1

In The

Court of Appeals

Ninth District of Texas at Beaumont

____________________

NO. 09-17-00167-CR

____________________

RALPH EUGENE BRIDWELL, Appellant

V.

THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee

_______________________________________________________ ______________

On Appeal from the 128th District Court 

Orange County, Texas

Trial Cause No. A160313-R

________________________________________________________ _____________

MEMORANDUM OPINION

After pleading guilty to an indictment charging him with intoxication 

manslaughter,

1 Ralph Eugene Bridwell filed an appeal in which he argues that his 

plea was not voluntary. In one issue, Bridwell argues that he received ineffective 

 

1 See Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 49.08(a) (West 2011) (a person commits the 

offense of intoxication manslaughter if he operates a motor vehicle in a public place 

while intoxicated and, by reason of that intoxication, causes the death of another by 

accident or mistake).
2

assistance of counsel because his trial attorney failed to reasonably investigate 

certain matters, to develop a potential defense, and to properly advise him regarding 

the punishment the he could receive based on the circumstances in his case. Because

the record on appeal fails to overcome the strong presumption that Bridwell received 

reasonable professional assistance, we affirm the trial court’s judgment. 

Background

Late one night in October 2015, a car Bridwell was driving struck a man on a 

bicycle while both the car and the bicycle were travelling in a northeasterly direction 

on the shoulder of State Highway 12. When the investigating officer spoke with 

Bridwell at the scene, Bridwell agreed to provide the officer with a sample of his 

blood. Two other police officers accompanied Bridwell to a hospital, where a 

registered nurse obtained the sample. Three days later, the officer in charge of the 

investigation sent the sample to the Department of Public Safety’s Crime Lab, which 

found that it contained 0.094 grams of alcohol per 100 milliliters of blood.2

 

In August 2016, a grand jury indicted Bridwell for intoxication manslaughter.

Seven months later, without the benefit of a plea bargain, Bridwell appeared in court 

 

2 See id. § 49.01(2)(B) (West 2011) (providing that a person is intoxicated if 

his blood alcohol concentration is 0.08 or more).
3

and pleaded guilty to that charge.3 One month later, during Bridwell’s punishment 

hearing, Bridwell pleaded true to the two felony enhancement allegations in his 

indictment.4 After pleading true to the allegations that he had committed two prior 

felonies, the trial court advised Bridwell his punishment range was “a minimum of 

25 years confinement in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice-Institutional 

Division and a maximum of life[.]” Bridwell then called four witnesses to testify 

during the punishment phase of his trial. After hearing the punishment evidence, the 

trial court sentenced Bridwell to a thirty-five-year sentence.

5 

In the brief that Bridwell filed to support his appeal, he argues that his trial 

attorney (1) failed to properly investigate his case, (2) performed deficiently because 

he failed to develop potential defenses to the State’s theory claiming that Bridwell 

was guilty of intoxication manslaughter, and (3) failed to advise Bridwell that 

 

3 See id. § 49.08(a), (b) (West 2011) (providing intoxication manslaughter is 

a second-degree felony).

4 The enhancement allegations assert that in 2006, Bridwell was convicted on 

a charge of felony driving while intoxicated, and that in 1994, he was convicted of

a second felony for aggravated assault. 

5 See id. § 12.42(d) (West Supp. 2018) (authorizing a maximum punishment 

of life in prison under the circumstances established by the record in Bridwell’s 

case). 
4

pleading true to the enhancement allegations in the indictment would subject him to 

the range of punishment that the trial court considered when assessing his sentence. 

Analysis

To establish a claim of ineffective assistance, the defendant must first 

establish that his attorney made errors so serious that the attorney failed to function 

as “counsel” as guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment.6

 Establishing that such serious 

error occurred is difficult without a record that is sufficient to overcome the “strong

presumption that counsel’s conduct fell within the wide range of reasonable 

professional assistance.”7 Second, the defendant must show that “the deficient 

performance prejudiced the defense.”8 In the context of a guilty plea, “the 

defendant’s burden is to demonstrate a reasonable probability that the deficient 

performance caused the defendant to waive a judicial proceeding that he was 

otherwise entitled to have.”9

 

 6 Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687 (1984). 

