Affirm and Opinion Filed May 20, 2022

In The

Court of Appeals

Fifth District of Texas at Dallas

No. 05-20-00010-CR

QUANTARA LANEESE MELTON, Appellant

V.

THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee

On Appeal from the 203rd Judicial District Court

Dallas County, Texas

Trial Court Cause No. F18-76488-P

MEMORANDUM OPINION

Before Justices Osborne, Pedersen, III, and Nowell

Opinion by Justice Pedersen, III

A jury found appellant Quantara Lanese Melton guilty of murder and assessed 

her punishment at fifty-two years’ confinement and a $5,000 fine. In a single issue, 

appellant argues that the trial court improperly instructed the jury regarding parole 

eligibility in the punishment charge. In a cross-issue, the State asks us to modify the 

judgment in this case to correct a number of clerical errors. As modified, we affirm 

the trial court’s judgment.
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Background

Appellant was charged with murder. Her indictment alleged that the 

complainant died after she pushed him into oncoming traffic, causing him to be 

struck by—and run over by—a motor vehicle. The jury found her guilty.

Before closing arguments were made in the punishment phase of her trial, the 

trial court held a charge conference on the record. After reviewing the court’s 

proposed charge, counsel for appellant objected to the series of instructions

concerning parole, stating that having language about parole in the charge would 

“give [jurors] reason to talk about it because it’s in there, even though they say 

they’re not supposed to talk about it.” Counsel then went through the entire parole 

set of instructions, paragraph by paragraph, objecting that including these 

instructions allowed jurors to take “good time” into consideration in determining

their sentence and allowed them to consider that the length of time appellant might 

be imprisoned could be reduced by an award of parole. Counsel concluded the 

objection stating: “So all of this stuff pertaining to parole, since they’re instructed 

not to consider parole, we ask that, that be taken out.”

The trial court agreed to remove two sections of the parole-related instructions 

but refused to delete others. Neither attorney objected to the modified form of the 

instruction as it was submitted.
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The jury found appellant guilty, found an enhancement paragraph true, and 

assessed appellant’s punishment at fifty-two years’ confinement and a $5,000 fine. 

This appeal followed.

Parole Instructions

In a single issue, appellant contends that the trial court improperly instructed 

the jury regarding parole eligibility in the punishment charge. She argues that the 

trial court failed to instruct the jury as mandated by article 37.07, section 4(a) of the 

code of criminal procedure and that she was egregiously harmed by that failure.1

Appellate resolution of a jury-charge issue begins with a determination of

whether error exists. Kirsch v. State, 357 S.W.3d 645, 649 (Tex. Crim. App. 2012). 

In this case, the State agrees with appellant that the parole instruction submitted by 

the trial court was incorrect. The legislature has mandated an instruction that must 

be submitted in a murder case in which punishment is to be assessed by the jury. 

TEX. CODE CRIM. PROC. ANN. art. 37.07, § 4(a) (requiring instruction if charged 

offense is “listed in Article 42A.054(a),” which imposes limitation on judge-ordered 

community supervision, inter alia, in murder case). The statute requires the court to 

charge the jury in writing using the specific statutory language. Id.; Luquis v. State, 

1

 Appellant also asserts: “The jury was instructed that Melton would be eligible for parole after serving 

one-fourth of her sentence. That is incorrect. Melton will not be eligible for parole until she has served onehalf of her sentence.” We do not address this issue because appellant did not raise it below. Delgado v. 

State, 635 S.W.3d 730, 749 (Tex. App.—Dallas 2021, pet. ref’d) (objections not made at trial are not 

preserved for our review).
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72 S.W.3d 355, 363 (Tex. Crim. App. 2002) (“Article 37.07, section 4(a) sets out, 

verbatim, the words that the trial judge is to use.”). We agree with the parties, 

therefore, that the trial court erred when it modified the instruction set forth in article 

37.07, section 4(a). 

Ordinarily, we would proceed from that conclusion to determine whether the 

error caused sufficient harm to warrant reversal. Price v. State, 457 S.W.3d 437, 440 

(Tex. Crim. App. 2015). In this case, however, the trial court’s error was invited by 

appellant’s objection to the court’s initial instruction. The court modified its parole 

instruction at appellant’s request, and “the law of invited error estops a party from 

making an appellate error of an action it induced.” See Prystash v. State, 3 S.W.3d 

522, 531 (Tex. Crim. App. 1999). This estoppel rule has been applied to improper 

submissions in jury charges at the punishment stage, see id., and its application is 

appropriate in this case. We conclude that appellant may not argue on appeal that 

the trial court was required to give the legislatively mandated instruction when she 

objected to submission of any parole instruction at all and the trial court modified its 

instruction in an effort to address her objection. See Druery v. State, 225 S.W.3d 

491, 506 (Tex. Crim. App. 2007) (appellant estopped from arguing trial judge had 

duty to give jury instruction on lesser-included offense when appellant specifically 

requested charge not be submitted). 
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Because appellant is estopped from bringing this charge-error claim on 

appeal, we do not address whether the erroneous charge caused her any harm. See 

id. We overrule appellant’s single issue.

