Barnes v. State

I feel compelled to dissent as vigorously as I know how to the continuing efforts of the majority to lower the standards applicable to revocation of probation hearings when the trend should be in the opposite direction in this day and age of continuing improvement in criminal procedure and fairness in all criminal proceedings. See this writer’s dissent in Casarez v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 468 S.W.2d 414.

When a probationer is accused of having violated his probationary conditions by committing a penal offense, he is not entitled to require that prior to revocation that there be a trial and…