Court Opinion

ID: 9638829
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 15:55:41.69561+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:37:06.554314
License: Public Domain

GRAVES, Presiding Judge.
Appellant was charged with the unlawful possession for the purpose of sale of certain intoxicating liquors in Terry County, Texas, a dry area.
The complaint and information also contain a further count relative to the appellant having been convicted prior thereto in the same county court for an offense of like character. The jury returned a verdict of guilt as charged in the complaint and information and assessed the punishment at confinement in the county jail for a period of 180 days and a fine of $2,000.00.
We are early met with the stipulation signed by the county attorney of Terry County, as well1 as the attorney for the appellant, in which it was agreed that in the prior case pleaded in this complaint and information the appellant was convicted of' the 1 unlawful possession of • an alcoholic beverage, to-wit, *436whisky, in a dry area for the purpose of sale; that on the date of the trial of the previous case, same being No. 3284 in the same court, the appellant made no personal appearance whatsoever at the trial thereof and was not present in court at any stage of such trial; that the defendant’s attorney was allowed to, and did, plead guilty to said offense for the defendant, Elíseo Padillo, who was then and there convicted and sentenced to jail for 60 days without having been present at said trial and without having personally entered a plea of guilty to said offense.,
The introduction of testimony relative to said previous offense was objected to and a bill of exception reserved to its introduction. The trial court overruled such objection and the same is present in the statement of facts.
Article 580, Vernon’s C.C.P., reads as follows:
“In all prosecutions for felonies, the defendant must be personally present at the trial, and he must likewise be present in all cases of misdemeanor when the punishment or any part thereof is imprisonment in jail. When the record in the appellate court shows that the defendant was present at the commencement, or any portion of the trial, it shall be presumed in the absence of all evidence in the record to the contrary that he was present during the whole trial.”
It has been held relative to said article that the failure of the appellant to appear and plead in a misdemeanor case where the punishment can be imprisonment in jail renders the trial void. See Washington v. State, 52 Tex. Cr. R. 323, 106 S.W. 361; Stewart v. State, 137 Tex. Cr. R. 39, 127 S.W. (2d) 903; Henderson v. State, 137 Tex. Cr. R. 18, 127 S.W. (2d) 902; Cain v. State, 15 Tex. App. 41. See also annotations under Article 580, C.C.P., in Texas Digest, Vol. 12, Crim. Law, p. 286.
If the proceedings had in the prior convictions were void, and the decisions seems -to so hold, then we think that it- was error for the court to have allowed the introduction of the same upon the trial in the present instance.
We cannot say that the matter was not considered by the jury because of the fact that appellant received a fine of $2,000.00, which was much greater than a fine for a single conviction without any enhancement in the pleading. If the enhancement was void, then the-appellant has been damaged in the trial *437of his case, and we think the same should not have been admitted therein.
Thus believing, the judgment is reversed and the cause rehianded.