Court Opinion

ID: 9647378
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 13:34:29.871377+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:48.567729
License: Public Domain

MALONEY, Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent. The majority focuses on waiver and substantial compliance and ignores article 38.22 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure.
John L. Jones, a special agent with the United States Secret Service, orally advised appellant of his Miranda1 rights. Jones also gave appellant a written Warning and Consent statement from appellant, which the trial court admitted as State’s exhibit number two. The trial' court found that appellant’s written statement complied with article 38.22 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure.
The majority determines that because appellant’s “objection and argument [at trial] clearly were that the statement failed to comply with certain mandatory requirements of subsection 2(a) of article 38.22, not subsection 2(b) [point of error on appeal],” he *321waived Ms right to appeal the trial court’s ruling. Williams v. State, 883 S.W.2d 317, 320 (Tex.App.—Dallas 1994, no pet. h.). The majority ignores that subsection 2(b) incorporates the requirements of subsection 2(a). Section 2 provides:
Sec. 2. No written statement made by an accused as a result of custodial interrogation is admissible as evidence against him in any criminal proceeding unless it is shown on the face of the document that:
(a) [text omitted];2 and
(b) the accused, prior to and during the making of the statement, knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily waived the rights set out in the warning prescribed by Subsection (a) of tMs section.
Tex.Code CrimProcAnn. art. 38.22, § 2 (Vernon 1979) (emphasis added).
Notwithstanding its declaration of waiver, the majority then cites Hardesty v. State, 667 S.W.2d 130 (Tex.Crim.App.1984), for the proposition that article 38.22, section 2 (not 2(a) or 2(b)) requires oMy substantial compliance. The majority then proclaims that any “warning that conveys on the face of the statement, in oMy slightly different language, the exact meamng of the statute is sufficient to show compliance.” (Emphasis added.) Sosa v. State, 769 S.W.2d 909, 916 (Tex.Crim.App.1989).
I do not disagree with the majority’s recitation of the applicable law. I even agree that the substantial compliance doctrine applies. But article 38.22 requires that the warnings, whether exactly or substantially in compliance, appear on the face of the defendant’s statement. See id.; Penry v. State, 691 S.W.2d 636, 643 (Tex.Crim.App.1985), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 1073, 106 S.Ct. 834, 88 L.Ed.2d 805 (1986); Cannon v. State, 691 S.W.2d 664, 674 (Tex.Crim.App.1985), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 1110, 106 S.Ct. 897, 88 L.Ed.2d 931 (1986); Eddlemon v. State, 591 S.W.2d 847, 850 (Tex.Crim.App. [Panel Op.] 1979).
A state can never give less protection than the federal constitution. A state, however, can always afford an accused more rights. See Heitman v. State, 815 S.W.2d 681, 690 (Tex.Crim.App.1991).
Williams’s statement begins with the following recitation:
I have been advised by Special Agent John L. Jones that under the provisions of the Constitution I cannot be compelled to be a witness against myself and knowing that anytMng I may say may be used against me, I wish to make the following statement of my own free will and accord, without coercion or threats, and without promise of immumty. I know that I have the right to remam silent; talk to a lawyer and have him present while I am questioned. I know that I ean decide at any time to stop the questioning and not make any statement. I also know that if I cannot afford a lawyer, one will be appomted to represent me.

This statement is a voluntary act on my part, prompted by my desire to tell the facts, and I do not expect to gain any reward dr special consideration by reason of having made this statement.

(Emphasis added.) Reading appellant’s statement as a whole, oMy the preamble mentions voluntariness. I concede that tMs preamble satisfies the code’s voluntariness requirement. But nowhere on the face of appellant’s statement can I find that appellant “knowingly [and] intelligently ... waived the rights set out in the warning prescribed by Subsection (a).” I find no language in appellant’s statement as specific as that in Penry, 691 S.W.2d at 643, Cannon, *322691 S.W.2d at 674, or Thibedeaux v. State, 729 S.W.2d 137 (Tex.App.—Beaumont 1987, pet. denied). Nor does the majority cite any case that holds that “the face of’ a statement includes separate documents.
Notwithstanding that appellant’s statement satisfies the federal constitutional standard, it does not substantially comply with article 38.22, section 2. The trial court should have suppressed appellant’s statement because it did not comply with the mandatory language of the code.
I would sustain appellant’s point of error, reverse the trial court’s judgment, and remand this case for new trial.

. See Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 478-79, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 1630, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966).

. Subsection (a) provides:
(a) the accused, prior to making the statement, either received from a magistrate the warning provided in Article 15.17 of this code or received from the person to whom the statement is made a warning that:
(1)he has the right to remain silent and not make any statement at all and that any statement that he makes may be used against him at his trial;
(2) any statement he makes may be used as evidence against him in court;
(3) he has the right to have a lawyer present to advise him prior to and during any questioning;
(4) if he is unable to employ a lawyer, he has the right to have a lawyer appomted to advise him prior to and during any questioning; and
(5) he has the right to terminate the interview at any time [continued above]