Court Opinion

ID: 9679787
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 07:07:01.049348+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:20.329051
License: Public Domain

OPINION ON MOTION FOR REHEARING
PER CURIAM.
The State of Texas filed a Motion for Rehearing which was denied by this Court on April 15, 1992. In denying the State’s motion, we set forth our reasons in hopes of clarifying a very difficult legal concept made even more complex by the line of Court of Criminal Appeals cases addressing the issue.
In its motion, the State argues the following:
It is noted that it is nowhere mentioned in either the majority opinion of this court, or in the dissent, that there was no objection to the parties charge in the case at bar, nor any requested charge on that issue by Appellant. The record is clear on this point, (record reference omitted). It is respectfully submitted that the noted omission of an objection or a requested change moots any question of the sufficiency of the charge to submit the issue of party liability.
It appears that the majority of this court held as it did primarily because of the decision of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in Apodaca v. State, 589 S.W.2d 696 (1979). Either overlooked, or at least not mentioned in this court’s opinion, is this language in Apodaca at 698:
“In circumstances where a defendant, if guilty at all, is guilty as a party, the court should properly apply the law of parties to the facts of the case, but the failure to do so is not reversible error unless there is a timely and sufficient objection_”
The State’s argument set out above perfectly frames the usual misunderstanding of the legal concepts involved in Walker v. State, 823 S.W.2d 247 (Tex.Crim.App.1991), cert. denied,—U.S.-, 112 S.Ct. 1481, 117 L.Ed.2d 624 (1992); and Jones v. State, 815 S.W.2d 667 (Tex.Crim.App.1991); and their progenitors. Although extremely compelling at first blush, the State’s argument is understandably misplaced.
The State is mistaken in attempting to characterize the issue before this Court as one involving charging error. None of appellant’s points of error complained of charging error. We sustained appellant’s second point of error based solely upon its complaint of sufficiency of the evidence. There is a very subtle, but stark distinction in the case law upon which we rely with *647regard to the treatment of appellate complaints grounded in charging error and those grounded in sufficiency of the evidence.
The State is correct in pointing out our reliance upon Apodaca, supra. However, our reliance on Apodaca was clearly limited to the language contained in the final paragraph on pp. 698-699 of the opinion, quoted as follows:
The State nevertheless contends that since the court charged the jury on the abstract law of parties (although reference was made to “principals” rather than “parties”), and since the jury was instructed to find whether appellant caused the deceased’s death “as a principal,” this was sufficient. We do not agree. This reference to the law of parties, contained in the paragraph applying the law to the facts, was not sufficient to require the jury to find whether Lewis, the driver of the vehicle, caused the deceased’s death and whether appellant was criminally responsible for those acts of Lewis. Nowhere in the charge is the jury required to find that Lewis committed any criminal acts, for which appellant could be held responsible, if at all, because of his encouragement, assistance, etc., of those acts, (emphasis ours)
The quoted portion of Apodaca contained on the second page of the State’s motion was actually taken from Romo v. State, 568 S.W.2d 298, 303 (Tex.Crim.App.1978) (opinion on State’s Motion for Rehearing). It should be noted that in Apodaca, the appellant did make a timely objection to the jury charge with regard to the improper application paragraph. Thus, the Court was using the Romo language to decide an issue grounded in charging error.
The fact that there exists two separate and distinct standards of appellate review with regard to appellate complaints grounded in charging error as opposed to sufficiency of the evidence should be as obvious as the distinctions in Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979) and Almanza v. State, 686 S.W.2d 157 (Tex.Crim.App.1984) (opinion on State’s Motion for Rehearing). To underscore this point, we rely on the analysis of Romo contained in Garrett v. State, 749 S.W.2d 784 (Tex.Crim.App.1988) (opinion on Denial of Rehearing).1 Responding to a complaint identical to the State’s in the instant case, the Garrett II Court responded:
While the State’s observation is well taken, it fails because it relies on the conclusion that the abstract charge on the law of transferred intent was sufficient to put that theory before the jury. Even a cursory reading of Garrett I, supra, belies this point:
A charge on transferred intent is by its nature favorable to the State and detrimental to the defendant. With the provisions of Sec. 6.04(b)(2) omitted from the charge, the prosecution is presented with the greater burden of proving a “knowing” act in which the defendant was aware that her conduct was reasonably certain to cause the actual result rather than merely the desired result.... It would seem quite possible that a defendant might intentionally fail to object to a jury charge which omits a proper application of transferred intent in order to require the State to meet this greater burden.
Garrett I, supra at 781. (emphasis theirs).
Garrett II, supra at 802.
The Garrett II Court then went on to explain a glaring mistake they made in the Romo case. They recognized that in Romo they refused to label a “misapplied or non-applied” application paragraph which would have increased the State’s burden of proof as fundamental error. This was done on the theory that a defendant could elect to waive his right to have the law of parties applied to the facts, thus forcing the State into meeting a more onerous burden of proof. In waiving his right to have a properly applied charge submitted to the *648jury, appellant could not later complain of charging error. However, the Court went on to point out its glaring mistake in Romo when it addressed Romo’s sufficiency of the evidence complaint:
When this Court examined the sufficiency of the evidence to support the defendant’s conviction in Romo, we measured the evidence in terms of the defendant’s culpability as a party. This treatment of the sufficiency point renders the “election” rationale a mere legal fiction. Garrett I does not adopt the implicit “test” for sufficiency used in Romo. It is patently unfair and irrational to find the charging error harmless because it raises the burden of proof and then ignore that raised burden when measuring the sufficiency of the evidence. (emphasis ours).
Garrett II, supra at 802.
It seems clear that Romo and Apodaca both contained the separate appellate issues of charging error and sufficiency of the evidence. Aided by Garrett II’s analysis, we find nothing inconsistent in the holding that an unobjected to charging deficiency is not fundamental error while at the same time holding that a sufficiency of evidence analysis, requiring no trial objection to preserve the issue, results in reversal and acquittal if the application paragraph improperly applies the specific facts of the case to the State’s theory of prosection. While it is true that “when determining sufficiency, the evidence must be compared to the entire charge,” Garrett II, supra at 802-03, it is the application paragraph of the jury charge which authorizes conviction. Jones, supra at 669. That an abstract definition is placed immediately before or after the application paragraph and casually referred to within the application paragraph is of no consequence. As stated in Garrett II, “Mere juxtaposition does not amount to authorization.” Garrett II, supra at 789, n. 6 (opinion on original submission). Should the State seek to treat this point as some other form of “trial error,” we respectfully refer the State to Boozer v. State, 717 S.W.2d 608 (Tex.Crim.App.1984) at 611, footnote 6, in that we would nevertheless be compelled to review the record for sufficiency of the evidence because the point has, in fact, been raised by the appellant.
The State’s Motion for Rehearing is DENIED.

. Hereafter referred to as Garrett II só as to distinguish it from Garrett v. State, 642 S.W.2d 779 (Tex.Crim.App.1982), hereafter referred to as Garrett I.