Modification of the Judgment

In its cross-issue, the State asks us to make the following modifications in the 

trial court’s judgment: (1) to reflect the jury’s de facto finding that a deadly weapon 

was used during the murder, (2) to reflect the correct criminal act, (3) to reflect 

appellant’s plea of “not guilty” to the charged offense, and (4) to reflect appellant’s 

plea of “not true” to the enhancement paragraph contained in the indictment. This 

court has the power to modify the judgment of the court below to make the record 

speak the truth when we have the necessary information to do so. TEX. R. APP. P.

43.2(b); Bigley v. State, 865 S.W.2d 26, 27–28 (Tex. Crim. App. 1993); Asberry v.

State, 813 S.W.2d 526, 529–30 (Tex. App.—Dallas 1991, pet. ref’d).

De Facto Deadly Weapon Finding

The State asks us first to modify the trial court’s judgment to add the jury’s 

de facto finding that appellant used a deadly weapon in commission of her offense. 

When the jury makes an affirmative deadly weapon finding, the trial court has a 

mandatory duty to enter that finding in the written judgment. Ex parte Poe, 751 

S.W.2d 873, 876 (Tex. Crim. App. 1988). “The trial judge retain[s] no discretion to 

do otherwise.” Id. Therefore, a trial court’s failure to comply with this mandatory 

duty is a clerical error, which can be corrected by a nunc pro tunc judgment. See id.
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Appellate courts have the power to reform any matter the trial court could have 

corrected by a nunc pro tunc judgment as long as the evidence necessary to correct 

the judgment appears in the record. Asberry, 813 S.W.2d at 529.

A jury can make an affirmative deadly weapon finding in any of three ways:

(1) by a finding of guilty “as charged in the indictment” when the 

indictment specifically characterizes the weapon used as “a deadly 

weapon”; (2) by a finding of guilty “as charged in the indictment” when 

the weapon named in the indictment is a deadly weapon as a matter of 

law; and (3) by an affirmative finding to a special issue submitted to the 

jury on whether the weapon used by the defendant was a deadly 

weapon.

Id. In this case, the jury found appellant guilty as charged in the indictment,

2

and the 

indictment characterized the motor vehicle as a deadly weapon.3 Accordingly, we 

conclude that the jury made a de facto affirmative deadly weapon finding and we 

may modify the trial court’s judgment to include that finding. See id.; see also Carter 

v. State, No. 05-14-00822-CR, 2016 WL 4044922, at *3 (Tex. App.—Dallas July 

26, 2016, no pet.) (mem. op., not designated for publication).

2

 The verdict states: “We, the Jury, find the defendant, QUANTARA LANEESE MELTON, guilty of 

Murder as charged in the indictment.”

3

 For both theories of murder, the indictment stated that appellant’s act caused the complainant’s injury:

by CAUSING BLUNT FORCE TRAUMA TO THE DECEASED BY PUSHING THE 

DECEASED INTO ONCOMING TRAFFIC CAUSING THE DECEASED TO BE 

STRUCK BY AND RUN OVER BY A MOTOR VEHICLE, a deadly weapon.
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We delete the portion of the trial court’s judgment that states “N/A” under the 

heading “Findings on Deadly Weapon,” and we add the words “YES, A MOTOR 

VEHICLE” under that heading.

Erroneous Statements in the Judgment

The State also points out three erroneous statements in the judgment. The 

judgment wrongly identifies section 19.02(a)(1) of the Penal Code as appellant’s 

statutory offense; it should identify section 19.02(b), which sets forth the acts that 

constitute murder. The judgment also wrongly states that appellant pleaded 

“GUILTY” to the murder charge; it should state “NOT GUILTY.” And finally, the 

judgment wrongly states that appellant pleaded “TRUE” to the enhancement 

paragraph, but she pleaded “NOT TRUE.” We agree that each of those errors should 

be corrected in the judgment.

We sustain the State’s cross-issue and modify the trial court’s judgment 

accordingly.

Conclusion

As modified, we affirm the trial court’s judgment.

200010f.u05

Do Not Publish

TEX. R. APP. P. 47

/Bill Pedersen, III//

BILL PEDERSEN, III

JUSTICE
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Court of Appeals

Fifth District of Texas at Dallas

JUDGMENT

QUANTARA LANEESE MELTON, 

Appellant

No. 05-20-00010-CR V.

THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee

On Appeal from the 203rd Judicial 

District Court, Dallas County, Texas

Trial Court Cause No. F-1876488-P.

Opinion delivered by Justice 

Pedersen, III. Justices Osborne and 

Nowell participating.

Based on the Court’s opinion of this date, the judgment of the trial court is 

MODIFIED as follows:

We delete the portion of the trial court’s judgment that states “N/A” 

under the heading “Findings on Deadly Weapon,” and we add the 

words “YES, A MOTOR VEHICLE” under that heading.

We delete the portion of the judgment that states “19.02 (A)(l) Penal 

Code” under the heading “Statute for Offense,” and we add the words 

“19.02(b) Penal Code” under that heading.

We delete the word “GUILTY” under the heading “Plea to Offense,” 

and we replace it with the words “NOT GUILTY.” 

We delete the words “PLEADED TRUE” under the heading “1st

Enhancement Paragraph,” and we replace them with the words

“PLEADED NOT TRUE.”

As MODIFIED, the judgment is AFFIRMED.

Judgment entered this 20th day of May, 2022.