Court Opinion

ID: 9762465
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:24:56.832524+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:34.795862
License: Public Domain

CLINTON, Judge,
dissenting.
In this cause the majority squarely holds that fewer than all the requisite elements of an offense need be alleged before it may be said an indictment “eharg[es] ... an offense” under Article V, § 12(b) of the Texas Constitution. For reasons given in my concurring opinion in Studer v. State, 799 S.W.2d 263 (Tex.Cr.App. delivered this day), I dissent to the majority’s disposition of this cause.
I notice that the jury charge in this cause requires the jury to find appellant knew the officer was attempting to arrest him. Appellant did not object to this charge. But suppose he had, on the basis that such a charge was not authorized by the State’s pleading? Would we rule that he had forfeited his objection to the jury charge by *304failing to object to the charging instrument before trial commenced? See Studer v. State, at 271-272, & n. 15 (Clinton, J., concurring). Would we entertain a claim of “egregious error” under Almanza v. State, 686 S.W.2d 157 (Tex.Cr.App.1985) (Opinion on State’s motion for rehearing)? If the jury charge had not required the finding that appellant knew the officer was attempting to arrest him, could he have been convicted, consonant with due process and due course of law?
The majority leaves these and other questions for another day. In my view, however, they are inextricable from the question before us today. In attempting to pluck what it perceives to be the stray thread of fundamentally defective indictments from the criminal jurisprudence, the majority threatens to unravel the whole fabric of our criminal procedure. I dissent.