Court Opinion

ID: 9646477
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 13:00:47.085727+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:38.479407
License: Public Domain

DOUGLAS, Judge,
dissenting.
A majority of the panel sets aside this conviction because the prosecutor at the time of the trial did not show the then defense counsel a copy of a letter or report of a psychiatrist to counsel who was representing Lewis before the trial. The district attorney received a copy of the letter and gave it to the first attorney for Lewis. At the trial different counsel represented Lewis.
The following is the testimony concerning the letter by the then district attorney, the Honorable Erwin Ernst:
“ . . . I am District Attorney of the County of Walker, State of Texas, and was the District Attorney when Lester Ray Lewis entered a plea of guilty in his case. It is the policy of this office when a plea of guilty is arranged and the Court appoints a lawyer to allow the lawyer complete access to the State’s file. I have talked to Lawyer Murphy in — relating to this and he advises me that he did not peruse the file and I have no reason to believe that he did, if he advises me that he did not. I do not have any independent recollection whether he did read the file or if he didn’t read the file.”
Lewis knew about the psychiatric examination and testified about it at the habeas corpus hearing.
The State’s file was available to defense counsel. The district attorney did not have any independent recollection if counsel read the file or not.
*702Lewis had not shown that he did not tell his counsel of the examination. Apparently there was no question in the mind of counsel for Lewis that he was not incompetent to stand trial.
The record shows that Lewis knew of the examination and he discussed it at the hearing. He testified rationally.
Darrell White, Sheriff of Walker County, testified at the hearing that he had known Lewis for fifteen years. He testified that Lewis had been convicted for robbery in 1969. He had talked to Lewis while awaiting the habeas corpus hearing and he was just about like he was fifteen years ago and he knows what you are talking about.
The Honorable James F. Warren, District Judge at the time of the hearing, testified that he knew Lewis some ten years before accepting his plea of guilty and he never thought that he was insane and he did not seem any different on the date of the trial.
Lewis testified that he was given a psychiatric examination in Trinity. He related that he was not incapable at the trial. He was not asked by his counsel if he told his trial attorney about the examination.
The evidence at the hearing does not show a suppression of the evidence. A hearing should be held to determine if petitioner was competent to stand trial.
In Brandon v. State (No. 59,348, April 25, 1979), there were errors in the hearing on the competency to stand trial. This Court remanded for another hearing to determine if Brandon was competent at the time of the trial to assist his counsel in making a rational defense. There is no need to set aside the conviction on the statement in the letter about his condition at the time of the commission of the offense.