Court Opinion

ID: 9671189
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:32:33.489013+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:08.505007
License: Public Domain

WOMACK, Judge,
concurring.
I join the opinion of the Court.
I write to point out an amphiboly that can arise when judges say an offense was “complete.” One sense of “complete” is “having all its parts, not lacking anything”; another is “finished.” Oxford American Dictionary 129 (1980). In the former sense, an offense is complete — legally complete — as soon as each element has been committed. But that does not mean that the offense is finished as a matter of fact.
For example, if an actor has notice that entry onto property is forbidden and knows he does not have the consent of the owner, a criminal trespass is legally complete the instant the actor enters the property. But the offense is not factually complete until the actor leaves the property.
When we are trying to decide whether an offense was complete, we must know whether we mean legally complete or factually complete. The confusion of these different meanings of “complete” can lead to incorrect decisions.
Article 42.12, § 3g(a)(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure requires it to be shown that a deadly weapon was used or exhibited “during the commission of a felony offense.”1 The decision whether the use or exhibition of a deadly weapon occurred during the commission of the offense is a factual one. The weapon must have been used or exhibited before the offense was factually complete, that is, before it was finished. Whether the offense was legally complete (because each of the elements had been committed) before the weapon was used, is not the issue.
If the hypothetical trespasser entered the property without a deadly weapon and picked up one to use as he trespassed, he would have used a deadly weapon during the commission of the offense, although its use did not begin before the offense was legally complete.
Whatley’s offense may have been legally complete if he committed each element of the solicitation offense at his first meeting with Williamson and Williams, but that does not mean the offense was factually finished at that time. He was still requesting, commanding, or attempting to induce them to commit the murder when he introduced the handgun into the offense. The affirmative finding was supported by the evidence.

. Or during immediate flight therefrom. Flight is not involved in this case.
1. Appellant’s first ground for review asks:
Can an affirmative finding of a "deadly weapon” be made, where neither the indictment, nor the State's subsequent written "notice,” nor the special issue instruction, ever designate any specific physical object as the alleged "deadly weapon” in the case?