Court Opinion

ID: 9683243
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 13:25:20.247959+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:46.657382
License: Public Domain

OPINION ON APPELLANT’S MOTION FOR REHEARING
CLINTON, Judge,
dissenting.
Like Judge Roberts, I would grant the motion for rehearing. Unlike him, however, I do not see the panel opinion on original submission as incorrectly applying Dinnery v. State, 592 S.W.2d 343 (Tex.Cr.App.1980). Rather, what the panel and, by overruling the motion for rehearing, now the Court are doing is extending the Din-nery notion of a “judicial confession.” Here is the germane testimony, appellant being questioned by his own attorney:
“Q: You are the same Lemuil H. Craven as charged in the Indictment in this cause, is that right?
A: Yes, sir.
Q: Is that a cause that lists an offense on January the 15th, 1975, is that right?
A: Yes, sir.
Q: And you are pleading guilty to that Indictment?
A: Yes, sir.”
By calling this brief exchange a “judicial confession” the Court puts its imprimatur on a permit finally to demolish Article 1.15, V.A.C.C.P. To the point are my concluding observations in Dinnery, itself:
“... We do not effectuate the intent and purpose of Article 1.15, supra, by finding that an oral affirmation of guilt drawn from an accused by his own counsel ... is sufficient compliance-especially where the oral affirmation is contradictory of a written confession... Instead the provisions are emasculated since the State is now relieved of carrying its burden of proof and the trial court of assaying evidence produced by the State. Thus, without any statutorily authorized process the accused is convicted on what is essentially no more than his plea-the very vice the statute was designed to combat!”
Id. at 359, n. 14.
To the demise of Article 1.15, supra, and its intended protections, I dissent.
ONION, P. J., joins.