Court Opinion

ID: 9858458
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 16:24:23.386515+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:54:28.861515
License: Public Domain

ONION, Presiding Judge,
concurring.
Appellant’s pretrial motion to suppress her confession was overruled following a hearing. Thereafter appellant entered a plea of guilty before a jury, specifically attempting to reserve a right to appeal the trial court’s ruling on the motion to suppress. The attempts to reserve such right are set out in the majority opinion. After her conviction appellant appealed. Originally her only ground (now point) of error was that the trial court’s suppression ruling was erroneous, apparently made without realizing that the plea of guilty before a jury waives any such error for the purpose of appeal. See Gonzales v. State, 458 S.W.2d 926 (Tex.Cr.App.1970). A supplemental brief filed in the Court of Appeals raised the question of whether the guilty plea should have been accepted by the trial court given the circumstances since the plea could not have been made knowingly and voluntarily. Without mentioning the supplemental brief, the Court of Appeals reversed the conviction on this basis. Shallhorn v. State, 671 S.W.2d 730 (Tex.App.—Ft. Worth 1984).
Now over three years later we agree.
This is not a case governed by Article 44.02, V.A.C.C.P., in effect at the time of the guilty plea. Such statute applied only to pleas of guilty before the court on a plea bargain agreement in which the punishment assessed is within the plea bargain. Under such statute the appeal was limited to the court’s ruling in a written pretrial motion. In the instant case the plea of guilty was before the jury and there was no plea bargain.
A plea of guilty before the jury admits existence of all incriminating facts necessary to establish guilt. Darden v. State, 430 S.W.2d 494 (Tex.Cr.App.1968), and cases there cited; Reyna v. State, 434 S.W.2d 362 (Tex.Cr.App.1968); Renesto v. State, 452 S.W.2d 498 (Tex.Cr.App.1970); Brown v. State, 487 S.W.2d 86 (Tex.Cr.App.1972); Gates v. State, 543 S.W.2d 360 (Tex.Cr.App.1976); York v. State, 566 S.W.2d 936 (Tex.Cr.App.1978). Presumption of innocence does not obtain under a guilty plea before the jury and there is no issue of justification under such plea. Darden v. State, supra; Reyna v. State, supra. Introduction of evidence by the State in a felony case involving a plea of guilty before the jury is to enable the jury to intelligently exercise discretion which the law vests in them touching the penalty to be assessed. Darden v. State, supra; York v. State, supra.
Thus by the very nature of entering a plea of guilty before a jury the appellant waived her right to contest on appeal the trial court’s ruling on her motion to suppress. And this was true even before the “Helms Rule.” 1 In Helms v. State, 484 S.W.2d 925 (Tex.Cr.App.1972), it was held that a plea of guilty, when voluntarily and understandably made, waives all non-jurisdictional defects.2 And the waiver includes claimed deprivation of federal due process or state due course of law. See Wheeler v. State, 628 S.W.2d 800 (Tex.Cr.App.1982).
And in the instant case it is immaterial the federal rationale underlying the “Helms Rule” may or may not be inconsistent with Article 1.15, V.A.C.C.P. Such statute is applicable only to a plea before the court in a felony case. The instant case involves a plea to the jury.
Despite all of the above, Chavarria v. State, 425 S.W.2d 822 (Tex.Cr.App.1968); *639Killebrew v. State, 464 S.W.2d 838 (Tex.Cr.App.1971); and Kilpper v. State, 491 S.W.2d 117 (Tex.Cr.App.1973), the convictions based on guilty or nolo contendere pleas were reversed because the pleas were improperly induced because the defendants were left with the impression they were retaining the right to appeal the rulings on their motion to suppress evidence. The pleas were held not to have been voluntarily made.
Even the “Helms Rule” requires that the plea must be voluntarily and understandably made before the rule is applicable. Chavarria, Killebrew, and Kilpper support the holding that the guilty plea in the instant case was not voluntarily and understandably made. I agree that the judgment of the Court of Appeals should be affirmed.
MILLER, J., joins this opinion.
CLINTON, Judge, concurring.
Joining the opinion, I write to point out again that a complete statement of the Helms rule may be gleaned from White v. Beto, 367 F.2d 557 (CA5 1966), viz:
“The guilty plea under the circumstances is conclusive as to defendant’s guilt, admits all the facts charged and waives all non-jurisdictional defects in the prior proceedings.”
Id., at 558 (my emphasis).
The true rule, as noted in Harrelson v. State, 692 S.W.2d 659, 661, n. 3 (Tex.Cr.App.1985), is explained in my separate opinion in King v. State, 687 S.W.2d 762, 766-767 (Tex.Cr.App.1985), after being traced to its source and criticized in my dissenting opinion in Dees v. State, 676 S.W.2d 403, 406-408 (Tex.Cr.App.1984), in that the federal rationale is inconsistent with Article 1.15, Y.A.C.C.P. However, this is not an appropriate cause to address its validity on that basis.
As to the Concurring and Dissenting Opinion of Judge Teague, aside from being unable to understand that with which he concurs and to which he dissents, the simple fact of the matter is that Mary Shall-hom is unable to achieve “her desire” because the law will not accommodate it. For almost twenty years Chavarria v. State, 425 S.W.2d 822 (Tex.Cr.App.1968), and its unbroken line of progeny have precluded a trial court from accepting a plea of guilty or its equivalent made on the condition that an appeal may be taken against an adverse pretrial ruling when there is no plea bargain as to punishment. Some one should have told Mary that before the trial court entered her plea of guilty.
With those observations, I join the opinion of the Court.

. The common law rule has long been that a guilty plea traditionally waives a defendant’s right to appeal a conviction on grounds other than jurisdictional violations. 26 U.C.L.A. Law Review 360; Parker v. North Carolina, 397 U.S. 790, 90 S.Ct. 1458, 25 L.Ed.2d 785 (1970); McMann v. Richardson, 397 U.S. 759, 90 S.Ct. 1441, 25 L.Ed.2d 763 (1970); Brady v. United States, 397 U.S. 742, 90 S.Ct. 1463, 25 L.Ed.2d 747 (1970).

. The "Helms Rule" was first recognized by this Court in Hoskins v. State, 425 S.W.2d 825, 829-830 (Tex.Cr.App.1968), decided several years prior to Helms. Hoskins relied upon Bee v. Beto, 384 F.2d 925 (5th Cir.1967). See also Prochaska v. State, 587 S.W.2d 726, 728 (Tex.Cr.App.1978).