Court Opinion

ID: 9777143
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 20:00:37.624548+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:49.495493
License: Public Domain

TEAGUE, Judge,
dissenting.
I am compelled to file this dissenting opinion because the majority opinion is in conflict with what a majority of this Court recently stated and held in Ex parte Green, 688 S.W.2d 555 (Tex.Cr.App.1985), regarding the applicability of the Code of Criminal Procedure to juveniles. I am also compelled to dissent because the majority opinion erroneously holds that the “Harris County reset forms”, which are contained in the record on appeal, reflect that when counsel for James Barry Robinson, hereinafter referred to as the appellant, signed them, this amounted to the appellant agreeing to a legal continuance. The record clearly reflects that the appellant did no such thing.
In Ex parte Green, supra, a majority of this Court stated and held the following:
Once a juvenile is ‘certified’ as an adult under Y.T.C.A. Family code, Section 54.-02, it makes no difference that ‘said cause’ began as a civil proceeding ... since ‘[o]n transfer of the child for criminal proceedings, he shall be dealt with as an adult and in accordance with the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure, 1965.’ Section 54.02(h), supra. We do not think that in enacting Article 42.03, Sec. 2(a) [V.A.C.C.P.] the Legislature intended that an individual detained as a juvenile and later certified an adult, then prosecuted and sentenced accordingly, should be treated any differently than one who is initially detained as an adult. (My emphasis.)
But, today, the majority opinion states the following:
*52-76“Delinquency proceedings are civil in nature and the provisions of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure do not apply ... Thus, the provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure, including art. 32A.02, V.A.C.C.P., do not apply until a defendant is certified as an adult and is transferred to a criminal court.” (My emphasis.)
If the provisions of Art. 42.03, Sec. 2(a), of the Code of Criminal Procedure can be used to give a juvenile credit on his sentence for the time he was confined in a juvenile detention center, which was before he was certified to stand trial as an adult, then I must ask: Why isn’t the time that a juvenile was confined in a juvenile detention center not to be considered when the provisions of Art. 32A.02, V.A.C.C.P., the Speedy Trial Act, are involved? Shouldn’t the majority opinion at least explain to the members of the Bench and Bar of this State how in one instance the Code of Criminal Procedure can be invoked and applied to a criminal cause that involves a juvenile, before he is implicated in the adult criminal process, but in another instance, that also involves a juvenile who is implicated in the adult criminal process, the Code of Criminal Procedure does not become effective “until a defendant is certified as an adult and is transferred to a criminal court”? I think so.
The majority opinion also erroneously holds that for purposes of Art. 32A.02, supra, the “Harris County reset forms”, that are present in this record, were “legal” continuances granted at the request or with the consent of the appellant, and any times thereunder are excludable for Speedy Trial Act purposes. If these were legal continuances I could agree with the majority opinion. However, there is not anything on the face of the reset forms, or in the record, which might reflect or indicate that the parties agreed to anything other than a setting date for the next step in the proceedings.-
Records of causes that are pending before this Court, in which the applicability of “Harris County reset forms” to the Speedy Trial Act is at issue, show conclusively that such forms only represent satisfaction of procedural formalities that the criminal courts of Harris County use for docket control purposes, and only reflect that the case was reset to a particular date that was acceptable to the attorneys or the accused; in this instance, to counsel for the appellant. A trial judge in Harris County never approves the reset form; in fact, it is the rare instance when he is even implicated in the reset process; instead, it is the court coordinator who approves same because it is his or her responsibility to maintain control of the docket of the court.
If the word “continuance”, that is used in the Speedy Trial Act, has the same meaning that the word “continuance”, that is used in Chapter 29 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which governs continuances, does, then these “Harris County reset forms” were not legal continuances and cannot be used to exclude any time under the Speedy Trial Act. Doesn’t the majority opinion owe it to the Bench and Bar to discuss this issue? I think so.
Because of the above reasons, and what the majority fails to address, I must respectfully dissent.