Court Opinion

ID: 9758244
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 23:17:09.260793+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:48.345191
License: Public Domain

JOHNSON, J.,
filed a concurring and dissenting opinion in which WOMACK, J., joined.
I agree that an appellant may raise the issue of improper admonishments regarding a plea of guilty without having made an objection or raising the issue at trial. *815The purpose of the admonition at issue here is to make sure that the defendant knows about the registration requirement. Only a defendant who already knew about the registration requirement, and thus would not need the admonition, would be in a position to object to the absence of the admonition. However, a person who did not already know about the registration requirement would not know that a required admonition had been erroneously omitted and would, therefore, not object to its absence. I therefore join the Court’s opinion as to its discussion of preservation of error.
The court of appeals erred when it held that appellant had not preserved error as to the inadequate admonition. The proper response by this Court is to remand the cause to the court of appeals and let it consider, in the first instance, the next step in the process-analysis of the harm that may have resulted from the trial court’s failure to properly admonish appellant. It may seem to some to be inefficient to remand when this Court can itself consider that issue, but the role of this Court is to review decisions of the next lower court. In such circumstances as these, there was no decision as to the issue of harm, thus no decision on that issue for this Court to review. For this reason, I respectfully dissent to the Court’s failure to remand this cause to the court of appeals.