Court Opinion

ID: 9858650
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 16:34:23.802959+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:55:22.776734
License: Public Domain

CLINTON, Judge,
dissenting.
The majority opinion demonstrates verity of that old saw that hard cases make bad law. Likening a plea bargain agreement to a “contract,” the majority carefully places the term within quotation marks, thereby qualifying the likeness. But whatever a negotiated plea is, certainty in its terms and conditions is surely a touchstone to a clear understanding of consequences of the plea. The majority states its own understanding, but let us determine, if we can, what the parties to the “contract” understood.
During the course of admonishing applicant the trial judge indicated his awareness of an agreement1 and asked attorney for applicant2 “to recite what that plea bargaining is in the record.”
“MR. PEARL: As I understand, sir, Mr. Gage and I have entered into negotiations which resulted in that Mr. Williams would plead guilty to this indictment in return for a two-tiered recommendation. That is if Mr. Williams can pay a $5,000.00 fine within thirty days from this day or the time the Court would set for his punishment phase that the DA would recommend ten years probation in this case and if Mr. Williams isn’t able to perform that he recommends ten years confinement in this case.”
To be noted immediately is that the understanding of the agreement stated by applicant’s own counsel is not what the majority opinion states the agreement to be. He made no mention whatever of restitution to Lampassas Cattle Company in the amount of $5,100, nor assessment of a $5,000 fine in the judgment of the trial court if not earlier paid.
Whereupon the judge reprised:
“What you are saying is a $5,000.00 fine — the State recommends a $5,000.00 fine and ten years in Huntsville. Now, in the event he pays the fine and pays *953$5,100.00 and satisfies the Lampassas Cattle Company with $5,100.00 in some fashion that is recognizable by the Court, then the State will further recommend the punishment be probated for ten years?3
******
The confinement be probated for ten years. Is that your plea bargaining agreement?
MR. PEARL: Yes, it is.
THE COURT: And if he does not pay the $5,000.00 fine and satisfies the Lam-passas Cattle Company as to the $5,100.00 loss they suffered as a result of this occurrence out of which the indictment grew, then the State will not make the recommendation for probation. Is that your understanding of the plea bargaining agreement?
MR. PEARL: That is correct, Your Honor.”
The court obtained from applicant an ac-knowledgement that what had been stated was “the totality of it.” Then he turned to the county attorney for an expression of his understanding. Prefacing it with an observation that Mr. Pearl did not use “exactly the words I would use,” Mr. Gage stated:
“The defendant today will plead guilty to the second degree offense of theft. It might be a little different, if the Court finds him guilty and assesses his punishment at ten years confinement and a $5,000.00 fine, but withhold the sentencing and decision as to whether to probate the ten years or to assess punishment, the sentencing phase at least thirty days, the first time after thirty days. At that time if the five thousand is in hand and the Lampassas people have been satisfied the State will recommend probation, if it has not been the State will recommend ten years confinement in the Texas Department of Corrections.”
Strictly speaking, then, no one had articulated precisely the status of “a $5,000 fine” in event applicant did not fully perform the conditions imposed on him in order to obtain a recommendation of probation.
Almost as an afterthought did attorney for applicant point out that the two enhancement paragraphs would be dismissed. The trial judge then endeavored to sum up, viz:
“THE COURT: Now, everybody has had a chance to recite the plea bargaining agreement except the Court, since the Court has got to do it let me see if I understand. The plea of guilty in exchange for a $5,000.00 fine and ten years confinement in the Texas Department of Corrections. We will reset sentencing for thirty days hence, and if at that time the defendant has without excuse paid the $5,000.00 fine and satisfies the Lampassas Cattle Company the $5,100.00 they lost as a result of this exercise, then the State 1 ill recommend probation, otherwise there will be no recommendation for probation, the man will still have the $5,000.00 fine and ten years to do, is that correct?”
There was not expressed affirmation by counsel — none at all by applicant. Other than to correct the impression that the State would abstain from recommending punishment, by pointing out he would affirmatively recommend “ten years to do,” the county attorney and attorney for applicant indicated there was not “anything else as to the plea bargaining agreement that the Court be advised of at this time.”
Though the docket sheet notation reads as set out in the majority opinion in its note 1, neither the written judgment of the trial court nor the written sentence, respectively signed July 9, 1981, make mention of a fine in any amount.4
*954So far, then, manifestly, terms of the purported plea bargain agreement were altered in one respect or another each time someone undertook to state them, especially with regard to applicant’s continuing liability for payment of a fine of $5,000; its omission from the judgment of the trial court became a point of discussion during the habeas hearing, viz:
“MR. DeLONG: I cannot find the $5,000.00 fine anywhere in the judgment. THE COURT: I don’t believe it is in there, that is Mr. Gage’s point, you see, the fine was not part of the punishment, the restitution was part of the punishment, but his bargain was if he made the restitution and paid the fine, then he would have ten years probated.”5
In a few moments, presumably having perused the judgment, County Attorney Gage frankly recanted his assertion that the fine had been assessed in the judgment, but then opined:
“[I]t was a two-pronged plea bargaining, satisfaction of Lampassas Cattle Company and a $5,000.00 fine, either of which not being satisfied calls for a ten year sentence. Certainly the restitution is not a punishment, it is the term and condition of probation if probation is granted, or, as in this case, a part of the plea bargaining agreement. So in any event regardless of whether or not the $5,000.00 should be in the judgment and whether or not in the Court’s sentence it is appropriate to impose the $5,000.00, it still leaves the unsatisfied portion of the plea bargaining agreement, that being the notarized statement of satisfaction of Lampassas Cattle Company until restitution was made.”
So, months after the fact we learn of a belief by one party that there was yet another aspect of the purported “contract.”6
The majority approaches solution of the problems presented in this cause on the premise that the key is to find in the plea bargain agreement that which applicant was to do, as the majority understands it, and whether applicant understood his obligations as the majority finds them. But that approach seems to presume that all other terms and conditions of the bargain are certain enough to provide a clear understanding of consequences to applicant if he did not perform as the majority believes he was obligated to do. As demonstrated, however, even now the record is far from certain and clear. Still, the majority resolves the problems on the rationale that applicant “knowingly and voluntarily entered into a ‘contractual’ situation”— whether he did so intelligently, in the sense that he understood its full consequences, is not addressed.
The purpose of cautioning an accused through the statutorily prescribed admoni*955tion before accepting a plea of guilty, Article 26.13, V.A.C.C.P., “is to insure that the defendant entered his plea with full knowledge of its consequences,” and its function is to make “[a]n affirmative showing of such knowledge [that] is constitutionally required as well. Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238, 89 S.Ct. 1709, 23 L.Ed.2d 274 (1969).” Whitten v. State, 587 S.W.2d 156, 158 (Tex.Cr.App.1979). Given the state of the record before us, I cannot safely say the statutory purpose was accomplished and the constitutional requirement discharged.
Accordingly, I would grant relief. Since the Court does not, I respectfully dissent.
ONION, P.J., and ROBERTS, J., join.

