Vaidik, CJ.
Indiana Code section 35-50-6-1 provides that when defendants complete their terms of imprisonment, they are released to parole or probation. Here, when Anthony A. May violated his probation, the trial court sentenced him to serve two years of his previously suspended sentence in the Indiana Department of Correction and ordered him to return to probation when he completed his sentence. When May later completed his sentence, the DOC released him to parole instead of probation. Although May complied with the terms of his parole, the probation department filed a petition to revoke his probation because he failed to submit to monthly drug tests (which was a condition of his probation but not his parole). The trial court found that May violated his probation and sentenced him to serve the balance of his previously suspended sentence in the DOC.
… Given that defendants are placed on parole or probation, the DOC placed May on parole, and May complied with the terms of his parole, it was reasonable for May not to report to probation before his release from parole. …
In 2011, May was convicted of Class C felony nonsupport of a dependent child in Huntington Superior Court. The trial court sentenced him to eight years, with four years executed in the DOC and four years suspended to probation. …
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May was released from the DOC to parole in February 2015. ... May then reported on a weekly basis to his parole officer in Allen County. May took a drug test through his parole officer in March 2015, and it was negative. May, however, did not report to his probation officer when he was released from the DOC. Consequently, he did not take any drug tests through the probation department.
In May 2015, the probation department filed a second petition to revoke May’s probation for “fail[ing] to submit to any monthly drug tests since being released from Indiana Department of Correction[] on or about February 11, 2015.”
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Probation revocation is a two-step process. First, the trial court must determine that a violation of a condition of probation actually occurred. Woods v. State, 892 N.E.2d 637, 640 (Ind. 2008). Second, if a violation is proven, then the trial court must decide whether the violation warrants revocation of probation. Id.
If the trial court finds that the probationer violated a condition of probation, the court has several options:
(1) Continue the person on probation, with or without modifying or enlarging the conditions.
(2) Extend the person’s probationary period for not more than one (1) year beyond the original probationary period.
(3) Order execution of all or part of the sentence that was suspended at the time of initial sentencing. Ind. Code § 35-38-2-3(h).
… Indiana Code § 35-50-6-1 provides that when a defendant completes his term of imprisonment, he can be released in one of three ways:
(1) released to parole . . .;
(2) discharged upon a finding by the committing court that the person was assigned to a community transition program and may be discharged without the requirement of parole; or
(3) released to the committing court if the sentence included a period of probation.
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… When May was released from the DOC in February 2015, the DOC placed him on parole under a Conditional Parole Release Agreement. He saw his parole officer every week, took a drug test (which was negative), and was successfully discharged from parole in December 2015. … Under these circumstances, we find that the trial court abused its discretion in revoking May’s probation and sentencing him to serve the balance of his previously suspended sentence in the DOC. We therefore reverse the trial court and remand with instructions for May to return to probation. …
Reversed and remanded.
Barnes, J., and Mathias, J., concur.