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Name: People v. Dobbins
Case #: C046381
Court: CA Court of Appeal
District 3 DCA
Opinion Date: 02/28/2005
Summary

Failure to order an updated probation report after a violation of probation was harmless error. The defendant had been placed on probation under Proposition 36 with a suspended sentence of 16 months. He was later charged with assault with a deadly weapon and attempted robbery. The new charges resulted in a mistrial, but the court found by a preponderance of the evidence that the defendant had violated his probation, and ordered execution of the suspended term. The Court of Appeal held that because the new sentencing hearing occurred eight months after the preparation of the original report, the court erred in failing to order a new report. A court must order a supplemental probation report for sentencing proceedings that occur “a significant amount of time” after the original report was prepared. However, the error was harmless in this case, because the defendant’s prior record alone, as well as the new allegations, made it unlikely that a supplemental report would have convinced the court to order a further grant of probation.