Com. v. Shires, D., II, 240 A.3d 974

In 1998 Shires committed sexual offenses; in 2002 he pleaded guilty and was sentenced: terms of incarceration followed by a 20-year period of supervision by the State Board of Probation and Parole; the 2002 sentencing order imposed only one probation condition: payment of costs, fines, and restitution.
Over time the Board required Shires to sign multiple supervision condition forms (2010, May 2016) containing sex-offender conditions (treatment including polygraphs, no contact with minors without approval, approved residence only).
No docket activity occurred between 2002 and 2016, and a December 28, 2016 trial-court order purporting to impose Board-standard conditions was served generically on the public defender’s office; the record lacks proof Shires personally received it.
In 2017 the Board charged Shires with three violations based on its supervision conditions; Shires admitted the conduct at his Gagnon II hearing but denied it violated his probation.
The trial court revoked probation and resentenced Shires (July 6, 2017). On appeal the Superior Court held the Board-imposed conditions were not germane to the single court-ordered condition and that the December 2016 order lacked evidence of service, vacated the revocation, and reinstated the 2002 judgment of sentence.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether violations of Board-imposed supervision conditions can support revocation when the trial court’s only probation condition was payment of costs	Board/Commonwealth: probation may be revoked for failure to comply with conditions of supervision imposed by the Board when those conditions are valid	Shires: Board conditions were not court-ordered and are not germane to the sole court condition (payment), so they cannot support revocation	Court: Board exceeded its authority; those supervision conditions were not germane to the court-imposed condition—revocation was improper
Whether the trial court’s Dec. 28, 2016 order attaching Board/sex-offender conditions to probation was effective notice to Shires	Commonwealth: the order incorporated the Board conditions into Shires’ probation	Shires: the record lacks proof he was served; the public defender’s office did not receive or have notice of it	Court: no evidence Shires received the 2016 order; the court properly disregarded it
Whether Shires’ admission of the charged conduct justified revocation despite alleged illegality of the supervision conditions	Commonwealth: admission establishes the factual basis for a violation	Shires: even if conduct occurred, revocation cannot rest on conditions that exceed Board authority	Court: admission cannot cure lack of legal authority to revoke; revocation reversed

Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738 (U.S. 1967) (procedural standards for counsel seeking to withdraw on appeal)
Gagnon v. Scarpelli, 411 U.S. 778 (U.S. 1973) (due-process framework for probation/parole revocation hearings)
Commonwealth v. Elliott, 50 A.3d 1284 (Pa. 2012) (Board may impose supervision conditions only if germane to, or an elaboration of, court-imposed probation conditions)
Commonwealth v. MacGregor, 912 A.2d 315 (Pa. Super. 2006) (limitations on Board authority to impose conditions solely by virtue of sex-offender status)
Commonwealth v. Wright, 116 A.3d 133 (Pa. Super. 2015) (standards of appellate review for sentence following probation revocation)
Commonwealth v. Colon, 102 A.3d 1033 (Pa. Super. 2014) (probation revocation is within trial court discretion but reviewable for legal error)
Commonwealth v. Santiago, 978 A.2d 349 (Pa. 2009) (Anders briefing obligations in Pennsylvania)