Commonwealth v. Dubowski

In this appeal, the defendant claims that the revocation of his probation and the imposition of a two-year committed term should be set aside because the District Court judge *293did not formally bifurcate the probation violation hearing into two stages, as dictated by rules 5(b) and 7(a) of the District Court Rules for Probation Violation Proceedings (2000) (probation rules).1 In accord with these rules, a judge presiding over a probation violation hearing is to conduct a dual analysis. In the first stage, the judge is to determine the issue of, and enter findings with respect to, whether a…