Court Opinion

ID: 9841399
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-22 07:09:41.961059+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:50:09.850924
License: Public Domain

In The

                                Court of Appeals

                    Ninth District of Texas at Beaumont

                               ________________
                               NO. 09-22-00198-CR
                               ________________

               CHRISTOPHER KEITH FRANKLIN, Appellant

                                         V.

                       THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee

________________________________________________________________________

                  On Appeal from the Criminal District Court
                          Jefferson County, Texas
                         Trial Cause No. 19-30905
________________________________________________________________________

                          MEMORANDUM OPINION

      In seven points of error, Appellant Christopher Franklin challenges the $500

fine and $937 in court costs assessed against him by the trial court’s Judgment

Adjudicating Guilt. The trial court signed this judgment after revoking the prior

order finding sufficient evidence to find Franklin guilty, which deferred the finding,

and placed him on community supervision. Franklin’s seven points of error raise just

two issues. In issue one, he argues that because the trial court didn’t pronounce the

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$500 fine in his sentencing hearing, the court could not include the fine as an

additional punishment in the final judgment. In issue two, Franklin argues that

because the trial court did not orally pronounce the $937 in taxable court costs, the

taxable costs should also not have been included in the trial court’s final judgment.

We conclude the trial court could not include a fine in the final judgment that it did

not orally pronounce. But because the same rule does not apply to taxable costs,

which are not considered to be part of a defendant’s punishment, Franklin has not

shown the trial court erred by rendering a judgment that includes $937 in taxable

costs. We reform the judgment by deleting the $500 fine and affirm the judgment as

reformed.

                                   I. Background

      In 2019, Franklin was charged with possession of less than one gram of

methamphetamine, a state jail felony. Tex. Health & Safety Code Ann. § 481.115(b).

Pursuant to a plea bargain agreement, Franklin pleaded guilty, the trial court found

sufficient evidence to find him guilty, and the trial court then placed him on deferred

adjudication community supervision for two years. When Franklin failed to meet

certain conditions of the trial court’s community supervision order, the State moved

to revoke it.1 In May 2022, the trial court conducted a hearing on the State’s amended

      1
         According to the State’s original Motion to Revoke Unadjudicated
Probation, Franklin failed to attend his rehabilitation program, perform community
service, submit to drug tests, complete the Jefferson County Drug Intervention
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motion to revoke. 2 During the hearing, the trial court noted that Franklin had pleaded

“true” to violating the six counts as alleged in the State’s Amended Motion to

Revoke. After Franklin testified in the hearing, the trial court pronounced Franklin’s

sentence and stated:

      The Court finds that the defendant did, in fact, violate the terms and
      conditions of his probation as alleged in Counts 1 through 6 and the
      Court is going to revoke the probation and is going to set punishment
      in the case at 12 months confinement in the state jail. The defendant is
      so sentenced.

      Two weeks later, the trial court signed a judgment sentencing Franklin to

twelve months in the state jail. The judgment includes a $500 fine and $937 in court

costs, neither of which were included in the trial court’s oral pronouncement of

sentence.

                              II. Standard of Review

      Fines are different from fees and costs because fines are imposed as

punishment, like incarceration, whereas fees and costs serve a remedial function by

Program, and pay supervision fees and court costs. The State later filed an amended
motion alleging drug possession.
       2
          The court reporter’s record shows the hearing on the motion to revoke
probation occurred on June 15, 2022, but it appears from other records in the clerk’s
record that the date the reporter put on her record is mistaken. The clerk’s record
reflects the trial court signed the final judgment on May 31, 2022. Franklin appealed
from his notice of appeal from the final judgment on June 6, 2022. Regardless, the
parties have neither complained about the discrepancy between the reporter’s record
and the judgment, nor have they asked the court to have the court reporter or trial
court resolve the discrepancy over the date the hearing on the motion to revoke
occurred.
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compensating the State for various costs associated with the criminal justice

system. Gipson v. State, 428 S.W.3d 107, 109 (Tex. Crim. App. 2014). “[C]ourt

costs are not part of the guilt or sentence of a criminal defendant, nor must they be

proven at trial; rather, they are ‘a nonpunitive recoupment of the costs of judicial

resources expended in connection with the trial of the case.’” Johnson v. State, 423

S.W.3d 385, 390 (Tex. Crim. App. 2014) (quoting Armstrong v. State, 340 S.W.3d

759, 767 (Tex. Crim. App. 2011)). Because court costs are not punitive, a trial court

may assess court costs against a defendant in the written judgment even when the

court’s oral pronouncement does not include an assessment of costs. Weir v. State,

278 S.W.3d 364, 367 (Tex. Crim. App. 2009).

      We review the assessment of court costs on appeal to determine whether there

is a basis for the cost, not to determine whether there was sufficient evidence offered

at trial to prove each cost, and traditional Jackson v. Virginia evidentiary-sufficiency

principles do not apply. Johnson, 423 S.W.3d at 390.

