Jared Morrison v. State, 11-11-00191-CR

Morrison appeals the revocation of community supervision and adjudication of guilt for sexual assault of a child.
Initial judgmentDeferred adjudication was entered; Morrison placed on community supervision for nine years following a judicial confession admitting penetrative sexual assault of a minor.
In 2005 and again later, Morrison agreed to plead true and extend supervision, serve jail time, and enroll in TAIP as conditions.
In April 2010 the State moved to revoke supervision and adjudicate; in March 2011 the State amended to add additional alleged violations.
The State alleged violations including failure to pay fees, failure to report address changes, and failure to verify sex-offender registration; some allegations were abandoned at the hearing.
The trial court revoked supervision, adjudicated guilt, imposed a sixteen-year sentence to run consecutively to Morrison’s federal sentence.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Sufficiency of the evidence to prove violations	Morrison contends the State failed to prove violations by a preponderance.	Morrison argues evidence was insufficient to support revocation.	Evidence supported one violation; sufficient to uphold revocation.
Admissibility of sex-offender-records	State properly admitted records; Midlands officer had authenticating knowledge.	Authenticity and predicate insufficient; custodian lacks personal knowledge of contents.	Issue not preserved; even if preserved, evidence supported admissibility; records properly authenticated.
Consecutive sentencing (stacking)	Court could stack the sixteen-year term on the federal sentence under Article 42.08.	Stacking is improper and could constitute cruel punishment; disproportionate.	Trial court did not abuse discretion; stacking permissible and within statutory range.
Cruel and unusual punishment proportionality	Sentence is excessive given the offenses and conduct.	Sentence proportional given the offense gravity and conduct; within statutory range.	Not cruel or unusual; within the statutory range and proportionate to the offense and circumstances.
Judgment corrections	Judgment misstates fee defaults and findings on abandoned allegations.	No dispute beyond clerical corrections.	Court sustained the first issue; modified judgment to reflect accurate fee history and to delete findings on abandoned allegations; affirmed as modified.

Rickels v. State, 202 S.W.3d 759 (Tex. Crim. App. 2006) (abuse-of-discretion review for revocation)
Cardona v. State, 665 S.W.2d 492 (Tex. Crim. App. 1984) (credibility and weight in probation-revocation context)
Antwine v. State, 268 S.W.3d 634 (Tex. App.—Eastland 2008) (preponderance standard for revocation; limited fact-review)
Cobb v. State, 851 S.W.2d 871 (Tex. Crim. App. 1993) (proof by preponderance suffices for violation)
Moore v. State, 605 S.W.2d 924 (Tex. Crim. App. 1980) (single-violation proof sufficiency for revocation)
Pena v. State, 285 S.W.3d 459 (Tex. Crim. App. 2009) (preservation of error; appellate notice to trial court)
Campos v. State, 317 S.W.3d 768 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2010) (business-record authentication requirements)
Butler v. State, 872 S.W.2d 227 (Tex. Crim. App. 1994) (authenticating witness may be different from creator)
Harmelin v. Michigan, 501 U.S. 957 (Supreme Court 1991) (proportionality framework for punishment)
Solem v. Helm, 463 U.S. 277 (Supreme Court 1983) (proportionality considerations for sentencing)