms and conditions,” described only in those general terms and without any specific details as to what those conditions would require. That same day, appellant’s general conditions were modified through a written document acknowledged by appellant outside of a formal courtroom proceeding. That written modification order, entitled “Order Modifying the Conditions of Community Supervision,” for the first time included conditions requiring appellant to take and pass a polygraph examination “without any admissions” and to successfully complete a sex offender treatment program. Although the trial court’s amended conditions were not imposed in a formal courtroom setting, appellant signed the modification order agreeing to comply with the conditions and waiving “formal hearing and appearance before the court.”

Appellant complied with the vast majority, if not all, of the requirements of his community supervision, except that he refused to answer questions about his victims other than the complainant in this case. Based on this refusal, he was determined to have failed to participate fully in his treatment. He attended weekly therapy sessions for almost a year with Linda Young, a licensed clinical social worker; submitted a psychosexual life history questionnaire; participated in an Abel Assessment for Sexual Interest Interpretation and a Personality Assessment Inventory; admitted to the sexual assault of his granddaughter; and passed two polygraphs to confirm that he was complying with the conditions of his community supervision. His progress on community supervision quickly stagnated, however, when he refused to answer any questions during the course of his therapy or during a polygraph examination about his sexual history that would have required him to reveal general information related to his victims other than his granddaughter.2 Appellant continued to refuse to provide [445]*445any of this information even after Young and the polygraph examiner each informed him that he was not to reveal specifics about his victims such as names, ages, or their relationships with him, and that only “generic, non-identifying information” was requested. Believing that his refusal to reveal his entire sexual history to the polygraph examiner made his continued sex-therapy counseling problematic, Young unsuccessfully discharged appellant from that therapy.3

In August 2009, the State filed a motion to revoke appellant’s community supervision, alleging that he had violated two conditions of community supervision. The State alleged that he violated a condition “in that he refused to obtain a sexual history polygraph” as requested by his community-supervision officer and that he violated another condition “in that [he] failed to attend and successfully complete the Sex Offender Treatment Program.” Appellant pleaded not true. He also filed a motion to quash the State’s motion to revoke and the order modifying the conditions of community supervision asserting, in pertinent part, that the conditions he had allegedly violated “infringe[d] on [his] right under the United States and Texas Constitution to remain silent and to be protected from self incrimination as provided for in the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution.”

After holding a hearing on the State’s motion to revoke at which Young, the polygraph examiner, and appellant’s community-supervision officer each testified, the trial court found it true that appellant committed both of the pleaded violations of his terms of community supervision. At the sentencing hearing, appellant acknowledged that he understood that the modi-fiéd conditions required him to take and pass a polygraph examination as to his sexual history, but he did not concede that he had agreed to forfeit his Fifth Amendment rights. After revoking his community supervision, the trial court sentenced appellant to eighteen years’ imprisonment. Appellant filed a motion for new trial asserting that the trial court, “without notice to the Defendant or his attorney, amended the terms of the plea bargain by adding additional conditions of probation which were not previously agreed to by [appellant].” Appellant’s motion for new trial was overruled by operation of law.

On direct appeal, the court of appeals determined that the trial court’s revocation of appellant’s community supervision was premised on reasons other than his invocation of the Fifth Amendment, and it did not reach the merits of appellant’s Fifth Amendment challenge. Dansby v. State, No. 05-10-00866-CR, 2012 WL 1150530, at *5 (Tex.App.-Dallas Apr. 9, 2012). This [446]*446Court reversed the judgment of the court of appeals. Dansby v. State, 398 S.W.3d 233, 234 (Tex.Crim.App.2013). This Court held that the court of appeals had erred by concluding that appellant’s discharge from the sex offender treatment program was not a product of his invocation of his Fifth Amendment privilege, and we remanded the case so that the court of appeals could address the merits of appellant’s arguments under the Fifth Amendment.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

STEELE, ANDREW v. the State of Texas
Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 2024
Eric Ray Adams v. the State of Texas
Court of Appeals of Texas, 2024
Joshua Cyrus Wynn v. the State of Texas
Court of Appeals of Texas, 2024
Bobby Wayne Nickelbur v. the State of Texas
Court of Appeals of Texas, 2024
Thomas Joseph Bloxham v. the State of Texas
Court of Appeals of Texas, 2024
Reeder, Shanea Lynn
Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 2024
Adrian Medrano v. the State of Texas
Court of Appeals of Texas, 2024
Philip Kramer Taggart v. the State of Texas
Court of Appeals of Texas, 2023
Jared Domei Maloid v. the State of Texas
Court of Appeals of Texas, 2023
Jonathan Casey Ludwig v. the State of Texas
Court of Appeals of Texas, 2023
Gerson Molina v. the State of Texas
Court of Appeals of Texas, 2022
Ricky Allen Dyise v. the State of Texas
Court of Appeals of Texas, 2022
in the Matter of D.T., a Juvenile
Court of Appeals of Texas, 2021
Stephen Raymond Brackens v. State
Court of Appeals of Texas, 2021
John Robert McComb IV v. State
Court of Appeals of Texas, 2019
Marcus Robert Archer v. State
Court of Appeals of Texas, 2019
Kamori Nicole Henry v. State
Court of Appeals of Texas, 2019
William Roman v. State
571 S.W.3d 317 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 2018)
Joe Bradley Cochran v. State
563 S.W.3d 374 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 2018)
Bell v. State
554 S.W.3d 742 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 2018)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
448 S.W.3d 441, 2014 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 1897, 2014 WL 6733698, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/dansby-michael-edward-sr-texcrimapp-2014.