Court Opinion

ID: 9668108
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 02:02:37.680322+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:42.888434
License: Public Domain

CLINTON, Judge,
dissenting.
We all regard Barfield v. State, 586 S.W.2d 538 (Tex.Cr.App.1979) as seminal authority on certain procedural aspects of the Texas Speedy Trial Act1 (the Act). Therein the Court prescribed:
“[Article 32A.02, § 3] would seem to require that the first move be made by the accused rather than the state. . .. Once the defendant files his motion to dismiss for failure to adhere to the provisions of the Act, the state must declare its readiness for trial then and at the times required by the Act. This declaration is a prima facie showing of conformity to the Act, but can be rebutted by evidence submitted by the defendant demonstrating that the state was not ready for trial during the Act’s time lim*532its. This evidence can be from any source, including cross-examination of those responsible for preparing the state’s case, and may consist of, among other things, a demonstration that the state did not have a key witness or piece of evidence available by the last day of the applicable time limit so that the state was not ready for trial within that time limit.
* * * At the hearing on the motion to dismiss, the prosecuting attorney stated that he was ready to try the case then and had been ready to try the case ever since the complaint and information had been filed. No evidence was elicited to rebut this statement of readiness and it remained unchallenged.”2
If it is true that “a good rule works both ways,” the Court needs a precedent more germane than Hicks v. State, 525 S.W.2d 177 (Tex.Cr.App.1975), to avoid applying to the State in the instant case the burden Barfield v. State, supra, imposes on an accused to adduce evidence and to demonstrate that the prosecution is not ready for trial.3
The State relies on Rodriguez v. State, 645 S.W.2d 273 (Tex.Cr.App.1982), an opinion written for the Court by the writer of this one. However, as we made clear there, “every participant [in the colloquy between trial judge and counsel for the parties] seems to have agreeably assumed chronological developments in the case, but disagreed as to the applicable law,” id., at 274, n. 3. In the case at bar appellant claims that “he complained about these forms of ‘evidence’ and urged that the court rely instead upon some competent witness,” Brief, p. 6, and that he “objected,” Brief, p. 8. If so, Rodriguez v. State, supra, does not help the State, and Hicks v. State, supra, is inapposite.
The San Antonio Court of Appeals seems to have equated unsworn remarks by the prosecutor concerning absence of his witnesses with Barfield’s declaration of ready being “a prima facie showing,” for it found that appellant “produced no evidence to demonstrate the State’s lack of readiness ... was due to any reason other than absence” of the witnesses, Canada v. State, 636 S.W.2d 632, 635 (Tex.App.—San Antonio 1982). But that will not do, for verbal representations alone have no weight in seeking continuances.4
Legislative concern with continuances is shown by the Act itself; thus, it reaffirmed that a criminal action “may be continued on written motion of the State ... upon sufficient cause shown,” but added “only for so long as necessary,” Article 29.03. This Court accords no dignity to an unsworn oral motion for continuance for want of a witness when made by an accused, O'Neal v. State, 623 S.W.2d 660, 661 (Tex.Cr.App.1981); Minx v. State, 615 S.W.2d 748, 749 (Tex.Cr.App.1981), one reason being that there is no assurance of the truth of certain factual matters required by statute to be stated unless written out and sworn to, see Articles 29.06 and 29.08, sufficient to war*533rant further investigation by opposing counsel or the trial judge. See Taylor v. State, 612 S.W.2d 566, 570 (Tex.Cr.App.1981).
Accordingly, it is the State this time that has failed to rebut by evidence demonstrating that the periods of its unreadiness in July and August are excludable under any applicable provisions of Article 32A.02, § 4. Newton v. State, 641 S.W.2d 530, 531 (Tex.Cr.App.1982). Over the 215 days from arrest to day of trial, the State announced that it was ready for trial only one time—May 12, 1980. When the State was not ready July 1, giving it the benefit of having been ready from May 12 until then—50 days—the number of days since arrest of appellant was 102; when it was not ready on July 14, the number was 115; when it was not ready on August 25, 157 days had passed since arrest. The trial court erred in overruling appellant’s renewed motion to dismiss, especially when the prosecution then and there withdrew its announcement of ready.
To further emasculation of the Act, I respectfully dissent.5
ONION, P.J., and ODOM and TOM G. DAVIS, JJ., join.

. Acts 1977, 65th Leg., ch. 787, p. 1970, is principally codified as Chapter Thirty two A, Texas Code of Criminal Procedure, and all references in this opinion to articles and to those in the code.

. All emphasis is supplied throughout by the writer of this opinion unless otherwise indicated.

. The statement made in open court in Hicks v. State, supra, was to “let the record reflect” physical movements and motions then being made by the prosecuting attorney in the presence of the trial judge and jury and, as the lead opinion points out, the statement “was undisputed by the prosecutor and unquestioned and unqualified by the court ...,” id., at 179; two judges concurred on essentially the same basis, while the remaining two dissented.

. The trial court, the court of appeals and apparently a plurality of this Court see the matter of an unavailable evidence as an “exceptional circumstance” provided for but not otherwise defined in § 4(10). However, that cannot be, for § 4(6)(A) excludes a reasonable delay resulting “from a continuance granted at the request of the State ... because of the unavailability of evidence that is material to the State’s case,” the State has exercised due diligence and there are “reasonable grounds to believe the evidence will be available within a reasonable time ...” Having expressly allowed a period of delay when the State makes a showing of grounds that warrant a continuance, the Legislature certainly did not mean that reasons for a continuance would also be “exceptional circumstances.” With the concurring opinion, a majority of this Court agrees that § 4(6)(A) is the relevant exclusionary period to be considered in this cause.

. Since the plurality sees the excludable periods were warranted by “exceptional circumstances” under § 4(10) — an erroneous perception according to a majority of the Court, see n. 4, ante — only the concurring opinion finds that “it is not necessary for the State to live up to the objective type evidentiary criteria demanded in continuances,” p. 532. Without attempting to discover just what all that means, to the extent the concurring opinion suggests that a motion for continuance under the Texas Speedy Trial Act is somehow exempt from appropriate requirements of continuances under Chapter Twenty nine, I point out that in amending Article 29.03 the Legislature demonstrated that continuances alluded to in the Act are subject to applicable requisites of Chapter Twenty nine, particularly Article 29.03.