Court Opinion

ID: 9733007
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 16:49:27.080292+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:37.353010
License: Public Domain

TOM GRAY, Chief Justice,
concurring and dissenting.
In this case we must reconcile two lines of Court of Criminal Appeals’ opinions. First is the line of cases which holds that if the State fails to meet its burden of proof to establish an enhancement allegation, “a harmless error analysis should not be undertaken.” Russell v. State, 790 S.W.2d 655, 656 (Tex.Crim.App.1990). As Justice Vance notes, it appears to have been recently reaffirmed in Fletcher v. State, 214 S.W.3d 5, 8 (Tex.Crim.App.2007). The other line of cases is that “[ejxcept for certain federal constitutional errors labeled by the United States Supreme Court as ‘structural,’ no error, whether it relates to jurisdiction, voluntariness of a plea, or any other mandatory requirement, is categorically immune to a harmless error analysis.” Cain v. State, 947 S.W.2d 262, 264 (Tex.CrimApp.1997). This line of cases has far more subsequent citations than the other and was also recently reaffirmed in Garrett v. State, 220 S.W.3d 926, 931 (Tex.Crim.App.2007).
It appears to me that the resolution may depend upon the question. In Fletcher, the State argued that the appellate court could take judicial notice of its own mandate from another proceeding that would appear to make the judgment used for enhancement final. Taking judicial notice would result in holding there was no error in using the conviction for enhancement purposes. Judge Keasler, writing for a unanimous Court of Criminal Appeals, held that consistent with prior precedent, the court of appeals had erred by taking judicial notice of its mandate in another proceeding. Fletcher v. State, 214 S.W.3d 5, 8-9 (Tex.Crim.App.2007). The Court held, and rightly so, that “[i]f we allowed this practice, the State would essentially be relieved of its burden of proving the finality of an enhancement conviction at trial.” Id. at 8. In its discussion of the potential for harm, the Court focused on whether the defendant was being deprived of the right to respond to the State’s proof via introduction of the mandate to prove finality. The Court concluded “Fletcher’s precise argument on remand is not important.” Id. at 9. Thus, the Court of Criminal Appeals was holding that the defendant would be deprived of the right to contest the use of the enhancement finding if the appellate court could take judicial notice of something from another case, like a mandate, to prove finality of the conviction and then use that prior conviction for enhancement.
In the present case, however, the State is not arguing that we should use the enhancement finding. Rather, the State is arguing that we should conduct a harm analysis after throwing out the enhancement finding in its entirety on the premise *825that it was not properly proven.1 This appears to be an entirely reasonable position and one used by at least two other courts of appeals after Russell was decided. Holt v. State, 899 S.W.2d 22 (Tex. App.-Tyler 1995, no pet.); Boone v. State, No. 06-03-00250-CR, 2005 WL 598752 (Tex.App.-Texarkana, March 16, 2005, pet. refd) (not designated for publication). While these cases were not decided on the failure of the State to meet its burden of proof, both conducted a harm analysis after an enhancement finding was determined to be erroneous. In each case, the appellate court was able to conduct a meaningful harm analysis of the impact of the error on the judgment, i.e., the sentence imposed. In each case, the error in the affirmative finding as it related to the enhancement allegation was determined to be harmless.
In the present case, the majority conducted a harm analysis and determined the error was harmless. But the majority also concluded it was bound by Russell and Fletcher. Because there is no discussion of the Cain to Garrett line of cases in Fletcher, and because the Cain line of cases has been more frequently cited and more recently reaffirmed, I would apply Cain and its progeny, conduct a harmless error analysis, hold the error is harmless in reliance on Holt and Boone, and affirm the conviction and punishment. Accordingly, I concur in the affirmance of the judgment of conviction but must respectfully dissent from the reversal for a new punishment hearing.

. As the majority notes in footnotes 2 and 3, the proper range of punishment without the second enhancement is 5-99 years rather than 25-99 years. Allen was sentenced to 75 years.