State v. Langston

No. 836             November 20, 2024                  337

   This is a nonprecedential memorandum opinion
    pursuant to ORAP 10.30 and may not be cited
         except as provided in ORAP 10.30(1).

          IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE
                  STATE OF OREGON

                STATE OF OREGON,
                 Plaintiff-Respondent,
                           v.
            DOARUTHOR LANGSTON II,
   aka Doarthor Langston, aka Doarthor Langston II,
 aka Doaruthor Langston, aka Doaruthor Langston II II,
                 Defendant-Appellant.
            Jackson County Circuit Court
                19CR64536; A181432

  Kelly W. Ravassipour, Judge.
  Submitted October 22, 2024.
   Ernest G. Lannet, Chief Defender, Criminal Appellate
Section, and Meredith Allen, Deputy Public Defender, Office
of Public Defense Services, filed the brief for appellant.
   Ellen F. Rosenblum, Attorney General, Benjamin Gutman,
Solicitor General, and Erica L. Herb, Assistant Attorney
General, filed the brief for respondent.
  Before Aoyagi, Presiding Judge, Egan, Judge, and Joyce,
Judge.
  AOYAGI, P. J.
  Affirmed.
338                                                     State v. Langston

           AOYAGI, P. J.
         Defendant pleaded no contest to second-degree sexual abuse and was sentenced to three years of probation,
with an agreement that, if he violated probation, he would
receive an upward dispositional departure sentence of 24
months in prison. As a special condition of probation, defendant was required to participate in and successfully complete sex offender treatment. The trial court found defendant
to have violated that condition and revoked his probation.
On appeal, in a single assignment of error, defendant challenges the finding of a probation violation. We affirm.
         As part of his sex offender treatment, defendant
entered into a contract under which his therapist had the
right to decide to suspend or terminate treatment and which
provided, among other things, that defendant would not
“develop an intimate or sexual relationship (unless married
or currently involved)” without the approval of his treatment
team and that he would be honest with his therapist regarding treatment violations in a timely manner. Approximately
one month before the scheduled end of his three-year probationary term, defendant’s therapist terminated him from
treatment based on defendant’s admission to having sexual contact with a woman other than his girlfriend without
prior approval, which violated the contract, and his therapist’s belief that defendant could not successfully complete
treatment before the end of his probationary period.1
        After a show cause hearing, the trial court found
that the state had proved that defendant violated his probation by failing to successfully complete sex offender
treatment. The court ultimately decided to revoke probation based on that violation and sentenced defendant to 24
months in prison.
         Defendant challenges the trial court’s finding of a
probation violation. He argues that he was “generally compliant” with the treatment program, attended sessions, submitted to polygraphs, and was honest with his therapist, but
    1
      The termination letter also references the therapist’s “concern” regarding
defendant often engaging in “rough sex that mimics his index offense,” but at the
hearing, the therapist downplayed the significance of that concern to his termination decision.
Nonprecedential Memo Op: 

 (2024)                               339

that he “could not admit to conduct that he maintained that
he did not commit.” In defendant’s view, “it was impossible
for [him] to do more than he did.” He compares his situation
to that in State v. Adams, 

, 

(2020), in which we held that it was error to find the defendant in violation of a probation condition that required him
to successfully complete family court, where the reason that
he was terminated from family court without completing it
was that the children were returned to their mother’s care
and no longer lived in Oregon, which was outside his control.
         Whether there is sufficient evidence in the record to
support a finding of a probation violation is a legal question.2
State v. Stroud, 

, 

 (2018).
Here, there is evidence in the record that defendant was terminated from sex offender treatment without successfully
completing it, thus violating a probation condition. We are
unpersuaded that the situation is analogous to Adams. The
therapist had the right to terminate treatment and did so,
not based on defendant’s refusal to admit to the crime of
conviction, but because defendant had sexual contact with
a woman other than his partner without prior approval,
which violated the treatment contract, and the therapist did
not believe that defendant could successfully complete treatment before the end of his probationary period. Defendant’s
argument that it was impossible for him to do more than
he did to successfully complete treatment is therefore misplaced, because he could have not violated the contract.
         Accordingly, we reject defendant’s claim that the
trial court erred in finding a probation violation.
           Affirmed.




    2
      By contrast, we review the decision to revoke probation for an abuse of discretion. State v. Kelemen, 

, 

 (2019); see also
OAR 213-010-0001 (“The decision to revoke probation is discretionary and may
be exercised upon a finding that the offender has violated one or more of the
conditions of probation, or that the offender has participated in new criminal
activity.”). Defendant does not challenge the discretionary decision to revoke probation, only the finding of a violation itself.