7 Thompson v. State, 9 S.W.3d 808, 813 (Tex. Crim. App. 1999) (citing 

Strickland, 466 U.S. at 690).

8 Strickland, 466 U.S. at 687.

9 Miller v. State, 548 S.W.3d 497, 499 (Tex. Crim. App. 2018).
5

To overcome the presumption that the trial attorney provided the defendant 

with reasonable professional assistance, the evidence showing the trial attorney was 

ineffective must be “‘firmly founded in the record and the record must affirmatively 

demonstrate the alleged ineffectiveness.’”10 Ordinarily, when the defendant failed to 

raise a claim of ineffective assistance in the proceedings that took place in the trial 

court, the record before the appellate court will seldom have been sufficiently 

developed to allow the appellate court to conclude that trial counsel made errors so 

serious that they violated the Strickland standards.11 If the trial attorney who 

represented the defendant was never given the opportunity to explain the conduct 

that the defendant is challenging in his appeal, appellate courts generally presume 

that had such an opportunity been made available, the attorney’s explanation would 

have shown that the choices made in defending the case were decisions that 

represented reasonable choices between different trial strategies.

12

Here, the record does not show that Bridwell filed a motion for new trial. The 

record also contains no evidence showing what Bridwell’s trial attorney did to 

 

10 Prine v. State, 537 S.W.3d 113, 117 (Tex. Crim. App. 2017) (quoting 

McFarland v. State, 928 S.W.2d 482, 500 (Tex. Crim. App. 1996)).

11 Menefield v. State, 363 S.W.3d 591, 592-93 (Tex. Crim. App. 2012).

12 Garcia v. State, 57 S.W.3d 436, 440 (Tex. Crim. App. 2001).
6

investigate the facts and law that were relevant to Bridwell’s case. Without an

explanation from Bridwell’s trial attorney about what he did to investigate 

Bridwell’s case, the record fails to show that Bridwell’s trial attorney conducted an 

unreasonable investigation or made recommendations to Bridwell that fell below the 

standard of objectively reasonable assistance.13 Moreover, were we to assume that 

Bridwell’s trial attorney performed deficiently, the record that is before us in the 

appeal fails to show that Bridwell would have likely pleaded not guilty and chosen 

to go to trial given all the circumstances, as they are shown by the record before us 

in the appeal. 

We conclude that Bridwell has failed to overcome the strong presumption that 

he received reasonable professional assistance.14 We overrule Bridwell’s ineffective 

 

13 See Goodspeed v. State, 187 S.W.3d 390, 392 (Tex. Crim. App. 2005); 

Rylander v. State, 101 S.W.3d 107, 111 (Tex. Crim. App. 2003). We also observe 

that the record shows the trial court told Bridwell about the punishment range that 

the court would consider in assessing his sentence during the hearing on his plea.

14 See Thompson, 9 S.W.3d at 813-14 (“In the majority of instances, the record 

on direct appeal is simply undeveloped and cannot adequately reflect the failings of 

trial counsel.”); see also Robinson v. State, 16 S.W.3d 808, 813 n.7 (Tex. Crim. App. 

2000) (stating that only in rare cases will the record on direct appeal be sufficient to 

establish a claim that counsel’s performance was deficient).
7

assistance claim, without prejudice to his right to raise his claim in a post-conviction 

writ.15 For these reasons, we affirm the trial court’s judgment. 

AFFIRMED.

_________________________

 HOLLIS HORTON

 Justice

Submitted on August 13, 2018

Opinion Delivered November 7, 2018

Do Not Publish

Before McKeithen, C.J., Kreger and Horton, JJ.

 

15 See Goodspeed, 187 S.W.3d at 392; Robinson, 16 S.W.3d at 813 n.7.