Raines v. State

Adkins, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. On January 10, 1980, Paul Hamilton Raines, Jr., the appellant, was convicted on a guilty plea in the Circuit Court for Montgomery County (Cahoon, J.), of homicide while driving when intoxicated (Art. 27, § 388A). On April 11, 1980, he was committed to the custody of the Division of Correction for two years, of which period all but 180 days was suspended in favor of a two-year probation. The conditions of probation included requirements that Raines report regularly to his probation agent, that he obtain alcoholism counseling, and that he obey all laws.

No appeal was taken from this judgment. Subsequently, Raines was charged with violating the conditions of probation stated above. At a hearing on June 3, 1982, the Circuit Court for Montgomery County found that Raines had indeed violated those conditions. It revoked Raines’s probation and reimposed the balance of the original two-year sentence, to be served consecutively to a sentence Raines was then serving in Florida.

On appeal, Raines contends that the circuit court erred in: 1. admitting hearsay evidence; and 2. in making the reimposed sentence consecutive to the Florida sentence. 1. Hearsay The evidence introduced by the State at the revocation hearing consisted of a certified copy of Raines’s May 4,1981, conviction in Florida of "strongarm robbery” and of the sentence imposed for that offense. In addition, Probation Agent Robert Little testified from records he said were kept by the Division of Parole and Probation in the ordinary course of business and by Raines’s supervising probation agent. These records reflected not only the Florida conviction but also Raines’s failure to contact his probation agent regularly and ⁵⁴⁵ his failure to obtain the required alcoholism counseling.

Little was not Raines’s supervising probation agent; that agent was not available on the day of the hearing. Raines objected to Little’s testimony on the ground that it was hearsay. His contention is without merit. To begin with, the copy of the Florida conviction, certified by its custodian as being a true copy, was admissible under § 10-204 of the Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article.

Proof of that conviction alone would have been a sufficient basis for revocation of probation in this case. Furthermore, it appears that the evidence introduced through Little may well have come within the business records exception to the hearsay rule; Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article § 10-101. But that we need not decide, because even if Little’s testimony as to Raines’s failure to report to his probation agent and his failure to obtain alcoholism counseling was hearsay, it was admissible. It is Raines’s view that Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U.S. 471 (1972) and Gagnon v. Scarpelli, 411 U.S. 778 (1973) preclude the use of hearsay evidence at a probation revocation hearing.

Morrissey did impose certain due process safeguards for a parole revocation proceeding, but the holding was limited: "We emphasize that there is no thought to equate this second stage of parole revocation to a criminal prosecution in any sense. It is a narrow inquiry: the process should be flexible enough to consider evidence .. . that would not be admissible in an adversary criminal trial.” 408 U.S. at 489 . Gagnon conferred the right to counsel in probation revocation proceedings, but its holding, too, was limited: "In a revocation hearing .. . formal procedures and rules of evidence are not employed.” 411 U.S. at 789 . Federal courts appear to hold that hearsay is admissible at probation revocation hearings.

See e.g. United States v. McCallum, 677 F.2d 1024 (4th Cir.), cert. den., U.S. , 103 S.Ct. 365 (1982); United States v. Torrez-Flores, 624 F.2d 776 (7th Cir. 1980); United States v. Pattman, 535 F.2d ⁵⁴⁶ 1062 (8th Cir. 1976); United States v. Miller, 514 F.2d 41 (9th Cir. 1975). It is true that some federal courts have criticized the use of