Court Opinion

ID: 9779418
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 21:50:14.998122+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:33:26.260673
License: Public Domain

OPINION ON APPELLANT’S PETITION FOR DISCRETIONARY REVIEW
MILLER, Judge.
Appellants were convicted in a trial before the court of the offense of Injury to a Child under Sec. 22.04, V.A.P.C., and they appealed. The Fifth Court of Appeals affirmed the judgments of conviction. Moore v. State, 708 S.W.2d 484 (Tex.App.—Dallas 1986). We granted appellants’ petitions for discretionary review to determine if the trial court had the authority to rescind its previous order granting both appellants a new trial and to determine if appellants are entitled to judgments of acquittal.
The Court of Appeals held, in part, that the “trial court granted appellant’s motion without having authority to consider the motion [for new trial].” Moore, supra, at 489. These petitions for discretionary review therefore present a threshold issue: does defense counsel’s failure to serve the State with a copy of a motion for new trial on the ground of insufficient evidence deprive the trial court of jurisdiction to consider and make a valid ruling upon such a motion? For reasons fully discussed in Garcia v. Dial, 596 S.W.2d 524 (Tex.Cr.App.1980), we hold such a failure in no way affects the jurisdiction of the trial court, and therefore the court’s orders granting the motions for new trial are valid.
We present a detailed chronology of the facts because they are crucial to understanding the disposition of these cases. Appellants were convicted of injury to a child in a trial before the court on November 2, 1984. The trial judge assessed the *56punishment of each at ten (10) years confinement. On November 27, 1984, appellants filed motions for new trial alleging only that the evidence was insufficient to support the findings of guilty. The prayer of each motion requested “a date for hearing on this motion be set and, after hearing thereon, that this motion be granted and this defendant receive a new trial.” Neither motion contained a written certificate of service.
The trial judge granted appellants’ motions for new trial by written orders on January 12,1985, a Saturday, apparently in chambers, without a hearing of any kind. On February 4,1985, the trial court set the cases for another jury trial. On the same day, February 4, 1985, by a pleading entitled “State’s Response to Order Granting Defendant’s Motion for New Trial”, the State alleged that appellants’ motions for new trial had contained no certificates of service; that the District Attorney’s office had never received a copy of the motions; that the District Attorney was never served; that the trial court informed the assistant district attorney on the case that no hearing had been conducted on the motions which were granted in chambers; that Art. 40.06, V.A.C.C.P.1, grants the State a right to be heard on motions for new trial; that such right is meaningless if the State is not served; that, had the State been served with the motions, a vigorous opposition would have been launched including the citation of authority showing the motions should be denied; and that the trial court’s action was fundamentally unfair to the State and the victim.
On February 7, 1985, appellants filed writs of habeas corpus, arguing the trial court’s action in setting the causes for another trial violated constitutional prohibitions against double jeopardy. See Ex Parte Robinson, 641 S.W.2d 552, (Tex.Cr.App.1982). On February 8, 1985, the parties appeared before the trial judge, who asked defense counsel whether he served the State. Defense counsel replied that, as best as he could recall, he believed he did and that it was his general practice to hand deliver pleadings to opposing counsel where there was no written certificate of service attached. Defense counsel, however, told the court, “I could not swear under oath that I did.” Counsel for the State told the court he had searched his files and found no indication of the filing of the motions. Appellants’ attorney told the court that the formal sentencings had been set for November 30, 1984, and that after he filed the motions on November 27,1984, the State should have known “something had happened” to prevent the sentencings as scheduled. Appellants’ attorney claimed that he and the prosecutor had discussed “on several occasions” the fact that the motions for new trial would be overruled by operation of law before the first of the new year. The prosecutor, at one point in the record, stated that he had no recollection of ever having received notice of any kind.
The trial judge’s oral ruling was as follows: “You’re required to serve the motion on the State, and I’m striking the ... motion[s] for new trial ... So without those, I cannot grant [them].... There’s nothing I can act upon since it should not have been granted.” The trial judge stated earlier in the hearing that he granted the motions when the State did not have an opportunity to respond, “unbeknownst to the court that it had not been served.” Appellants gave notice of appeal.
On the same day, February 8, 1985, the trial court entered a written order which determined that defense counsel failed to serve the State, that such failure was an act of “bad faith and that counsel’s action worked a fraud on this Court.” The trial judge also found his own action in granting the motions was “improvident”. It was therefore ordered that the motions for new trial be struck, the orders granting them abated, and the judgments of guilty “reinstated”.
*57In response to the habeas corpus actions, the trial court on February 8, 1985, also entered Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law which are detailed in the opinion of the Court of Appeals on original submission and need not be restated in full or at this point. For purposes of this chronology, the findings and conclusions reiterated the trial court’s verbal and written pronouncements made on February 8, 1985, after the hearing.
The Court of Appeals held the trial court was correct in concluding that defense counsel had “in bad faith, misled the court in failing to serve his motion[s].” Moore, supra, at 489 (emphasis added). The evidence cited to support this conclusion by the Court of Appeals was that the record established the defense attorney “did not know if he had delivered” the motions to the State. It was but a short step from there for the Court of Appeals to conclude appellants’ counsel had committed “a fraud” upon the trial court which presumably was so material and so substantial that it served to defeat the very power of the trial judge to make a valid ruling on the motions for new trial. The actual holding of the Court of Appeals was that because of the “fraud” the trial court had no authority to consider or to grant the motions.
