Case ID: sw2d_292/html/0120-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "WOODLEY, Judge.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Ex parte Albert CHURCH, Jr.
    No. 28472.
    Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.
    June 20, 1956.
    Albert Church, Jr., pro se.
    . Leon B. Douglas, State’s Atty., Austin, for the State.,
   WOODLEY, Judge.

This is an original application to this Court for writ of habeas corpus. Relator, an inrqatq of the penitentiary,, attacks the validity of the conviction which he is serving. ■ • . •

The conviction was had in Cause No.’3Ó3 in the District Court of Culberson County. It is shown that upon a plea of guilty to á charge- of robbery by assault before the court, a jury being waived,' judgment was eritered which recites that relátor’s punishment be assessed at “a term of not less than five years nor more than fifteen yéars.” ■

- On April- 30,- 1956, this application being presented to the writer, request-was made of .the present judge of the trial court to ascertain the facts 'as to whether or not a definite punishment was in fact assessed in said cause, and to certify to this Court such1 facts, together with any orders which might be entered nunc pro- tunc for the purpose i of making the records speak-' the truth. - -

No facts have been certified and relator is entitled to be heard on the judgment, assuming that it correctly recites that no definite punishment was in fact .assessed against him.

Under the holdings of this Court in Ex parte Traxler, 147 Tex.Cr.R. 661, 184 S.W.2d 286; Edwards v. State, 153 Tex.Cr.R. 301, 219 S.W.2d 1022, and Ex parte East, 154 Tex.Cr.R. 123, 225 S.W.2d 833, the judgment is void for want of a definite punishment.

Relator is ordered relieved from further confinement in the penitentiary under said conviction, and it is ordered that he be delivered by the penitentiary authorities to the Sheriff of Culberson County to answer in the District Court of said County to the indictment in the cause under which the conviction was had.