Court Opinion

ID: 9676399
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 05:23:36.06975+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:48.301534
License: Public Domain

TEAGUE, Judge,
dissenting.
Frank Edward Fann, hereinafter referred to as the appellant, was convicted in this cause by a jury of the offense of aggravated sexual abuse. The trial judge assessed his punishment at twenty-five years’ confinement in the Department of Corrections. During the same trial, the appellant was also convicted of kidnapping the complaining witness’ daughter and the trial judge assessed his punishment for that offense at five years’ confinement in the Department of Corrections. This Court affirmed that conviction, see Fann v. State, 696 S.W.2d 575 (Tex.Cr.App.1985), which does not concern the issue that is before us in this cause, which is whether the statement in the judgment of the trial court, “The court finds that defendant herein used or exhibited a deadly weapon during the commission of the offense,” is supported by the record on appeal.
Because I am unable to agree that the record before us will support the above statement, I am compelled to file this dissenting opinion, stating herein my reasons for disagreeing with the majority opinion.
In this instance, because of the state of the record, the questions, (1) whether there was an “issue of fact” to be resolved by the trier of fact, and (2) whether the jury or the trial judge should have been “the trier of fact” in this cause — to make the determination whether the appellant had used or exhibited a deadly weapon during the commission of the aggravated sexual abuse offense — need not be answered or discussed. In this instance, the answers are not dependent upon whether there was an “issue of fact”, as that term is used in law, or who should have been the “trier of fact”, as that term is also used in law. But, see and cf. this Court’s majority opinion on original submission in this cause; Art. 36.13, V.A.C.C.P.; Art. 34.04, V.A.C. C.P.; Ex parte Thomas, 638 S.W.2d 905 (Tex.Cr.App.1982); 1350 Black’s Law Dictionary (5th Edition, 1979).
After carefully reviewing the record on appeal, in an attempt to find support for the following statement that is found in the trial court’s judgment of conviction, “The court finds that defendant herein used or exhibited a deadly weapon during the commission of said offense,” I have concluded that this record closely resembles a newborn naked baby because there is absolutely no support in the record for the above statement.
Nowhere in the indictment in this cause is it stated that the appellant used or exhibited a deadly weapon during the commission of the offense of aggravated sexual abuse. Nowhere in the charge to the jury is there any mention of a deadly weapon. Nowhere in the jury verdict, either expressly or implicitly, is there any mention of a deadly weapon; No special issue was sub*606mitted to the jury on the subject. Nowhere in the punishment hearing that was held on December 4,1979 before the trial judge are the words “deadly weapon” mentioned by anyone, including the trial judge himself. The trial judge never uttered a single word on the subject. The docket sheet in this cause is also blank on the subject of a deadly weapon. And yet, the majority holds that this record supports the above statement in the judgment of conviction.
The record of this cause clearly reflects that the first appearance in this cause of the words “deadly weapon” took place on December 5, 1979, when, presumably, the clerk of the court prepared the judgment of the court and put therein the following sentence: “The court finds that defendant herein used or exhibited a deadly weapon during the commission of said offense.” Why he did this is not reflected by this record.
The majority opinion does not mention or discuss the above undisputed omissions in the record. It nevertheless holds that the record supports the above finding in the trial court’s judgment of conviction. The majority opinion reaches its conclusion by making the following incredible statement: “By including such an affirmative finding in the judgment, the court, in essence, responds to the special issue concerning the use or exhibition of a deadly weapon.”1
In light of this record, I find that in essence what the majority opinion is really stating is that although unknown to anyone in the world, except the trial judge himself, he, the trial judge, mentally gave himself a special issue on the deadly weapon issue during the punishment hearing that was held in this cause, and then, the next day, out of the appellant and his attorney’s presence, but in secret, apparently out of the blue, for reasons unknown to anyone but himself, had the clerk type the above sentence in the judgment of conviction, which statement only he himself knew had ever been made. I ask: Who says that an act or event cannot occur in law through a gradual, unconscious, process of assimilation or absorption that closely resembles the diffusion of fluid through a semipermeable membrane until there is an equal concentration of fluid on either side of the membrane? Certainly not the author of the majority opinion.
Because the majority opinion is so foreign and alien to our criminal jurisprudence, a copy of same should be given to all of those persons who will next be sworn in as attorneys of this State, with the giver stating: “Welcome to the real, but sometimes strange, world of criminal law.”
I respectfully dissent.