We do not agree. We are not dealing with a case in which evidence established a party affirmatively certified service was made on the opposing party and then knowingly failed to effect that service. Such a fact situation would come far closer to establishing “bad faith”.2 Moreover, we fail to see how the trial court was “misled” in any way by counsel’s failure to attach a certificate of service to the motions. To the contrary, the very absence of a statement of proof of service placed the trial court on notice — or should have — of the possibility that the State had not been served. Assuming arguendo that defense counsel did fail to serve the State, there is not a shred of evidence in the records before us to suggest the presence of the insidious trickery the trial court and the Court of Appeals seem to suggest.
Moreover, the very relief requested by appellants’ attorney in the prayer for relief was that the trial court grant the motions for new trial after a hearing. There is neither allegation nor evidence in the record to suggest that the appellants’ attorney was in any way responsible for the trial court’s decision to grant the motion on a Saturday, as he did, out of the presence of both parties.
We hold the Court of Appeals erred in concluding the trial court’s decision to grant appellants’ motions for new trial was infected by misunderstanding resulting from any “fraud”.3 Without addressing the question of exactly what effect a proven “fraud” upon the court might have had upon the court’s jurisdiction under the facts of this case, we hold the trial court had jurisdiction and authority to grant these timely filed motions for new trial. See Garcia v. Dial, supra at 528, n. 5.4
*58Having determined that the trial court had the jurisdiction to enter the orders granting the new trials, we move to the dual question of whether the trial court had the authority to rescind the orders (or “strike” the pleadings as the trial judge mentioned) or whether he erred by failing to grant appellants’ jeopardy motions and enter judgments of acquittal.
Prior to discussing these two questions as they relate to jeopardy, we note that the Court of Appeals, without citation of authority, held that Rule 211 of the “Texas Rules of Post Trial and Criminal Appellate Procedure” (sic) permitted the interplay of Rules 21 and 73 of the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure to authorize the trial court’s action here in rescinding the orders granting the motions for new trial. Tex.Cr.App.R. 211,5 contained in the Texas Rules of Post Trial and Appellate Procedure in Criminal Cases (See Tex.Cr.App.R. 1), states:
Where not inconsistent with the Code of Criminal Procedure and these rules, as they now exist or may hereafter exist, the Rules of Civil Procedure shall govern proceedings in the courts of appeals in criminal cases.
By its own import, this rule applies to proceedings in the courts of appeals only, not in post trial proceedings in trial courts. The Court of Appeals’ attempt to bootstrap Tex.Civil Procedure Rules 21 and 73 onto this rule is not authorized by the rules.
We now address appellants’ claim that jeopardy bars their retrial. The principle that the double jeopardy clause of the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution bars retrying a defendant whose conviction in the prior trial was reversed solely for lack of sufficient evidence was most clearly elucidated in Burks v. United States, 437 U.S. 1, 11, 98 S.Ct. 2141, 2147, 57 L.Ed.2d 1, 9 (1978), wherein it is stated:
The Double Jeopardy Clause forbids a second trial for the purpose of affording the prosecution another opportunity to supply evidence which it failed to muster in the first proceeding.6
6 ... [W]here the Double Jeopardy Clause is applicable, its sweep is absolute. There are no ‘equities’ to be balanced, for the Clause has declared a constitutional policy, based on grounds which are not open to judicial examination.
The Supreme Court stated further that where a reviewing court has found the evidence legally insufficient and therefore the Double Jeopardy Clause precludes a second trial, the only remedy available for the court is to enter a judgment of acquittal.
It is clear that the Double Jeopardy Clause also bars any retrial of a case once a judge grants a motion for new trial based solely on insufficiency of the evidence. Hudson v. Louisiana, 450 U.S. 40, 101 S.Ct. 970, 67 L.Ed.2d 30 (1981). These cases teach us that once the trial judge grants a motion for new trial based solely on insufficiency of the evidence, the only further action permitted by the Double Jeopardy Clause is the entry of a judgment of acquittal. To allow a trial judge to change his ruling and deny the motion having once granted it is, in our view, just as violative of the Double Jeopardy Clause as allowing a trial judge to change his ruling and find a defendant guilty having once found him not guilty.
In accord, Article 1.11, V.A.C.C.P., provides:
An acquittal of the defendant exempts him from a second trial or second prosecution for the same offense, however irregular the proceedings may have been_(emphasis added).
Texas caselaw also supports this holding. It is well-established in Texas that, absent clerical errors, a trial court cannot rescind an order granting a new trial. See Ex parte Drewery, 677 S.W.2d 533 (Tex.Cr.App.1984); English v. State, 592 S.W.2d 949 (Tex.Cr.App.1980); and Matthews v. State, 40 Tex.Cr.R. 316, 50 S.W. 368 (1899). There is nothing in the record before us *59that indicates the trial judge made a clerical error in granting the motions for new trial. See English, supra, (trial judge not even aware that he was granting a motion for new trial when he signed the order).
Moreover, the trial judge lacked the power to rescind his order granting the new trials because at the point each appellant was so acquitted, the “controversy” concerning their guilt of the charged crimes lapsed, and along with it, the jurisdiction of the trial court. Garcia v. Dial, supra. See also State Ex. Rel. Holmes v. Denson, 671 S.W.2d 896 (Tex.Cr.App.1984); and Haley v. Lewis, 604 S.W.2d 194, 196 (Tex.Cr.App.1980). The trial court, therefore, no longer had jurisdiction over the cases, except to enter judgments of acquittal discharging appellants under Art. 42.01, V.A.C.C.P. Accordingly, the orders rescinding the orders granting the new trials and reinstating the convictions were absolutely void and, therefore, of no effect. Garcia v. Dial, supra. Since there were no convictions, there was nothing to appeal.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed and these causes are remanded to that Court with orders to instruct the trial court to vacate the orders reinstating the convictions and to enter in each cause judgments of acquittal consistent with the granting of appellants’ motions for new trial.
It is so ordered.
WHITE, J., dissents.

