Court Opinion

ID: 9642946
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 18:13:16.923568+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:54.902030
License: Public Domain

ON APPELLANT’S MOTION FOR REHEARING
DICE, Commissioner.
Appellant complains that in our opinion on original submission we did not pass upon the contention that his rights were violated when the indictment alleging the prior convictions was read to the jury and exhibited before them. In his motion, appellant insists that he was denied the right to a fair and impartial trial under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States and like rights guaranteed to him under the Constitution of this State, when the indictment alleging the prior felony convictions was read to the jury and proof thereon was heard by them.
Appellant apparently overlooks the provision of Art. 642, Vernon’s Ann.C.C.P., which reads:
“Order of proceeding in trial
“A jury being impaneled in any criminal action, the cause shall proceed in the following order:
“1, The indictment or information shall be read to the jury by the attorney prosecuting.”
In Redding v. State, 159 Tex.Cr.R. 535, 265 S.W.2d 811, this court held that an accused was not denied due process under the Fourteenth Amendment-to the Constitution of the United States because the indictment against him alleging prior convictions to enhance the punishment under the habitual criminal statute, Art. 63, V.A.P.C., was read to the jury. In the opinion on motion for rehearing, we said:
“The prior offenses were required to be plead and proven, and we can perceive of no deprivation of constitutional rights by these statutes which have been in existence for many years.”
This holding was again followed in Finley v. State, 161 Tex.Cr.R. 458, 278 S.W.2d 864.
The motion for rehearing is overruled.
Opinion approved by the Court