Court Opinion

ID: 9641908
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:43:01.983281+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:48:51.469335
License: Public Domain

MURRY B. COHEN, Justice,
concurring on remand from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.
I agree with Justice O’Connor that this case should be reversed and that Carranza v. State, 980 S.W.2d 653 (Tex.Crim.App.1998), does not control our inquiry into harm.
I believe this case is governed by Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238, 89 S.Ct. 1709, 23 L.Ed.2d 274 (1969). Here, as in Boykin, there is no record of any admonishment, except the judge’s statement that the jury would find appellant guilty. Specifically, as in Boykin, there is no record of any admonishment concerning the range of punishment. I emphasize the missing punishment admonishment throughout this opinion because this record contains some evidence of harm from its absence.1 Faced with a similar record, the Boykin Court held:
It was error, plain on the face of the record, for the trial judge to accept petitioner’s guilty plea without an affirmative showing that it was intelligent and voluntary.
395 U.S. at 242, 89 S.Ct. at 1711 (emphasis added).
The seven-judge majority in Boykin was emphatic that the prerequisites of a valid guilty plea cannot be presumed; they must be shown on the record:
The requirement that the prosecution spread on the record the prerequisites of a valid waiver is no constitutional innovation ... Presuming waiver from a silent record is impermissible. The record must show ... that an accused was offered counsel but intelligently and understandingly rejected the offer. Anything less is not a waiver.
We think that the same standard must be applied to determining whether a guilty plea is voluntarily made.
395 U.S. at 242, 89 S.Ct. at 1712 (emphasis added).
The Court repeated its insistence on a record of the constitutionally required admonishments:
What is at stake for an accused facing death or imprisonment demands the utmost solicitude of which courts are capable in canvassing the matter with the accused to make sure he has a full understanding of what the plea connotes and of its consequence. When the judge discharges that function, it leaves a record adequate for any review that may later be sought ....
395 U.S. at 243, 89 S.Ct. at 1712 (emphasis added). The court concluded that there was reversible error “because the record does not disclose that the defendant voluntarily and understandingly entered his pleas of guilty.” 395 U.S. at 244, 89 S.Ct. at 1713 (emphasis added).
The Court quoted with approval the Pennsylvania Supreme Court:
A majority of criminal convictions are obtained after a plea of guilty. If these convictions are to be insulated from attack, the trial court is best advised to conduct an on the record examination of *646the defendant which shall include ... the permissible range of sentences.
395 U.S. at 244 n. 7, 89 S.Ct. at 1713 n. 7 (emphasis added).
I believe Boykin means that the defendant not only must be admonished, but the admonishment — including the range of punishment — must be on the record. Otherwise, reversal is required, as occurred in Boykin. The Supreme Court has unanimously reaffirmed this rule from Boykin. “In Boykin, the Court found reversible error when a trial judge accepted a defendant’s guilty plea without creating a record affirmatively showing that the plea was knowing and voluntary.” Parke v. Raley, 506 U.S. 20, 29, 113 S.Ct. 517, 523, 121 L.Ed.2d 391 (1992) (emphasis added). The Parke court stated that Boy-kin created a “presumption of invalidity” if no record of admonishments existed, and it stated that “Boykin colloquies have been required for nearly a quarter of a centwty.” 506 U.S. at 30, 113 S.Ct. at 524 (emphasis added). There was no Boykin colloquy here.
According to the two dissenting justices in Boykin, the majority required reversal “solely” because no admonishments were in the record. 395 U.S. at 245-46, 89 S.Ct. at 1713. Moreover, the majority did so even though Boykin never even alleged, much less proved, his guilty plea was involuntary or that he did not know the consequences. The dissenters were especially upset that Boykin had never contended— not in the trial court, not in the Alabama Supreme Court, not in his petition, brief, or argument'in the United States Supreme Court — that his plea was coerced or that he did not know its consequences. 395 U.S. at 245-46, 89 S.Ct. at 1713-14.
