Court Opinion

ID: 9684795
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 14:14:13.548986+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:59.656118
License: Public Domain

OPINION DISSENTING TO DENIAL OF APPELLANT’S MOTION FOR LEAVE TO FILE MOTION FOR REHEARING
CLINTON, Judge.
What is ultimately at issue in this cause is impact of the provisions of Article 44.02, V.A.C.C.P., the right of an accused to appeal a conviction based on a plea of guilty. Companions, this cause, numbered 567,446 in the trial court, and our cause number 65,498, numbered 567,445 below, were submitted together originally and thereafter assigned to the same judge for initial consideration.1 So, a single opinion bearing both cause numbers was delivered by the Court Panel, there being no suggestion from the State of any procedural informity with respect the case at bar — indeed, in its motion for rehearing the State noted, “The trial court then assessed punishment in compliance with the agreed plea recommendation between Appellant and the State.” And surely that is a true statement.
Nevertheless, the opinion of the Court on State’s motion for rehearing sua sponte finds “nothing in the record to suggest that the recommendation had been agreed upon by the prosecutor, appellant and her attorney as the result of a plea bargain.” This, according to the Court, means that appellant’s plea of guilty “waived her right to complain.” However, not a single decision of the Court cited for the proposition that the question of whether a plea is the result of a plea bargain is “a question of fact to be determined from evidence presented at triaf2 implicates Article 44.02, supra. That is to say, none even mentions it, for each addressed other problems.3 And in Craven v. State, 613 S.W.2d 438 (Tex.Cr.App.1981), from which the opinion of the Court on State’s motion for rehearing in the instant case quotes copiously, we did not look to “evidence presented at trial” but to the assertions of the parties and certain notations made on papers on file.
In Craven, supra, inter alia, this Court noted:
“For its part the State informs us, ‘Retaining his right to seek appellate review of the court’s action in denying his motion to quash the information, see Article 44.02, C.C.P., Appellant pled guilty before the Court’.”
*468Accordingly, we “begrudgingly conclude that the trial court did honor a plea bargain ...id., at 489.
The same conclusion should be derived from similar circumstances presented here. I would grant appellant leave to file her motion for rehearing to consider the contentions of the parties.

.Similarly, No. 567,446 was originally filed in the Harris County Criminal Court at Law No. 4, but was soon transferred to No. 3 because No. 567,445 was pending in the latter; from that point the two cases progressed in tandem until December 3, 1979. On that date, previously filed identical motions to quash were overruled by the trial court and in the earlier filed case appellant was tried and found guilty by a jury, which assessed punishment at thirty days confinement and a fine of $500, and the second case, the instant one, was reset for the following day. The guilty plea trial was held and upon the stated recommendation of the prosecutor the trial court assessed punishment in terms identical to that found by the jury the day before.

. All emphasis is mine unless otherwise indicated.

. Rodriguez v. State, 509 S.W.2d 319 (Tex.Cr.App.1974); King v. State, 511 S.W.2d 32 (Tex.Cr.App.1974); Bass v. State, 576 S.W.2d 400 (Tex.Cr.App.1979); Carter v. State, 608 S.W.2d 691 (Tex.Cr.App.1980) and Miller v. State, 608 S.W.2d 931 (Tex.Cr.App.1980), present variations on the Santobello theme—Santobello v. New York, 404 U.S. 257, 92 S.Ct. 495, 30 L.Ed.2d 427 (1971). In each there was claim that a plea bargain of some sort had not been kept by the prosecution, and it is only in that context that appear statements to the effect that the trial court must first decide whether there was a bargain. Here, though, there is no question: the State informs us there was and that it was followed by the trial court.