Court Opinion

ID: 9684076
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 13:46:07.846333+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:50.383363
License: Public Domain

COHEN, Justice,
dissenting.
I agree that the first ground of error must be sustained and some relief granted, because the State failed to prove that the second enhancement conviction was committed after the first enhancement conviction was final. See Tex.Penal Code Ann. sec. 12.42(d) (Vernon Supp.1986). The jury was wrongly instructed that the punishment range was 25 years to life imprisonment, when the proper range under these facts would have been 15 years to life. However, I would not grant appellant a new trial.
Appellant’s only conceivable harm is that the jury was not allowed to consider the range of punishment between 15 and 25 years. He never objected on this basis in the trial court. Furthermore, he does not *920contend that this error harmed him at the guilt stage. Because the only possible harm occurred at the punishment stage, a new trial would be a windfall for appellant. Such a result is unfair to the State, because it gives appellant more relief than is necessary to cure the harm he suffered. In my opinion, we should avoid this undesirable result unless it is plainly required by statute, judicial decision, or constitutional law.
Williams v. State, 596 S.W.2d 903 (Tex.Crim.App.1980), relied on by the majority, does not compel a new trial, because Williams, like many similar cases, did not construe Tex.Code Crim.Pro.Ann. art. 37.10(b) (Vernon Supp.1986), which became effective June 11, 1985 and applies to this case. Ex parte Johnson, 697 S.W.2d 605 (Tex.Crim.App.1985). Article 37.10(b) has so far been invoked only to strike unauthorized fines that juries assessed in addition to authorized periods of imprisonment. See Ex parte Youngblood, 698 S.W.2d 671 (Tex.Crim.App.1985); Ex parte Johnson, 697 S.W.2d 605 (Tex.Crim.App.1985). This does not mean, however, that it cannot apply to other situations. I would apply art. 37.10(b) in accordance with its mandatory language requiring that the trial court “shall reform the verdict to show the punishment authorized by law and to omit the punishment not authorized by law,” and “[i]f the trial court is required to reform a verdict ... and fails to do so, the appellate court shall reform the verdict_” (emphasis supplied)
The majority agrees that appellant was properly convicted of a first degree felony and that the State properly proved a prior felony conviction alleged for enhancement. Therefore, the minimum punishment that appellant could have received under a correct jury charge was 15 years imprisonment, pursuant to Tex.Penal Code Ann. sec. 12.42(c) (Vernon 1974). The State contends that art. 37.10(b) gives us authority to reform the verdict by striking the punishment not authorized by law, that is, all punishment above the minimum 15 years required by sec. 12.42(c). It asks that we reform the sentence to 15 years, rather than grant a new trial.
I would accept the State s invitation, follow the requirement of art. 37.10(b), and reform the judgment to reflect a sentence of 15 years. This result has several advantages. It follows the legislative command; it is fair to appellant, because it cures all the harm he could have suffered; it is fair to the State, because it does not grant the excessive, unnecessary relief of a new trial; it conserves scarce judicial resources.
Article 37.10(b) was not enacted in a vacuum. It was a prompt, specific legislative response to Bogany v. State, 661 S.W.2d 957 (Tex.Crim.App.1983), which reversed our decision in Bogany v. State, 646 S.W.2d 663 (Tex.App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 1983). Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice John Hill, in his speech to a joint session of the legislature in January of 1985 concerning the state of the judiciary, discussed the Court of Criminal Appeals opinion in Boga-ny and requested that the legislature enact a statute like art. 37.10(b), in order to avoid an entirely new trial on guilt whenever a jury assessed an unauthorized punishment. The legislature responded admirable by passing art. 37.10(b).
The Court of Criminal Appeals, in turn, has broadly construed art. 37.10(b) in Ex parte Johnson, 697 S.W.2d 605, where it was used to reform a jury verdict rendered in 1980, five years before the effective date of the article. Id. at 609 (Onion, P.J., dissenting). This result was reached in Johnson despite three vigorous dissenting opinions, two of which attacked the statute’s retroactive application to reform a judgment that was final before it was enacted. If art. 37.10(b) sweeps that broadly, it surely allows this judgment to be reformed to 15 years.