Court Opinion

ID: 9770428
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 16:04:56.452576+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:17.324796
License: Public Domain

ON MOTION FOR REHEARING.
MORRISON, Judge.
For the first time, on motion for rehearing in this court, appellant contends that his trial was so conducted as to deny him due process as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution.
Appellant makes it clear that he is not attacking the constitutionality of Article 63, the so-called Habitual Criminal Statute. In order that his contention may be fully understood, we quote from his brief:
“The indictment contains recitations of appellant’s prior convictions which were read to the jury before the plea, and before the presentation of evidence, which reading and recitation were so prejudicial that a fair trial on the merits could not thereafter have been had and in effect are a denial of due process, in contravention of the Constitution of the Unitde States of America.”
We have been cited no authority upholding appellant’s contention, and he describes it in argument as a novel one. Much emphasis is laid upon the fact that under our statutory procedure the indictment which contains the allegations of the prior convictions is read to the jury before the accused is required to plead. He says that a great prejudice against the accused is aroused by such act. In the case at bar, the prior convictions were proven during the course of the trial, as they had to be in order to support the allegations in the indictment. If, in fact, the jury were prejudiced against the accused when they learned that he had twice before been convicted of felonies, we are at a loss to understand what difference it could make as to when that prejudice was injected into the case. The trial court in this case, as in all cases' under Article 63, charged the jury that evidence of previous convictions . must not be considered by the jury in considering the guilt or innocence of the accused in the primary offense.
*541The prior offenses were required to be plead and proven, and we can perceive of no deprivation of constitutional rights by these statutes which have been in existence for many years.
Under Texas practice the jury passes upon the facts and also assesses the punishment (if not definitely fixed by law). We know of no means whereby the statutes for enhancement of punishment because of previous convictions could be used other than by the fact of such prior conviction being alleged and proved and the jury instructed as to the purposes of such allegation and proof and its application if they find that the appellant was the person so previously convicted.
To agree with appellant’s contention would be to destroy the enhancement of punishment statutes.
Appellant’s motion for rehearing is overruled.