Ex Parte Joseph Dangelo (Original)
Annotate this CasePursuant to a plea agreement, Appellant Joseph Dangelo pled guilty to the felony offense of injury to a child. In accordance with a plea agreement and after accepting his plea, the trial court placed Appellant on deferred-adjudication community supervision for seven years. Appellant signed a document that stated that the trial court could modify the conditions of supervision at any time during the period of community supervision. The original terms of appellant's community supervision did not require him to complete sex-offender treatment. In May 2008, the trial court modified those conditions to include provisions that required appellant to submit to sex-offender treatment and evaluation, as directed by his supervision officer, complete sex-offender psychological counseling, and submit to, and show no deception on, any polygraph examination ordered by the court or his supervision officer. In January of 2009, the trial court again modified appellant's conditions and required appellant to reside in Tarrant County and to restart his sex-offender treatment, as directed by the supervision officer, but it dismissed the state's petition to proceed to adjudication of appellant's guilt. In March 2009, appellant's attorney sent to Appellant's mandated psychological testing center a letter that stated his objections to any required treatment programs that lay outside those required or have no relationship to the crime to which Appellant plead, stating that Appellant "ha[d] no objections to polygraph examinations which in the course of your program he may be subjected to," but that he "has Fifth Amendment protection against making any incriminating statements and has a right to so state, relating to any conduct for which he has not pled or for which he is not on deferred adjudication." The state subsequently filed its second petition to proceed to adjudication, which alleged that Appellant had violated the terms and conditions of his supervision by failing to complete a sex-offender evaluation and that he had been discharged from sex-offender treatment without completing it. Appellant filed a motion to quash the second petition. The court of appeals held "that appellant may not be compelled, over the invocation of his Fifth Amendment right, to participate in any portion of the objected-to community supervision conditions, including the requirement of answering questions two through four of the planned polygraph examination, that would provide a link to his criminal prosecution for any offense unrelated to the injury to a child offense that he pled guilty to." But it also held that appellant "may be compelled to discuss the facts particularly related to counts one through four of his indictment because the State may not use those facts in a future criminal prosecution." The Court of Criminal Appeals granted review of the first two grounds of Appellant's petitions for discretionary review. In light of the State's concession that double-jeopardy principles precluded it from prosecuting Appellant for the four sex-related offenses, the Court agreed with the court of appeals's determination that "appellant may be compelled to discuss the facts particularly related to counts one through four of his indictment because the State may not use those facts in a future criminal prosecution." Appellant had no Fifth Amendment right to refuse to answer legitimate questions that were a condition of his community supervision regarding those offenses. Accordingly, the Court overruled Appellant's grounds one and two and affirmed the judgment of the court of appeals.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.