Court Opinion

ID: 9776782
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 19:44:36.287129+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:42.483868
License: Public Domain

BUTTS, Justice,
dissenting.
I do not agree that remanding this case for an evidentiary hearing will serve a useful purpose. In Lee v. State, 555 S.W.2d 121 (Tex.Cr.App.1977), that evidentiary hearing resulted from the challenge to the qualifications of the trial judge raised at the trial itself. Logic dictated such a hearing then, especially since the motion to disqualify was based upon a letter written by the trial judge when he was chief of trial division of the district attorney’s office. The trial judge stated he had no independent recollection of the case but had relied upon the prosecutor’s assessment of the case when he wrote the letter to the defense counsel stating he could make no recommendation less than life in Lee’s case. The trial judge determined he was qualified.
The Lee court reversed the case and held the record reflected the trial judge had been of counsel for the State and had participated as such in the case while serving in his official capacity on the district attorney’s staff.
In the present case what the then assistant district attorney, now the trial judge, did was to sign his name in his official capacity as counsel for the State to a pleading. Whether he tried the case or participated at trial does not matter. The same is true of any assistant district attorney who signed the State’s motions in the case but did not participate in the trial. Further, the fact that a “stamp” of the State attorney’s signature may have been used does not matter. This was a pleading upon which all parties in the case relied. The fact that the pleading was an announcement of the State that the State was “ready” for trial in the case signifies that it was relied upon by the State to protect its position. Just as importantly the appellant could not raise the defense that the State was not ready for trial, which defense was now made automatically unavailable by the very pleading.
Whether the evidentiary hearing reveals that the trial judge does or does not remember signing his name to the pleading of the State, or whether he remembers or does not remember authorizing the use of his stamped signature, the reality is he acted in his official capacity as counsel for the State and all parties relied upon this pleading, which in conjunction with the other pleadings in the case, the indictment, motions and any other instruments filed by the parties, joined the issue for trial.
It is my belief that the trial judge was disqualified to conduct the instant trial in the face of article 5, § 11 of the Texas Constitution and article 31.01 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure. An evidentia-ry hearing will not change the pleading. Because of the participation by the trial judge as counsel for the State, the trial court had no jurisdiction of this ease. The judgment rendered must be declared a nullity and void. Lee v. State, supra, at 124, and the cases cited therein. Therefore, I respectfully disagree with the majority’s disposition of the case.