Court Opinion

ID: 9764819
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 03:41:10.490805+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:01.807989
License: Public Domain

CLINTON, Judge,
concurring and dissenting.
In Benson v. State, 661 S.W.2d 708, at 715 (Tex.Cr.App.1982) (Opinion on State’s second motion for rehearing), we held:
“that when a charge is correct for the theory of the case presented[1] we review the sufficiency of the evidence in a light most favorable to the verdict by comparing the evidence to the indictment as incorporated into the charge[2].”
Today the Court seizes upon the first underscored language above as a means of discounting appellant’s claim of insufficient evidence to establish his status as an “habitual” offender. Although I joined the opinion of the Court in Benson, now I must confess, I am not certain what is meant by the language now relied upon.
The offense in Benson was burglary “with the intent to commit the felony offense of retaliation.” The jury was required to find that that retaliation intended was “for or on account of the service of another as a witness.” The “theory of the case” the State apparently thought it had “presented” was, indeed, that the complainant was a “witness,” under V.T.C.A. Penal Code, Sec. 36.06(a). However, in hindsight, this Court determined on original submission that complainant was no more than a “prosective witness,” and therefore the State failed in its proof of the specific intent required for a burglary conviction.
It could thus be argued that for a charge to be “correct for the theory of the case presented” it must reflect what manifestly the State believed, however erroneously, was the theory of the offense it had proven, presumably as gleaned from its presentation of the evidence at trial. Undercutting this argument, however, is the analogy drawn at the very end of the opinion in Benson. There it was asserted that when a burglary indictment alleged the specific intent “to commit theft,” and the State proved “an unlawful appropriation from the owner,” while the charge only authorized conviction on a theory of theft by receiving stolen property, “a reviewing court would be bound to find the evidence insufficient as a matter of law.”3 Id., at 716. Manifestly, under this hypothetical, *204the “theory of the case presented” by the evidence would be theft by taking, rather than by receiving stolen property. Nevertheless, in spite of its earlier pronouncement, the Court concluded the evidence would be measured against the charge.
Since Benson was decided we have continued to measure sufficiency of the evidence according to the law as given to the jury in the court’s charge, without inquiring whether that charge “was correct for the theory of the case presented.” E.g., Ortega v. State, 668 S.W.2d 701 (Tex.Cr.App.1983); Williams v. State, 696 S.W.2d 896 (Tex.Cr.App.1985); and Boozer v. State, 717 S.W.2d 608 (Tex.Cr.App.1984), in the latter of which we only recently denied leave to file motion for rehearing. In Boozer, at 610-11, we simply observed:
“Because a verdict of ‘guilty’ necessarily means the jury found evidence of that on which it was authorized to convict, the sufficiency of the evidence is measured by the charge that was givenS[4] It follows that if evidence does not conform to the instruction given, it is insufficient as a matter of law to support the only verdict of ‘guilty’ which was authorized, [footnote omitted] Benson v. State, [supra].”
Whatever it means to say that the charge must be “correct for the theory of the case presented,” the Court appears to have since abandoned that particular prerequisite to measuring sufficiency of the evidence according to the charge.
Nevertheless, I believe this case is distinguishable from Benson, Ortega, and Boozer, all supra. Before mandatory life sentence could be imposed, under V.T.C.A. Penal Code, Sec. 12.42(d), prior to amendment in 1983, a factfinding was required that the accused had two previous felony convictions, and that “the second previous felony conviction is for an offense that occurred subsequent to the first previous conviction having become final[.]” Thus, an element of proof necessary to punishment of an accused as an “habitual” offender was proper chronological sequence of commission of and conviction for the previous felony offenses. The indictment in this cause clearly alleged a proper sequence of prior offenses. Just as clearly, the jury charge failed to require such a finding as a prerequisite to punishment of appellant as an “habitual.” For this reason the charge did not “perforce comprehend the indictment allegations.” Benson v. State, supra, at 712 (Opinion on State’s first motion for rehearing). In fact, in failing to require proper sequence of offenses, the charge authorized punishment as an “habitual” on a theory not only not available under the indictment, but also not viable under the law. The only verdict of true which the jury was authorized to find was premised upon a finding of facts which do not fully establish “habitual status” under Sec. 12.-42(d), supra. It would be anomalous to measure the sufficiency of evidence against an authorization that reduces the State’s burden of proof from that which is minimally required under the law, rather than increases it, as in Boozer, Williams and Ortega.
For this reason I concur in the Court’s judgment that appellant has not brought a valid claim of insufficient evidence. Having said that, I must dissent to the majority’s conclusion that fundamental error did not inhere in this same jury charge.
It bears repeating that “obviously there are some errors so egregious that [a review for egregious harm under the standard laid down in Almanza v. State, 686 S.W.2d 157 (Tex.Cr.App.1984) ] will not save them.” Lawrence v. State, 700 S.W.2d 208, 218 (Tex.Cr.App.1985) (Clinton, J., dissenting). Cf. Clark v. State, 717 S.W.2d 910, 921 (Tex.Cr.App.1986) (Clinton, J., joining judgment of the Court) (“Just as there are ‘some errors so egregious that such [an Almanza ] review will not save them,’ ... also there are some flagrant errors so patently not calculated to injure the rights of an accused that much of an Almanza review becomes redundant.”) In the instant case, that the evidence was adequate and *205uncontested to prove proper sequence of the prior convictions for purposes of establishing “habitual” status, does not remedy the fact that no factfinding to that effect was ever made before appellant was sentenced to life inprisonment. “A trial that was fundamentally unfair at the time it took place, because the jury was not compelled to perform its constitutionally required role, cannot be rendered fundamentally fair in retrospect by what amounts to nothing more than an appellate review of sufficiency of the evidence.” Rose v. Clark, — U.S.—, 106 S.Ct. 3101, 3113, 92 L.Ed.2d 460 (1986) (Blackmun, J., dissenting).
Finding fundamental error in the court’s charge on punishment, and because the jury was the factfinder at both phases of trial, I would reverse the judgment of the court of appeals and remand the cause for a new trial. Because the majority does not, I respectfully dissent.

. Emphasis supplied. All other emphasis supplied unless otherwise indicated.

. Emphasis in the original.

.Note, however, that after McClain v. State, 687 S.W.2d 350 (Tex.Cr.App.1985), theft by "initial taking” is no longer considered a separate theory from theft by "receipt knowing the property was stolen."

. Here, as we did in our opinion on the State’s first rehearing in Benson, at 712, we cited V.A.C. C.P., Articles 1.15; 36.13; 38.04; 36.14; 38.03; 37.07, Sec. 2(a), Sec. 1(a) and (b); 37.01; 37.12; 42.01, Sec. 1(4) — (8); 1.04; and 40.03(9). (Emphasis in the original.)