The dissent is important and deserves to be read because of the light it sheds on the broad holding of the Boykin majority:
The Court today holds that petitioner Boykin was denied due process of law and that his robbery convictions must be reversed outright, solely because “the record [is] inadequate to show that petitioner ... intelligently and knowingly pleaded guilty” ... Moreover, the Court does all this at the behest of a petitioner who has never at any time alleged that his guilty plea was involuntary or made without knowledge of the consequences. I cannot possibly subscribe to so bizarre a result....
Petitioner was not sentenced immediately after the acceptance of his plea.... That proceeding occurred some two months after the petitioner pleaded guilty. During that period, petitioner made no attempt to withdraw his plea.... Petitioner heard the judge state ... that ... [he] might be sentenced to death. Again, petitioner made no effort to withdraw his plea.
On his appeal to the Alabama Supreme Court, petitioner did not claim that his guilty plea was made involuntarily or without full knowledge of the consequences. In fact, petitioner raised no questions concerning the plea. In his petition in this court, and in oral argument by counsel, petitioner has never asserted that the plea was coerced or made in ignorance of the consequences. ... This result is wholly unprecedented.... This petitioner makes no allegations of actual involuntariness.
The Court’s reversal is therefore predicated entirely upon the failure of the arraigning state judge to make an “adequate” record....
I would hold that petitioner Boykin is not entitled to outright reversal of his conviction simply because of the “inadequacy” of the record pertaining to his guilty plea.
395 U.S. at 244-49, 89 S.Ct. at 1713-15. This argument was rejected by a large majority in Boykin. There was no inquiry into harm in Boykin for a simple reason— Boykin never claimed he was harmed. He never claimed his plea was involuntary.
I think Boykin means that (1) failure to admonish regarding the consequences of a guilty plea, including the range of punishment,*6472 is constitutional error, (2) the error occurs when the constitutionally required admonishments are not spread upon the record, and (3) the absence of that record constitutes plain error that requires reversal without allegation, much less proof, of harm. Appellant did not receive the admonishment on punishment required by Boykin. Therefore, under Boykin, reversal is required without regard to harm.
Nevertheless, the Court of Criminal Appeals has ordered us to conduct a harm analysis. High v. State, 964 S.W.2d 637, 638 (Tex.Crim.App.1998). In my opinion, that is contrary to the constitutional law of the United States as declared in Boykin. The authority cited for this in High is Cain v. State, 947 S.W.2d 262 (1997), but Cain was not a case of failure to give a punishment admonishment. Cain was about the failure to warn a United States citizen that non-citizens could be deported. The absence of that admonishment in Cain was obviously harmless, unlike the lack of a punishment warning in this case. In addition to that important factual difference, there is an equally important legal difference: The right to be told the range of punishment when pleading guilty is constitutionally required, Boykin, 395 U.S. at 244 n. 7, 89 S.Ct. at 1713 n. 7, but there is no constitutional right to be told about deportation. State v. Jimenez, 987 S.W.2d 886, 889 (Tex.Crim.App.1999).
In Carranza, the Court again held, correctly in my view, that harm is required before reversing for failure to warn about deportation. 980 S.W.2d at 656-58. As in Cain, that was all that had to be said because there was no other defect in the admonishment, but the court used language possibly suggesting that all admonishments are the same. They are not the same. Some are constitutionally required, and some are not. That is the difference between Boykin v. Alabama and State v. Jimenez.
The Can-anza court did not mention Boykin. Instead, it cited McCarthy v. United States, 394 U.S. 459, 89 S.Ct. 1166, 22 L.Ed.2d 418 (1969), for the proposition that “the admonishment itself is not constitutionally required,” but merely “aids the trial court” in determining whether the plea was voluntary. 980 S.W.2d at 656. If “the admonishment itself’ language in Can-anza referred to the punishment admonition, the Court of Criminal Appeals finds little support in McCarthy. No constitutional issue was before the Supreme Court in McCarthy:
This decision is based solely upon our construction of Rule 11 and is made pursuant to our supervisoi-y power over the lower federal courts; we do not reach any of the constitutional arguments petitioner urges ....
