Court Opinion

ID: 9692273
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 15:49:29.979402+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:33.770216
License: Public Domain

KEM THOMPSON FROST, Justice,
concurring.
At a hearing on appellant’s motion for new trial, the trial court noted its concern about an issue raised by the motion and requested additional briefing from counsel. Apparently, the trial court intended to study the issue more before ruling. The trial court then announced an incorrect deadline for ruling on the motion — a date that was past the expiration of the court’s jurisdiction. Although the trial court stated that it would welcome assistance in calculating the deadline, appellant’s counsel failed to bring the miscalculation to the trial court’s attention. Later, the trial court tried to grant appellant the requested relief by signing an order for a new trial. The order, however, came two days late, at a time when the court’s jurisdiction had expired.
Our task on appeal is to determine (1) if appellant received ineffective assistance of counsel because his trial attorney failed to correct the trial court’s miscalculation of the deadline for granting a new trial; and, (2) if so, whether appellant suffered prejudice as a result of the error. See Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687-92, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984); Hernandez v. State, 726 S.W.2d 53, 55-57 (Tex.Crim.App.1986).
The first prong of the analysis turns on whether defense counsel has a duty to correct a court’s stated misunderstanding of the critical deadline for granting a motion for new trial. The dissent asserts “no court has ever ruled that attorneys have a duty to tell the court when to rule,” but that is not exactly what happened here. This is not a case in which the lawyer merely failed to chart out the deadlines for the court’s convenience or information; rather, the trial court made its mistaken belief manifest, affirmatively identifying an erroneous deadline. Verifying the deadline the court identified would have been a simple arithmetic exercise. Appellant’s counsel, however, did not respond to the court’s invitation to assist in calculating the deadline, nor did appellant’s counsel correct the trial court or inform the court of the true deadline. Instead, appellant’s counsel allowed the court to labor under a misunderstanding of the facts.
A lawyer has an affirmative duty to correct the court’s mistaken belief on crucial facts. See, e.g., Burley v. Cabana, 818 F.2d 414, 417-18 (5th Cir.1987) (holding appellant’s counsel was ineffective under Strickland because counsel failed to correct trial court’s erroneous statement that it believed a life sentence was mandatory). Though no court appears to have confronted the precise facts presented by our record, in Crowell v. State, 949 S.W.2d 37, 38 (Tex.App.-San Antonio 1997, no pet.), the Fourth Court of Appeals faced a similar situation. In Crowell, the appellant’s lawyer failed to bring to the trial court’s attention the fact that the hearing on appellant’s motion for new trial fell on a date that came after the court’s jurisdiction would expire. The Crowell court held that “the burden of ensuring that the hearing [on a motion for new trial] is set for a date *602within the trial court’s jurisdiction is properly placed on the party presenting the motion.” Id. Thus, it follows that the burden is on appellant, as movant for a new trial, to ensure that any manifest mistake by the trial court in calculating the deadline for ruling is brought to the trial court’s attention.
Absent evidence of counsel’s reasons for the challenged conduct, we indulge a strong presumption that it falls within the wide range of reasonable, professional assistance, i.e., that the challenged action might be considered sound trial strategy. See Jackson v. State, 877 S.W.2d 768, 771 (Tex.Crim.App.1994). Even though the record contains no testimony as to the reasons for appellant’s counsel’s actions, the presumption is overcome in this case because no strategic motivation for the conduct can be imagined. See Garcia v. State, 57 S.W.3d 436, 440 (Tex.Crim.App.2001) (noting that appellate courts commonly will assume a strategic motivation if any can possibly be imagined); Lawson v. State, 896 S.W.2d 828, 830-33 (Tex.App.-Corpus Christi 1995, pet. ref'd) (holding counsel was ineffective where there was no conceivable trial strategy to explain counsel’s conduct). It is inconceivable that any defense lawyer, as a matter of strategy, would fail to correct the court’s stated miscalculation of the days left to rule, particularly when a new trial hung in the balance. Appellant’s counsel, while obviously effective in terms of persuading the trial court to grant appellant a new trial, was ineffective in failing to correct the trial court’s mistaken belief as to the deadline for ruling. See Burley, 818 F.2d at 417-18. Under the circumstances presented by this record, once the trial court made its mistaken belief manifest, it was incumbent upon appellant’s counsel to inform the court of the error so that the court could take timely action. See id. The failure to do so constitutes ineffective assistance of counsel.
The second, prejudice prong of Strickland is also satisfied. As a result of the uncorrected miscalculation, the trial court’s order granting the new trial did not have its intended effect, and appellant lost the benefit of the new trial he surely would have had if only the trial court’s order had been timely. The dissent misses the mark in arguing that the court should refuse to consider the belated order granting a new trial in assessing prejudice. Though the dissent correctly characterizes the belated order as a legal nullity, it is not invisible for purposes of evaluating appellant’s ineffective-assistance claim. Because the order is part of the record on appeal, the appellate court may consider it — not to show that appellant received a new trial (indeed, he did not), but to show what the trial court would have done had it been clothed with the jurisdiction to act. Here, the harm that resulted from counsel’s failure to correct the court’s manifest misunderstanding can hardly be questioned. The new trial the court intended to grant to appellant was lost with the trial court’s jurisdiction. That loss constitutes prejudice under the second prong of Strickland. See Strickland, 466 U.S. at 691-95, 104 S.Ct. 2052; Hernandez, 726 S.W.2d at 55-59.
Because appellant has satisfied both prongs of Strickland, he is entitled to relief. See Strickland, 466 U.S. at 687-92, 104 S.Ct. 2052; Hernandez, 726 S.W.2d at 55-57. For this reason, I respectfully concur in the result.