Erickson was convicted and sentenced to probation. The court received notice that, “Erickson had failed to report to the probation department and had failed to enroll in treatment.” Based on the notice, the court scheduled a probation violation hearing. Guess who didn’t attend and had a bench warrant issued. When he was found? COKE!
Erickson argues that under Fisher, the court here could only issue a bench warrant if it had at minimum a “well-founded suspicion” that a violation of the terms of release had occurred. Id. at 232. While we agree with Erickson regarding the required standard, we conclude that in this case the issuing court did have a “well founded suspicion” that Erickson had violated the conditions of his release. Had the bench warrant here been issued immediately after the court received notice of the probation violation allegations, we might be more persuaded by Erickson’s argument. But one of the conditions of Erickson’s release was that he notify the court of any address change. The returned summons stated that Erickson had moved and had left no forwarding address. This alone provided the court with a well-founded suspicion that Erickson had violated the terms of release. The bench warrant was therefore valid and provided adequate authority of law to arrest Erickson.
