Tindall v. State
The Fourth DCA reversed a probation revocation where the State failed to prove that adult pornographic DVDs found in the defendant's possession were 'relevant to the offender's deviant behavior pattern,' a required element under the pre-2014 probation condition addressed in Kasischke and Bauer. The court clarified that a 'puerile or adolescent theme' in this context means a theme involving minors, not merely younger adults, and held that a DVD depicting college-age women did not satisfy this standard. Because the DVDs were never introduced into evidence or viewed by anyone, the court remanded solely to reinstate probation rather than for a new revocation hearing.
Key facts
- Tindall, an adult probationer, was charged with violating a probation condition restricting possession of pornographic material; the State introduced evidence that he possessed DVDs depicting college-age women but never viewed the materials or introduced them into evidence at trial.
- The trial court found a probation violation based on the DVDs' depiction of younger adult women, treating possession alone as sufficient proof of violation without establishing relevance to Tindall's specific deviant behavior pattern.
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Why it matters
This decision gives criminal-defense practitioners a concrete, usable definition of 'puerile or adolescent theme' in the recurring sex-offender-probation context, foreclosing prosecutors from relying on generic age-gap… — full analysis with a trial
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