Court Opinion

ID: 9943997
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-26 15:59:22.970841+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:54:56.098542
License: Public Domain

Slowly but surely the majority is causing the Court to backslide on the matter of "an affirmative finding" within the meaning of Article 42.12, § 3g(a)(2), V.A.C.C.P., as interpreted in the gospel according to Polk v. State,693 S.W.2d 391, 394 (Tex.Cr.App. 1985). Polk, it may be recalled, sought to "save all of us from sinking ever deeper into the quagmire of ['implied' findings]," id., at 396.
In Ex parte Campbell, 716 S.W.2d 523 (Tex.Cr.App. 1986), mainly because the jury verdict contained a magic phrase "as charged in the indictment," the majority concluded there was "a sufficient affirmative finding. . . ." [my emphasis here and throughout]. This writer expressed his discontent with a conclusion that "smacks a great deal like that which Polk found to be spoiled and thus sought to throw out," in that "because the jury found appellant guilty 'as charged in the indictment' the majority has inferred appellant used a firearm from the fact that he did cause death by shooting deceased with something called a 'handgun'." Opinion Joining the Judgment of the Court, at 2-3.*
In the instant cause, since voluntary manslaughter eonomine had not been alleged in the indictment, the jury verdict does not end with "as charged in the indictment." Even without the magic phrase, however, here as in Bracelet, supra, from facts that "the jury believed that applicant caused the death of an individual" and that "the indictment and the application portion of the court's charge [state] the instrumentality of death was a handgun," the majority is content to infer: "Therefore, the jury found that a handgun was used." Viola! *Page 637 
"An affirmative finding of the use of a deadly weapon was made by the jury."
In Polk, supra, the Court revisited Ex parteMoser, 602 S.W.2d 530 (Tex.Cr.App. 1980) and Chavezv. State, 657 S.W.2d 146 (Tex.Cr.App. 1983), and discerned flawed rationale, viz:
 "Overlooked by the reasoning employed in these cases is that an 'implied' or an 'amounts to' finding is not an express finding that a deadly weapon was used or exhibited by the defendant. . . . . Therefore we now expressly disapprove of any language in Moser,
supra, or Chavez, supra, that would perpetuate this practice."
Id., at 396 [emphasis by the Court]. Furthermore, the Court declared:
 "No longer will a verdict 'amount to' or 'necessarily imply' an affirmative finding of use or exhibition of a deadly weapon or firearm. We will no longer look to the facts of the case to permit an 'implied' affirmative finding as the court of appeals, relying on prior case law, did in this case. We overrule all prior holdings to the contrary."
Ibid.
Polk made an effort, but Bracelet, Campbell
and McLemore, will not save any of us from "the quagmire of 'implied' affirmative findings." BeingMoser and Chavez reincarnated, theyare the quagmire, and today the majority givesPolk a shove. The "second situation delineated" inPolk is now in a precarious position, and by extension so is the first. As more and more of Polk is pushed into the quagmire, we are sure to see courts "sinking ever deeper" into it.
To shore up Polk before it is too late the Court should hold that a trier of fact is not authorized to find a thing is a deadly weapon for purposes of Article 42.12, § 3g(a)(2) and Article 42.18, § 8(b), V.A.C.C.P., unless that thing is alleged as an element of the offense or, if not an element, is alleged to be one somewhere on the indictment. See my separate opinions in Polk and Campbell,
supra.
So long as the majority treats problems created by those statutory provisions in the retrogressive fashion currently in vogue, I am constrained merely to join the judgment of the Court.
CAMPBELL, J., joins this opinion.
* Believing it to be "a gesture in futility,"ibid, I did not dissent then nor in Bracelet v.State, 702 S.W.2d 194 (Tex.Cr.App. 1986). However, as the majority continues to slide back into the same "quagmire," from time to time at least a warning must be given.