Hacker v. Texas (Original)
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The issue before the Supreme Court in this case was whether the evidence showed that appellant violated a "no contact" condition of probation, when the condition allowed contact by telephone regarding issues of child custody and when appellant and his wife had an arrangement for appellant to babysit their children at his wife's home while she was at work. "What the State had here was just linking-type evidence. Appellant had motive and opportunity for prohibited contact because he expressed buyer's remorse about pleading guilty and his wife did not want the 'no contact' order." The State also had other circumstantial evidence that was "perhaps suspicious," but did not establish the fact of prohibited contact; none of this evidence established that prohibited contact occurred. Without that, all of this evidence was mere "suspicion linked to other suspicion." The Court held that that the evidence was legally insufficient to meet the State's allegation in its motion to revoke, and therefore, the trial court abused its discretion in revoking appellant's probation. Furthermore, the Court held that the court of appeals erred in upholding the trial court's judgment in doing so. The Court reversed the lower courts' judgments and ordered that the State's motion to revoke probation be dismissed.
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