State v. Geter
| Citation | 2022 NCSC 137 |
| Decision Date | 16 December 2022 |
| Docket Number | 182PA21 |
| Parties | STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA v. JAQUAN STEPHON GETER |
| Court | North Carolina Supreme Court |
2022-NCSC-137
STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA
v.
JAQUAN STEPHON GETER
No. 182PA21
Supreme Court of North Carolina
December 16, 2022
Heard in the Supreme Court on 24 May 2022
On discretionary review pursuant to N.C. G.S. § 7A-31 of a unanimous decision of the Court of Appeals, 276 N.C.App. 377, 2021-NCCOA-98, affirming two judgments entered on 15 July 2020 by Judge R. Gregory Horne in Superior Court, Buncombe County, which revoked defendant's probation. Heard in the Supreme Court on 24 May 2022 in session in the Old Burke County Courthouse in the City of Morganton pursuant to N.C. G.S. § 7A-10(a).
Joshua H. Stein, Attorney General, by Liliana R. Lopez, Assistant Attorney General, for the State-appellee.
Jason Christopher Yoder for defendant-appellant.
MORGAN, JUSTICE
¶ 1 This Court allowed discretionary review to determine whether the Court of Appeals erred in affirming a trial court's judgments revoking defendant's probation entered over a year after defendant's term of probation had expired. Because the trial court complied with the requirements of N.C. G.S. § 15A-1344(f)(3), it possessed the jurisdiction to revoke defendant's probation after defendant's term of probation had
expired and further did not abuse its discretion in determining that good cause existed for doing so after defendant's term of probation had expired. Accordingly, the Court of Appeals decision is affirmed.
I. Facts and Procedural History
¶ 2 Defendant pleaded guilty to possession of a firearm by a felon, resisting a public officer, possession of a stolen motor vehicle, and fleeing to elude arrest on 29 August 2016 and was sentenced by the trial court to a total active term of twenty-two to forty-five months which was suspended in favor of an eighteen-month term of supervised probation. While defendant was still on probation, the Asheville Police Department executed a search warrant on defendant's residence on 18 January 2017 after conducting a series of controlled purchases of narcotics from defendant using a confidential informant. Upon executing the warrant, police recovered marijuana, defendant's identification card which was situated on top of a digital scale, razor blades, a black ski mask, a .380 caliber pistol, and over $1,200 in cash. Of the recovered money, $40.00 had been used in an earlier controlled purchase of narcotics from defendant. On 23 April 2017, defendant was charged with possession of a firearm by a felon, possession of marijuana, possession of drug paraphernalia, and maintaining a dwelling for the purpose of keeping or selling controlled substances. On 9 February 2018 and 12 February 2018, defendant's probation officer served and filed violation reports for each case of probation which alleged that defendant had
committed new criminal offenses while on probation and listed the pending charges which had resulted from the execution of the search warrant. Defendant's probation expired on 28 February 2018, more than two weeks after he was served with the probation violation reports.
¶ 3 Defendant filed a motion to suppress the evidence which was seized during the search of his residence. The trial court granted defendant's motion on 22 February 2019, determining that the underlying warrant was too general in that it did not specify which of the two units of the duplex where defendant resided was the focus of the search. The State dismissed the charges against defendant on 17 March 2019. Defendant's pending probation violation reports came on for hearing on 4 April 2019, at which time the State called the detectives who had executed the search warrant. Defendant's probation violation hearing consisted of the detectives' testimony, by which all of the items seized during the execution of the warrant—including the marijuana, firearm, and digital scales—were admitted as evidence that defendant had committed a new criminal offense while on probation. The trial court, finding that defendant had committed a new criminal offense while on probation, revoked defendant's probation. Defendant appealed the trial court's judgments to the Court of Appeals.
¶ 4 The State conceded, and the Court of Appeals agreed, that the trial court had failed to specify which of the criminal offenses committed by defendant would serve
as the basis for revocation, and that the trial court had failed to find whether good cause existed to revoke defendant's probation after the probationary period had expired as required by N.C. G.S. § 15A-1344(f)(3). State v. Geter (Geter I), No. COA19-846, 2020 WL 3251033, at *5 (N.C. Ct. App. June 16, 2020) (unpublished). The Court of Appeals remanded the case for clarification from the trial court as to which criminal offense the trial court had determined that defendant had committed which would serve as the basis for revocation, and further remanded for new proceedings concerning whether good cause existed to revoke defendant's probation after his term of probation had expired. Geter 1, 2020 WL 3251033, at *5-6.