394 U.S. at 464, 89 S.Ct. at 1169 (emphasis added). Moreover, none was decided:
We hold that a defendant is entitled to plead anew if a United States district court accepts his guilty plea without fully adhering to the procedure provided in Rule 11.
394 U.S. at 463-64, 89 S.Ct. at 1169.
And while the Court of Criminal Appeals quoted McCarthy for the proposition that “the procedure embodied in Rule 11 has not been held to be constitutionally mandated,” 980 S.W.2d at 656, that was true for only 61 more days after McCarthy was decided. It became untrue on June 2, 1969, when the Supreme Court decided Boykin. As the Boykin dissenters pointed out, Boykin imposed Rule ll’s requirements on the states as a matter of constitutional law. 395 U.S. at 247, 89 S.Ct. at 1714 (“ ... What is now in effect being held is that the prophylactic procedures of Criminal Rule 11 are substantially applicable to the States as a matter of federal Constitutional due process.”).
Finally, McCarthydoes not say that harm is required before reversing for lack of a punishment admonition. It says the opposite. McCarthy established a per se *648rule of reversal without harm in federal courts for failure to put a Rule 11 admonishment on the record. The government argued that it should be allowed remand in order to conduct a hearing to show the error was harmless. That argument “completely ignores the two purposes of Rule 11,” nine justices declared. 394 U.S. at 465, 89 S.Ct. at 1170. The Supreme Court emphatically rejected the idea that, if no admonishment is on the record, the government should still win if it could show circumstantially that the plea was, in fact, voluntary. “We reject the Government’s contention that Rule 11 can be complied with although the district judge does not personally inquire whether the defendant understood the nature of the charge.” 394 U.S. at 467, 89 S.Ct. at 1171. “There is simply no adequate substitute for demonstrating on the record at the time the plea is entered the defendant’s understanding of the nature of the charge against him.” 394 U.S. at 470, 89 S.Ct. at 1173. “We thus conclude that prejudice inheres in a failure to comply with Rule 11 ... A defendant whose plea has been accepted in violation of Rule 11 should be afforded the opportunity to plead anew....” 394 U.S. at 471-72, 89 S.Ct. at 1173-74 (emphasis added). The unanimous McCarthycourt concluded:
It is, therefore, not too much to require that, before sentencing defendants to years of imprisonment, district judges take the few minutes necessary to inform them of their rights and to determine whether they understand the action they are taking.
394 U.S. at 472, 89 S.Ct. at 1174.
That is a per se rule of reversal without harm under Rule 11, and it has been the federal statutory law of the land since April 2, 1969. Boykin established the same rule as a matter of federal constitutional law 61 days later.
The dissenters in Boykin recognized this and stated it plainly:
The Court’s reversal is therefore predicated entirely upon the failure of the arraigning state judge to make an “adequate” record. In holding that this is a ground for reversal, the Court quotes copiously from McCarthy v. United States, 394 U.S. 459, 89 S.Ct. 1166, 22 L.Ed.2d 418 (1969), in which we held earlier this Term that when a federal district judge fails to comply in every respect with the procedure for accepting a guilty plea which is prescribed in Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, the plea must be set aside and the defendant permitted to replead, regardless of lower-court findings that the plea was in fact voluntary.
Boykin, 395 U.S. at 247, 89 S.Ct. at 1714 (emphasis original and added).
In Cain, the Court of Criminal Appeals did not mention Boykin v. Alabama or any Supreme Court case, except Arizona v. Fulminante, 499 U.S. 279, 111 S.Ct. 1246, 113 L.Ed.2d 302 (1991). The Court cited Fulminante for the proposition that only constitutional errors labeled “structural” by the United States Supreme Court require reversal without proof of harm. Cain, 947 S.W.2d at 264. It concluded that failure to warn of deportation was not “structural,” and, thus, harm must be shown to obtain relief.
