Parker v. State

• Decision Date: 02 May 2008
• Docket Number: No. 2D06-5134.,2D06-5134.
• Citation: 980 So.2d 1223
• Parties: Charles Harold PARKER, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

980 So.2d 1223

Charles Harold PARKER, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. 2D06-5134.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Second District.

May 2, 2008.

James Marion Moorman, Public Defender, and Timothy J. Ferreri, Assistant Public Defender, Bartow, for Appellant.

Bill McCollum, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Helene S. Parnes, Assistant Attorney General, Tampa, for Appellee.

KELLY, Judge.

Charles Harold Parker appeals from the order revoking his probation and from his five-year prison sentence. He argues that the violation, changing his residence without permission, was not willful or substantial because he believed that his probation had terminated before he moved. We reverse because the record does not support the finding that Parker willfully violated the terms of his probation.

On October 7, 1992, Parker entered a plea of no contest to three counts of promoting sexual performance by a child and was sentenced to five years' imprisonment. His prison sentence was suspended and he was placed on five years' probation. Parker's probation was revoked in 1994 and he was placed on one year of community control followed by three years of probation. Parker completed his community control and his supervision was changed to probation. In 1996, that probation was converted to administrative or mail-in probation, which required Parker to file a monthly written report. His probation was scheduled to expire on September 22, 1998. Parker continued to file monthly reports until November 5, 1997.

At the revocation hearing, Robert Morrison, Parker's probation officer, testified that he received information that Parker had moved from his residence on November 13, 1997. He did not hear from Parker again. Parker did not obtain prior consent to move from his residence, so Mr. Morrison filed a violation report alleging that Parker had changed his residence without permission, a violation of condition three of Parker's probation.

Parker testified that he had only completed the fifth grade. In 1984, he was hit by a car and suffered a serious head injury which kept him in a hospital for a year and in a mental hospital for three years. Parker believed that his mental problems and his limited education hindered his capacity to understand things. In 1996 when his probation was converted to an administrative or mail-in probation, he explained to the secretary at the probation office that he needed enough forms to get him through his probation period. She looked up his record and gave him what he thought was the correct number of forms to mail in for the remainder of his sentence. He diligently mailed in the forms until he had no more and then assumed that he was finished with probation. He left the state for eight and a half years, only returning when he discovered that there was a warrant out for his arrest.

Illness, including mental illness, can render a technical violation of probation "not substantial or willful because a mental or physical illness can be debilitating to the point that a probationer cannot comply with the terms of probation." Meade v. State, 799 So.2d 430, 432 (Fla. 1st DCA 2001). See Williams v. State, 728 So.2d 287, 288 (Fla. 2d DCA 1999) (holding that Williams' failure to file reports and submit to urinalysis testing were not willful because he was "crippled" by severe depression); Copeland v. State, 864 So.2d 1197 (Fla. 1st DCA 2004) (noting that Copeland suffered from severe delusions produced by his paranoid schizophrenia and that this illness caused him to violate his probation). Parker, having a fifth-grade education and mental ailments, explained that he believed he had complied with the terms of his probation and that he was free to leave the state. He testified that he received no explanation when his probation was...