State Ex Rel. Borrink v. State

634 N.W.2d 18, 10 Neb. Ct. App. 293, 2001 Neb. App. LEXIS 140
CourtNebraska Court of Appeals
DecidedJune 26, 2001
DocketA-00-796
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 634 N.W.2d 18 (State Ex Rel. Borrink v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Nebraska Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State Ex Rel. Borrink v. State, 634 N.W.2d 18, 10 Neb. Ct. App. 293, 2001 Neb. App. LEXIS 140 (Neb. Ct. App. 2001).

Opinion

Sievers, Judge.

George W. Bush, then Governor of the State of Texas, asked the Governor of this state to return David P. Borrink to the State of Texas because Borrink was a fugitive from justice. Following his apprehension in Douglas County, Nebraska, Borrink filed a *294 petition for writ of habeas corpus with the district court for Douglas County. The court denied the writ, and Borrink has appealed to this court.

ASSIGNMENTS OF ERROR

Borrink brings two assignments of error to this court: (1) The trial court erred in finding that his extradition was permitted under Neb. Rev. Stat. § 29-741 (Reissue 1995) and (2) the trial court erred in denying his writ of habeas corpus.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

In June 1998 in the district court for Williamson County, Texas, 26th Judicial District, there was a “Judgment on Plea of Guilty Before Court, Waiver of Jury Trial - Deferred Adjudication” entered with respect to two counts under Texas law of aggravated assault. Texas’ code of criminal procedure allows for a deferred adjudication of guilt. See Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Ann, art. 42.12, § 5(a) (2001). This procedure apparently involves a plea of guilty, but a deferment of the adjudication with the opportunity for the charged individual to satisfactorily complete the sentence. After Borrink’s guilty plea, the Texas court imposed a sentence which included a term of probation of 10 years, court costs of $256, a $2,500 fine, and 180 days in the county jail, credit given for time served. In our record are the terms of probation which number 24 separate paragraphs. Some of those terms appear to be rather “boilerplate,” such as “[w]ork faithfully at suitable employment as far as possible” and “[sjupport your dependents.” Others are more unique; for example, paragraph 23 provides, “The defendant, when released to community supervision, shall immediately leave the State of Texas to return to the State of Nebraska. The defendant shall not return to Texas during the term of his supervision except upon order of the 26th District Court.” Borrink was to report to the probation officer on the 15 th day of each month as directed, with the first reporting date to be by June 15, 1998, and he was to allow visits at his home or elsewhere by a probation officer. Other terms of probation for Borrink included receiving chemical abuse treatment, participating in mental health counseling, *295 and refraining from changing employment or residence without the court’s or his probation officer’s permission.

Paragraph 8 of the terms of probation provides that Borrink would remain in Williamson County unless permitted to depart by the court or probation officer, but that “boilerplate” provision would seem to be quite obviously “trumped” by paragraph 23 quoted above which clearly contemplates Borrink’s residence in Nebraska, and in fact orders it. However, paragraph 23 does not ameliorate the fact that he is nonetheless on probation from the Texas courts.

The Texas judge signed the order on June 26, 1998, and indicated that upon successful completion of Borrink’s probation, he would be discharged and the proceedings against him dismissed. On February 17, 2000, the district attorney for Williamson County filed a first amended motion to set aside the deferred adjudication and alleged that Borrink had violated his probation in a number of ways, including the failure to report to his probation officer, pay the fine and costs, pay the fee for Williamson County’s adult probation department’s supervision of his probation, perform 500 hours of community service, and attend any of the chemical abuse or mental health treatment or assault prevention programs as ordered.

The district attorney for Williamson County applied to the Governor of Texas for extradition of Borrink on March 22, 2000, and the Governor of Texas signed the request to the Governor of Nebraska on March 24. On April 14, the sheriff of Douglas County received and filed a warrant from the Governor of Nebraska to arrest Borrink and take him into custody and deliver him to the sheriff of Williamson County or his designated agent unless a writ of habeas corpus was filed. Borrink was taken into custody, and Borrink admitted in these proceedings that he is the individual named in the Governor’s warrant, thus identity has never been an issue.

The petition for writ of habeas corpus challenging extradition was filed June 19, 2000. It alleges that Borrink is not subject to extradition because there is no conviction, that he is not a “fugitive,” and that he was unable to do supervised probation in Nebraska because the State of Nebraska would not accept the *296 deferred adjudication — the relevance of which appears to be that he has not really violated his probation. Trial was had on June 28.

Borrink testified that after the deferred adjudication to the felony charges in Texas, a condition of his probation was that he leave Texas and go to Nebraska, which he did immediately, and that he has remained in this state since that time. While the record does not contain a definitive date, it appears that Borrink was arrested in April 2000 at a bowling alley, succeeded in securing bond from the Douglas County Court, and faithfully made all of his court appearances up to and including the habeas corpus trial on June 28.

Borrink’s testimony was that upon his return to Nebraska, he contacted the probation office in Douglas County to set up the supervision of his probation as imposed by Texas. The long and short of his testimony about this procedure is that he tried to get Nebraska to take the steps necessary to supervise his probation, but asserted that Texas never sent the “paperwork” to Nebraska to enable him to be on probation in this state.

Ronald Broich, the chief deputy probation officer for Douglas County, testified that in the past, Nebraska probation offices would accept deferred adjudication cases from other states and supervise probation under the interstate compact, whereby probationers are transferred and supervised by a state other than the state imposing the probation. Nebraska extended this courtesy to other states until July 1997. However, Broich’s testimony was that a change in policy occurred, with the result that in July 1997, the State of Nebraska no longer accepted persons who had not been convicted but had been sentenced to probation in another state. This was due to a number of factors, including budgetary constraints and the fact that deferred adjudication did not carry a “conviction.”

Borrink maintained in his testimony that he had complied with all of the other terms of probation, such as attending counseling, participating in mental health treatment, taking the prescribed “Antabuse” medication, and paying the costs and fine as ordered by the Texas court. However, he did not provide any documentation of such activities or payments. Borrink further maintained that he was not a fugitive because he had not received an order to return to Texas until after he had been *297

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Bluebook (online)
634 N.W.2d 18, 10 Neb. Ct. App. 293, 2001 Neb. App. LEXIS 140, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-ex-rel-borrink-v-state-nebctapp-2001.