There are two reasons why Fulminante (and Cain) do not require a harm analysis in this particular case. First, neither case had anything to do with a punishment admonishment. Fulminante had nothing to do with any admonishment. It had nothing to do with guilty pleas. It decided whether the harmless error rule would apply to involuntary confessions. Naturally, it did not mention, much less overrule, Boykin v. Alabama. According to the United States Supreme Court, Boykin is good law.3 See Parke v. Raley, supra. To *649argue that Fulminante limits Boykin would be, simply and respectfully, wrong. Fulminante contains a laundry list of constitutional errors labeled “trial error”— errors that require proof of harm — and Boykin error is conspicuously absent from that list. Fulminante, 499 U.S. at 306, 111 S.Ct. 1246. Fulminante also lists several “structural” errors that require reversal without harm; Boykin is absent from that list, too. That does not help the State, however. If, as I believe, the issue before us is the scope of Boykin v. Alabama, I believe the opinion to read is Boykin, not Arizona v. Fulminante. Unless Boykin v. Alabama has been overruled, and my Shepard’s citator says it hasn’t, I believe the Court of Criminal Appeals’ opinion in High has created a rule that, as applied to a punishment admonition, conflicts with the United States Constitution as construed in Boykin.
What is my duty? I took an oath to protect, preserve, and defend the Constitutions and laws of the United States and of this State. Thus, even though I think it violates the rule in Boykin, I believe I am bound to do as the Court of Criminal Appeals has ordered and conduct a harm analysis. The harm standard, of course, is that for constitutional error. Tex.R.App. P. 44.2(a). This is constitutional error. Boykin, supra.
Was appellant harmed? On January 5, 1995, appellant told the psychologist he was “unsure” of the maximum sentence, but he had been told the punishment range was 5 years to life. That was correct then. Later, on June 27, 1995, appellant pled true to the enhancement paragraph, and that raised the minimum sentence to 15 years. Moreover, appellant expressed no doubt on January 5, 1995 about the minimum punishment, which was then 5 years, as he had been told.
The standard of review is decisive in this case. We must reverse unless we are convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the error made no contribution to the conviction. Tex.R.App. P. 44.2(a). I cannot say that with confidence beyond a reasonable doubt. If, as the record shows, appellant thought the maximum risk might be less than life, that could have influenced him to accept that lower level of risk by pleading guilty. If he had known for sure that the actual risk was a life sentence, he may have been unwilling to accept, by pleading guilty, that level of risk and instead tried to avoid exposure to it by pleading not guilty. Either would have been a rational choice. The purpose of an admonishment is to make sure the choice is made knowingly. This record does not convince me beyond a reasonable doubt that it was.

. Appellant was not admonished of his right to counsel and to a jury trial, but he was not harmed because he had both. He was not told of his right against self-incrimination, but he was not harmed because he did not testify. As stated below, I believe Boykin requires this case to be reversed without a harm analysis, as Boykin was. I cannot believe, however, that Boykin would require reversal for failing to admonish a defendant of rights that he asserted, such as those appellant asserted (jury, counsel, self-incrimination).

. See Boykin, 395 U.S. at 244 n. 7, 89 S.Ct. at 1713 n. 7, quoted above in this opinion.

. I realize that Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11 now has a harmless error provision that did not exist when Boykin was decided. Fed.R.Crim.P. 11(h). See United States v. Johnson, 1 F.3d 296 (5th Cir.1993) (explaining harmless error standard of Rule 11). *649Moreover, the Supreme Court has held that harm is required to obtain relief in a collateral attack brought to cure a Rule 11 violation. United States v. Timmreck, 441 U.S. 780, 783-85, 99 S.Ct. 2085, 2087-88, 60 L.Ed.2d 634 (1979). The Timmreck opinion did not mention, much less overrule, Boykin. Rule 11, of course, cannot overrule a decision of the United States Supreme Court that, like Boy-kin, is based on federal constitutional law. Rule 11(h) has apparently overruled McCarthy v. United States, supra, a case decided based on Rule 11, not on the United States Constitution.