Court Opinion

ID: 9597368
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:58:06.696878+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:01:37.863543
License: Public Domain

JOHN CAYCE, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent. There is no evidence in the record of this case showing that appellant did not know of the deportation consequences of his guilty plea.1 Nor is there any evidence that appellant’s knowledge of the deportation consequences would have had any effect on his decision to plead guilty. Because there is no evidence showing that appellant was unaware of the consequences of his plea or that he would not have entered the plea had he known the consequences, the record does not show that appellant’s substantial rights were affected by the error. Lopez v. State, 71 S.W.3d 511, 516 (Tex.App.-Fort Worth 2002, no pet.). I would, therefore, affirm.

. The majority relies on one sentence of dicta in Burnett v. State, 88 S.W.3d 633, 638 (Tex. Crim.App.2002) to support its conclusion that a "silent record” proves that appellant had no knowledge of the deportation consequences of his plea. It is, of course, axiomatic that we cannot accept a disputed allegation of fact as true without a record containing evidence of the alleged fact. A silent record neither proves nor disproves the alleged fact. Because the one sentence in Burnett on which the majority relies is dicta that contravenes axiomatic principles of evidentiary review, I do not consider it to have any precedential value.