Court Opinion

ID: 9776790
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 19:44:47.910644+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:42.580805
License: Public Domain

CLINTON, Judge,
dissenting.
If I rightly understand the majority opinion, it perceives appellant’s final complaint to be that the statutory scheme for probation violates the “due process clause” of the Fifth Amendment. That clause, of course, also provides equal protection guarantees, as does the Fourteenth. Yet, in disposing of his contention the majority sets out lengthy excerpts from Brady v. United States, 397 U.S. 742, 90 S.Ct. 1463, 25 L.Ed.2d 747 (1970). But Brady v. United States, supra, is not a decision about due process or equal protection.
That part of the Fifth Amendment implicated in Brady is the privilege from being compelled to enter a guilty plea, id., U.S. at 748, 90 S.Ct. at 1468-1469.1 Specifically the Supreme Court pointed out:
“Brady’s claim is of a different sort: that it violates the Fifth Amendment to influence or encourage a guilty plea by opportunity or promise of leniency and that a guilty plea is coerced and invalid if influenced by the fear of a possibly higher penalty for the crime charged if a conviction is obtained after the state is put to its proof.” Id. 397 U.S. at 750-751, 90 S.Ct. at 1470.2
Indeed, the statement I have just quoted is in a paragraph of the Brady opinion that is ellipsised in the excerpt contained in the majority opinion. Thus, Brady was not making a due process claim at all, and the Supreme Court did not decide one.
As I read what the majority opinion quotes from his brief, appellant is correctly pointing out that the “statutory scheme” produces more severe punishment for the accused who exercises his constitutional right “to plead not guilty” and insists upon putting the State to its proof in a trial. The contention seems somewhat along the lines of the rationale of United States v. Jackson, 390 U.S. 570, 88 S.Ct. 1209, 20 L.Ed.2d 138 (1968).3
So it does not answer the claim appellant does make to say that § 3d(a) is not rendered unconstitutional by its “occasional encouragement of guilty pleas.”4 That the section may be rationally related to a legitimate State purpose, as the majority seems set on demonstrating, is not to decide that the whole statutory scheme is constitutionally permissible.
Because the majority does not address the purpose and effect of the statutory scheme to find a legitimate one, I respectfully dissent.
MILLER, J., joins.
TEAGUE, J., not participating.

. See Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238, 243, 89 S.Ct. 1709, 1712, 23 L.Ed.2d 274 (1969) and Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U.S. 1, 84 S.Ct. 1489, 12 L.Ed.2d 653 (1964).

. All emphasis is mine unless otherwise indicated.

. “The inevitable effect of any such provision is, of course, to discourage assertion of the Fifth Amendment right not to plead guilty.... If the provision had no other purpose or effect than to chill the assertion of constitutional rights by penalizing those who choose to exercise them, then it would be patently unconstitutional.” Id., 390 U.S. at 581, 88 S.Ct. at 1216.

.As an aside, I note that in 1981 all district courts in Texas disposed of 82,731 criminal cases and in 8,818 instances placed the accused on deferred adjudication. Texas Judicial System Annual Report 118, 120.