Court Opinion

ID: 9640714
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:13:11.903401+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:31.310959
License: Public Domain

TEAGUE, Judge,
dissenting.
What is going on in this old house that causes this Court to turn the law governing “nunc pro tunc” proceedings topsy-turvy, and the law of post-conviction writ of habe-as corpus upside down, as well as to summarily deny applicant, who has pled an un-controverted case, relief?
The majority opinion states: “So in the instant cause, while in its March 28, 1978 judgment the trial court made a finding that applicant used a firearm ... ”, and also states: “[Gjiven state of the record and holdings of Ex parte Poe, supra, we con-*776elude applicant has failed to show he is entitled to relief.” I have read and re-read footnote 2 in the majority opinion, as well as the original judgment and sentence, but have yet to find anywhere therein where the trial judge who presided over applicant’s trial ever made an “affirmative finding by the use or exhibition of a deadly weapon”. Thus, I do not understand how the majority opinion can make the first statement. Given the facts of Ex parte Poe, 751 S.W.2d 873 (Tex.Cr.App.1988), and the uncontradicted and undisputed facts of this cause, I find that the facts of Ex parte Poe, supra, are about as close to this case as Reykjavik, Iceland is to Austin, Texas. Thus, the majority’s second statement is clearly erroneous.
No hearing has yet been held in this cause. I was under the impression that this Court never ordered a hearing in this cause because it was believed by all that this was one of those “slam-dunk” writ cases in which the applicant had to be summarily granted relief by this Court, as a matter of law. By the majority opinion, I now find that I was mistaken: It is the applicant who is supposed to get summarily “slam-dunked” by this Court, as a matter of law, in Huntsville if not Reykjavik.
At a minimum, given what the applicant asserts, which is not challenged or contradicted by the State, this applicant is clearly entitled to at least a hearing on his post-conviction application for writ of habeas corpus. If it is the will of this Court to hold as it obviously does, see page 8 of the slip opinion, that when an inmate files an application for the post-conviction writ of habeas corpus and pleads a prima facie case, and even though the State does not dispute or contradict his allegations, he not only gets no hearing on his application, but because he cannot prove what he alleges, because he can only do that through a formal hearing, which is not allowed by today’s decision, his application must be summarily denied by this Court, so be it. However, this holding will, of course, cut down on the number of this Court’s post-conviction writ cases, if not outright cause this Court in the future not to have to consider any post-conviction writ cases, notwithstanding why Art. 11.07, V.A.C. C.P., was enacted by the Legislature. See Ex parte Renter, 734 S.W.2d 349 (Tex.Cr.App.1987) (Teague, J., dissenting opinion). Perhaps however, notwithstanding what this Court does today to post-conviction writ practice, Texas’ inmates will find an understanding United States District Court Judge, who will entertain and decide the merits of their post-conviction writs of ha-beas corpus.
The uncontradicted factual allegations that applicant makes in his application, as well as the original records of the trial court, show that applicant was originally charged by an indictment that alleged capital murder and murder. Applicant asserts under oath, which assertion is not challenged by the State, and which the record supports, that pursuant to a plea bargain agreement between him and his attorney, Hon. Jeffrey Kearney,' and the prosecuting attorney, Hon. Tim Curry, it was agreed that in exchange for a plea of guilty from applicant, Curry would motion, and Hon. Charles W. Lindsey, the trial judge who presided over applicant’s trial, who is not the present trial judge, would grant the motion and permit the State to prosecute the applicant only on the murder count of the indictment, which is what Curry and Judge Lindsey did. As a further part of the plea bargain agreement, Curry agreed to recommend to Judge Lindsey that applicant’s punishment should be assessed at 50 years’ confinement in the Department of Corrections, which recommendation was made by Curry and accepted by Judge Lindsey. Another part of the plea bargain agreement was that an affirmative finding as to the use or exhibition of a deadly weapon would not be entered by Judge Lindsey in his judgment of conviction. And all of the above occurred, as reflected by the first judgment that was entered in this cause. See footnote 2 of the majority opinion. Everybody, including applicant, apparently was then happy, and apparently, after the clerk stamped the docket sheet with his preprinted rubber stamp, and filled in the necessary blanks, and also *777filled in his preprinted judgment and sentence form, reflecting what had happened in applicant’s cause, everybody then went to their respective homes, or elsewhere, obviously believing and congratulating themselves that justice had been done in the case.
Everything was apparently rocking along pretty good for applicant until December, 1987, when out of the blue, and sua sponte, almost 11 years later, an official of the Department of Corrections wrote Judge Lindsey a letter, asking him to “clarify” the situation about whether or not he had entered in the applicant’s judgment of conviction, or intended to enter in the judgment an affirmative finding that a deadly weapon had been used or exhibited during the commission of the offense by the applicant. Given the fact that Judge Lindsey was no longer the presiding judge of the trial court, I assume that the judge who signed the “Nunc Pro Tunc Order Correcting Minutes of the Court”, whose signature I cannot make out, accepted the letter and referred it to the District Attorney’s Office. Another trial judge, Hon. Jack Gray, thereafter signed the order denying applicant a hearing and finding that “the allegations contained in the State’s answer are correct and recommends the relief requested be denied.”
It is apparent to me that when the letter addressed to Judge Lindsey was referred to the District Attorney of Tarrant County, he, the District Attorney, turned it over to one of his assistants to handle, after which the assistant thought about the problem for awhile and then concluded that what he had remembered from law school about nunc pro tunc law would take care of the problem, and then proceeded to draw up a “Nunc Pro Tunc Order Correcting Minutes of the Court”, which contained an affirmative finding that applicant had used or exhibited a deadly weapon during the commission of the offense, and thereafter had it approved and entered of record. A copy of same was then sent the Department of Corrections.
Although this “ex parte nunc pro tunc proceedings” probably satisfied the official of the Department and the Department, it, however, for obvious reasons, and understandably, did not set too well with applicant, which I can understand why, if he did, he bitched louder than a stuck pig might holler. Of course, when he gets a copy of the majority opinion, I suspect that the members of this Court will be able to hear his screams all the way from wherever he might then be located or situated, unless he has in the meantime been transferred to Eeykjavik, Iceland and is now located in a padded cell which causes his screams not to be heard even from that far away place.
Given the uncontradicted facts that applicant has pled, he is clearly entitled at least to a hearing, if not out right relief. To the way that the majority opinion mistreats and “slam-dunks” applicant’s petition, without according him a semblance of due course or due process of law, I respectfully say “Shame on you”, and dissent to such action.