Smith's Criminal Case Compendium
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State v. Whatley, ___ N.C. App. ___, 2021-NCCOA-702 (Dec. 21, 2021)
The Court of Appeals vacated the trial court’s judgments revoking the defendant’s probation and activating his suspended sentences imposed in connection with felonies charged in two CRS case numbers – 17 CRS 86913 and 18 CRS 338 – because discrepancies between the record and the judgements left the basis for revocation in both case numbers unclear. The Court likened this case to State v. Sitosky, 238 N.C. App. 558 (2014) because in both cases the trial court marked the boxes on the judgments indicating that the defendants had admitted to all violations alleged in the violation reports when in fact the defendants had not done so. Here, among other inconsistencies, the trial court indicated in its judgments that the defendant had waived his revocation hearing and admitted all alleged violations despite the fact that the record indicated that the defendant did not waive the hearing and expressly denied the alleged violations. The Court discussed other discrepancies in the judgments and the record, including that the trial court appeared to have revoked the defendant’s probation in 17 CRS 86913 on the basis of violating an SRG Agreement that was a valid condition of probation in 18 CRS 338 but was not a valid condition of 17 CRS 86913 as it had not been included in a written order in that case. The Court of Appeals remanded the case to the trial court for further determinations and findings.