Court Opinion

ID: 9757932
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 23:04:59.840409+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:45.610266
License: Public Domain

BOB McCOY, Justice,
concurring and dissenting.
I concur with the majority’s holding that we have jurisdiction to address Appellant’s legal sufficiency complaint. I disagree, however, with the holding that the judicial confession is sufficient evidence to support the conviction. Appellant’s guilty plea and judicial confession were conditioned on his ability to challenge the finality of one of his prior convictions and therefore the sufficiency of the evidence of that prior conviction and, necessarily, the sufficiency of the evidence supporting the conviction before us. To hold that Appellant’s conditional judicial confession is sufficient evidence to support his felony DWI conviction is fundamentally unfair because such holding ignores the condition under which the judicial confession was made. I would reach the merits of his claim.1 Because the majority affirms Appellant’s conviction based on his guilty plea and judicial confession, I respectfully dissent.

. See White v. State, 125 S.W.3d 41, 43 (Tex.App.-Houston [14th Dist.] 2003, pet. filed); see also Morgan v. State, 688 S.W.2d 504, 507 (Tex.Crim.App.1985) ("Having thus encouraged pleas of guilty and nolo contendere in exchange for the right to appeal contested pretrial issues, the Legislature surely contemplated a meaningful appeal — one that addresses and decides each issue on its merits.... Just as the plea itself no longer waives the right to complain of pretrial rulings on appeal, so the confession or admission will not bar an appellate court from reaching the merits of the complaint.”).