. Art. 40.06, supra, provides:
The State may take issue with the defendant upon the truth of any cause set forth in the motion for a new trial; and in such case, the judge shall hear evidence, by affidavit or otherwise, and determine the issue.

. We mention this fact situation only to illustrate the absence of ‘bad faith” in die record before us. We do not mean to intímate whether, when or to what degree bad faith amounting to fraud upon the court would affect the trial court’s jurisdiction in another case.

. This Court, however, does not condone the failure of any party to serve pleadings and motions on all affected parties, irrespective of whether they are mailed or hand delivered. The State is entitled to be served with all motions and pleadings as is any other party. Every officer of the court has a duty to ensure that service is both certified and effected. Lawyers make mistakes, however, and oversights occur, and this Court is not prepared to elevate every error or oversight on the part of counsel or the trial court to the level of a jurisdictional defect. See State Ex. Rel. Bryan v. McDonald, 681 S.W.2d 65 (Tex.Cr.App.1985). [wherein denial of State’s statutory right to consent to bench trial is not jurisdictional.]

.“Because jurisdiction relates not to the rights of the parties as between themselves, but rather to the power of the court over the parties and the subject matter of the litigation, lack of jurisdiction and the improper exercise of jurisdiction are vitally different concepts, and jurisdiction includes the power to determine a case either rightly or wrongly.
If a court has jurisdiction of the patties and subject matter its determination of the controversy is not void no matter how erroneous the decision may be. On the other hand, judicial action without jurisdiction is void; where the court is without jurisdiction it has no authority *58to render any judgment other than one of dismissal....” 15 Tex.Jur.2d § 50, pp. 475-477.

. This rule has been repealed. See now Texas Rules of Appellate Procedure, effective September 1, 1986.