¶ 5 On 15 July 2020, the trial court conducted a hearing on whether good cause existed to revoke defendant's probation after the expiration of his term and found that the State had intentionally delayed setting the probation violation report for a hearing as part of the State's normal practice to allow a probationer's pending charges to be resolved prior to the pending probation violation hearing. The resolution of defendant's outstanding charges would have a likely dispositive effect on the alleged probation violations, according to the trial court. The trial court announced the following:
[W]hile the [c]ourt recognizes that the [c]ourt can proceed with regard to a probation violation hearing alleging pending charges prior to a person's conviction on those underlying offenses, the [c]ourt further acknowledges that in this case the underlying offenses were contested. That a Motion to Suppress was filed, heard, and granted by this
[c]ourt. ....
While the State could have proceeded with regard to probation violation before the new offenses alleged were adjudicated, the State did not do so. That the State chose to prosecute the underlying action. Again, the Motion to Suppress was heard at the jury term....
The [c]ourt would find that this does constitute good cause in that if the State — if Mr. Geter had been found not guilty of those offenses, or if for whatever reason the State had opted to dismiss the charges, that it would have had a direct impact on the later hearing of the probation violation.
Again, as reviewed — as shown in the transcript, as well as the knowledge by this [c]ourt having heard the Motion to Suppress, and then argument on the Motion to Suppress, having been granted after probation violation, it is clear to the [c]ourt that the State waited until disposition of the underlying offenses alleged before proceeding with the probation violation. The [c]ourt would find that this would constitute good cause.
The trial court reduced its finding of good cause to new judgments which revoked defendant's probation and announced, "[The] court finds and concludes good cause exists to revoke defendant's probation despite the expiration of his probationary period." The judgments were entered on 15 July 2020 but related back to the original probation violation hearing on 4 April 2019.
¶ 6 Defendant appealed this second set of judgments revoking his probation, arguing before the Court of Appeals that "the 'good cause' found by the trial court failed as a matter of law" to satisfy N.C. G.S. § 15A-1344(f)(3) according to defendant's
interpretation of the opinion of the lower appellate court in State v. Sasek, 271 N.C.App. 568 (2020). The Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court's second set of judgments revoking defendant's probation. State v. Geter (Geter II), 276 N.C.App. 377, 2021-NCCOA-98. The Court of Appeals concluded that Sasek was inapplicable because the judicial panel in the case vacated the defendant's probation revocation judgments not because there was evidence to suggest that any "good cause" that could be inferred from the record was legally sufficient or insufficient, but specifically because "there was no evidence in the record to indicate that good cause existed to justify the untimely revocation." Id. ¶ 11 (emphasis added). The trial court in Sasek "erred by not making the required finding that good cause existed," id. ¶ 12 (emphasis omitted) (quoting Sasek, 271 N.C.App. at 576), unlike the trial court in the instant case which, upon remand, provided both a written finding of good cause "supported by the facts in the record" and an oral explanation of the reasoning behind the findings, id. ¶ 13. Because the state's jurisprudence and statutory enactments were devoid of any factors or standard to apply in evaluating a finding of good cause, and because the trial court had in fact made the good cause finding required by N.C. G.S. § 15A-1344(f)(3), the Court of Appeals concluded that the trial court had not abused its discretion in revoking defendant's probation despite the "significant and unadvisable" delay between the expiration of defendant's probation and the final probation revocation hearing. Id. ¶ 15. Defendant petitioned this Court for
discretionary review of the unanimous decision of the Court of Appeals in Geter II which we allowed by order on 10 August 2021.
II. Analysis
¶ 7 Defendant first takes issue with the application of an abuse of discretion standard by the Court of Appeals in the lower appellate court's analysis of the trial court's finding of good cause. We agree with defendant that whether a trial court has the authority to revoke a defendant's probation after the defendant's term of probation has expired is a jurisdictional question. State v. Camp, 299 N.C. 524, 528 (1980) (holding that "jurisdiction was lost by the lapse of time and the...
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