. The only thing we know about who initiated negotiations for a plea bargain is from a chance remark by the prosecuting attorney made during the July 9, 1981 sentencing proceeding that “[a]s a result of defendant’s request plea bargaining was entered into..

. Thomas Pearl, Esq., of Travis County represented applicant at the time. Applicant is presently represented by Robert E. DeLong, Jr., of Walker County. Mr. Gage, soon to be alluded to, is Robert W. Gage, County Attorney of Freestone County.

. All emphasis is mine unless otherwise indicated.

. Indeed, the record of the July 9, 1981 proceeding shows that following allocution the trial court stated:
“Let the record reflect that the defendant has heretofore upon plea of guilty been found guilty of the felony offense of theft..., punishment was assessed at confinement in the Texas Department of Corrections for a term of ten years. Therefore you are remanded... to be forthwith delivered... and there*954by be confined in the Texas Department of Corrections for a term of not less than two years nor more than ten years in accordance with the law and provisions of law...”
Thus, notwithstanding the earlier colloquys when the plea was entered, a fine was neither assessed nor imposed.

. Till this good day applicant personally probably does not know, and in its note 2 the majority fails to reveal, that the July 9, 1981 docket entry it mentions recites that the $5,000 fine is “to be collected as term of parole.”

. At the outset of the July 9, 1981 sentencing hearing, Mr. Pearl advised the court, “It is my understanding the Lampassas Cattle has been satisfied with their restitution but the five thousand dollar fine is still — ” but was interrupted by Mr. Gage with: “Your Honor, I would like to — ” who in turn was interrupted by the trial judge. Later on Mr. Gage managed to say what was probably on his mind; that is, that “I have not seen that, by the way,” referring to “some form of affidavit tendered.” Certainly, Mr. Pearl was under the impression that the Lampassas Cattle Company had been satisfied, for he represented “there is approximately one thousand dollars on deposit in the Clerk’s office having to do with another matter” and suggested that applicant be confined in the Freestone County Jail “to see if the last of this four thousand dollars can «. jme in as it was supposed to.” When the court moved on to impose sentence and extended allocution, applicant first tried to “dismiss” Mr. Pearl and change his plea; then he also demonstrated that he too believed the matter of restitution “was supposed to have been disposed of” by his having paid $5,100.00 and transferred to the company “four cows and four calves... which put [the company] somewhere in the vicinity of $10,000.00 profit they claim as a loss.”