                                     III. Analysis

A. The $500 Fine

      In issue one, Franklin contends the trial court could not include a fine in the

judgment that wasn’t orally pronounced in his sentencing hearing. The State agrees

the trial court erred by including the $500 fine since it failed to orally pronounce it

in Franklin’s sentencing hearing. Because the fine was not orally pronounced when

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the trial court sentenced Franklin, it was improper to include it in the final judgment.

We sustain Franklin’s first issue.

      When the information needed to reform a judgment is available, we may

reform it. See Tex. R. App. P. 43.2(b); Ex parte Youngblood, 698 S.W.2d 671, 672

(Tex. Crim. App. 1985) (remedy in unauthorized fine case is to delete the improper

fine from the judgment). We delete the fine because the trial court erred by including

it in the final judgment under the circumstances that are at issue here.

B. Court Costs

      In issue two, Franklin argues the trial court erred in taxing him with court

costs because the trial court had found he was indigent—and because the trial court

did not orally pronounce the taxable costs as part of his sentence.3 According to

Franklin, it is unconstitutional to render court costs against someone who is indigent.

      Court costs, unlike fines, are not punitive and do not have to be included in

the oral pronouncement of a sentence as a precondition of including them in the trial

court’s written judgment. Weir, 278 S.W.3d at 367. Court costs are compensatory in

nature and a “nonpunitive ‘recoupment of the costs of judicial resources expended

in connection with the trial of the case.’” Id. at 366 (internal quotations omitted); see

also Armstrong, 340 S.W.3d 759 at 767. The itemized Bill of Costs included in the

      3
        Franklin specifically challenges the trial court’s imposition of “revocation
court costs” and “crime-stopper’s fees.”

                                           5
record shows the assessed court costs are legislatively mandated and “compensatory

in nature.” Weir, 278 S.W.3d at 366. Even though not bound by the following

precedent, this Court on several occasions has held that “supervision fees, court

costs, or fees associated with presentence investigation reports are not part of a

defendant’s punishment, and the trial court is not required to orally pronounce those

assessments at sentencing.” Valdez v. State, No. 09-22-00148-CR, 2022 Tex. App.

LEXIS 8915, at *8 (Tex. App.—Beaumont Dec. 7, 2022, no pet.) (mem. op., not

designated for publication); Davis v. State, Nos. 09-18-00262-CR, 09-18-00263-CR,

& 09-18-00264-CR, 2019 Tex. App. LEXIS 9113, at *12 (Tex. App—Beaumont

Oct. 16, 2019, no pet.) (mem. op., not designated for publication) (citing Lee v. State,

No. 09-07-00257-CR, 2007 Tex. App. LEXIS 8442, at **4-5 (Tex. App.—

Beaumont Oct. 24, 2007, no pet.) (mem. op., not designated for publication); Revia

v. State, No. 09-07-00068-CR, 2007 Tex. App. LEXIS 6965, at **4-6 (Tex. App.—

Beaumont Aug. 29, 2007, no pet.) (mem. op., not designated for publication)).

      Accordingly, we hold the trial court did not err by including the taxable costs

and fees discussed above in the final judgment without orally pronouncing them in

Franklin’s sentencing hearing. See Weir, 278 S.W.3d. at 366-67.

      We overrule Franklin’s second issue.

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C. Addendum

      The addendum to Franklin’s brief requests us to evaluate the propriety of

additional fees that he does not specifically address in his brief, but that he instead

listed in a document that is not included in the appellate record. We decline to do so.

We may not consider matters outside the appellate record. See Whitehead v. State,

130 S.W.3d 866, 872 (Tex. Crim. App. 2004) (“An appellate court may not consider

factual assertions that are outside the record[.]”).

                                    IV. Conclusion

      The Texas Rules of Appellate Procedure authorize an appellate court to render

the judgment the trial court should have rendered. See Tex. R. App. P. 43.2(c).

Because the record does not support the $500 fine, we delete the language on page

two of the trial court’s judgment that creates the fine and remove it from the

judgment. The language that created the fine and that we are ordering deleted from

the judgment states: “The Court assessed a fine of $500.00[.]” As reformed, the trial

court’s judgment is affirmed.

      AFFIRMED AS REFORMED.

                                                          JAY WRIGHT
                                                             Justice
Submitted on July 27, 2023
Opinion Delivered September 20, 2023
Do Not Publish

Before Horton, Johnson and Wright, JJ.

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