Court Opinion

ID: 9761154
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 01:32:54.243944+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:20.433090
License: Public Domain

ELLIS, Justice,
dissenting.
Finding myself in disagreement with the other members of the panel, I would like to record my respectful dissent.
The evidence of appellant’s guilt is overwhelming. At trial Sherry Hale, an employee of O’Brien’s Food Market, identified a picture that showed the check which she cashed and the person who represented himself as Robert Morgan, the check’s payee. This photograph was taken by Sherry Hale when she cashed the check. It was a split image picture of the check and appellant’s face. Appellant handed her the check and a Department of Public Safety identification card which contained his photograph, but listed his name as Robert Morgan. Mrs. Hale wrote the identification card number on the back of the check before cashing it. Constable John Victor, who had known appellant for thirty (30) to thirty five (35) years, testified that he was shown the picture taken at the O’Brien Market and he identified appellant as the man who was allegedly Robert Morgan. M.A. Mueller, a Baytown police detective, recalled that Constable Victor identified a picture of a man who passed the forged check at O’Brien’s and a picture from the Department of Public Safety as that of appellant. When Mueller arrested appellant, over a year later, the detective found on appellant’s person a driver’s license is*248sued to Marc Allen Duncan of Houston with a picture of appellant. The president of Casual, Inc., the drawer of the check, testified that no one, other than himself, had authority to sign a check on the company’s account and that he did not authorize Paula J. Beasley, who signed for the company, or Robert Morgan to pass the check.
Appellant testified on his own behalf. He admitted that he had driver’s licenses in the names of Irvin Lewis, Marc Allen Duncan, and Freddie Brown. He denied signing or presenting the forged check.
Before trial, appellant filed his application for probation, swearing that he had never before been convicted of a felony. However, during the punishment hearing appellant testified that he had been granted probation for a forgery conviction in 1977. After the testimony at the punishment stage of the trial, appellant’s trial attorney asked permission of the court to withdraw appellant’s application for probation. Appellant was permitted to withdraw his application for probation.
The trial court appointed a different attorney to represent appellant on appeal. On June 14, 1983, the record was approved by the trial court and on June 21, 1983, it was received and filed with this Court. On July 11, 1983, appellant filed his “Motion to Extend Time to File Brief”. In his motion, appellant asked for an extension of 50 days in which to file his brief so that the record, in the interim, could be supplemented by testimony from a hearing scheduled in the trial court on August 2, 1983, on his application for a writ of habeas corpus. On July 21, 1983, this Court denied appellant’s motion to extend time to supplement the record and instructed appellant to file his brief by August 1, 1983.
On July 25, 1983, appellant’s counsel filed a motion to abate the appeal to allow an evidentiary hearing to be conducted on the issue of the effectiveness of appellant’s trial counsel. On August 4, 1983, this Court denied appellant’s request to abate the appeal. Instead, this Court issued a per curiam opinion in which it abated the appeal on its own motion to allow the trial court to take remedial action to assure that a brief is filed in behalf of appellant who is indigent. On August 6, 1983, appellant filed a motion for rehearing on the denial of his motion for abatement to conduct an evidentiary hearing. On August 18, 1983, this Court overruled appellant’s motion for rehearing.
On September 15, 1983, appellant filed a Petition for Discretionary Review to the Court of Criminal Appeals in which he complained that this Court had erred in denying his motion to abate the appeal for an evidentiary hearing to determine whether his trial counsel had provided effective assistance. On January 11, 1984, appellant’s petition for discretionary review was refused by the Court of Criminal Appeals. On February 22, 1984, appellant filed a Motion for an Evidentiary Hearing in the trial court in which he again requested a hearing to determine whether appellant received effective assistance of counsel at trial. The trial court granted the appellant’s request and the evidentiary hearing was conducted on April 3, 1984. Thereafter, the supplemental record was completed and finally approved by the trial court on May 18, 1984. This supplemental record was filed with this court on May 21, 1984.
Appellant’s first ground of error alleges that appellant was denied effective assistance of counsel because his trial attorney failed to have set aside a prior forgery probation conviction which caused appellant’s probation application to be withdrawn. Appellant alleges that his prior probation was premised upon a fundamentally defective information.
The State in its brief requests us to disallow the supplementation of the record. The record was supplemented, though we denied such a request, during a period of abatement due to appellant’s counsel failure to file a brief. The State argues that if we accept the supplementation, our approval of counsel’s actions would throw the entire appellate process into disorder.
I do not think it is a matter of approving counsel’s actions. Rather, it is a question *249of whether the trial court had power to conduct the evidentiary hearing after the appellate process had started and then abated, when we had denied a request for such a hearing. I believe that the trial court did have the power to conduct the evidentiary hearing. The trial judge may, under TEX.CODE CRIM.PRO.ANN. art. 40.09(7) (Vernon Supp.1984), conduct a hearing to make the record speak the truth where the record is incorrect as to what transpired at trial or where the record is silent as to the truth of what occurred at trial. Schroeder v. State, 543 S.W.2d 382 (Tex. Crim.App.1976). Article 40.09(7) provides in part:
... If the trial court deems that a supplemental record or any other modification of the record be necessary to make the record speak the truth, for any reason, with or without objections from the state or the defendant, and whether on the court’s own motion or the motion of either party or by order of the court of appeals or the Court of Criminal Appeals, the defendant and the state shall be notified by certified or registered mail of same and be given five days from receipt of notice for objections to such modification or supplementation.
In fact, once a case is abated, it is abated for all purposes. “After receipt of the appellate court’s mandate of abatement, the trial court still has control over the case until the supplemental record again reaches the appellate court.” Duncan v. Evans, 653 S.W.2d 38, 40 (Tex.Crim.App. 1983), quoting 26 Tex.Jur., Criminal Law, Section 4195, page 533.
In many cases, the Court of Criminal Appeals said the abatement should be treated as if no appeal had been filed in the appellate court: Williams v. State, 458 S.W.2d 932 (Tex.Crim.App.1970) (where no transcription of court reporter’s notes nor appellate brief in the record and abatement was for trial court proceedings as if appeal had not been filed, which may include providing the appellant with effective aid of counsel on appeal); Weeks v. State, 459 S.W.2d 639 (Tex.Crim.App.1970) (where there was in the record no transcription of reporter’s notes and no appellate brief had been filed on behalf of defendant, appeal abated for trial court proceedings as if appeal had not been filed to determine whether appellant was indigent and whether trial counsel should be allowed to withdraw); Akin v. State, 464 S.W.2d 652 (Tex. Crim.App.1971) (where no transcription of the court reporter’s notes and no appellate brief in the record and appeal was abated for trial court proceedings as if the appeal had not been filed). Judge Patricia Lykos was acting within her power when she held the evidentiary hearing. Appellant’s appellate attorney stated on the record that the purpose of the hearing was to “determine or make the record ... speak the truth.” I would accept the supplementation of the record.
Since I would accept the supplemented record, I will now determine if appellant was denied effective assistance of counsel. The Supreme Court in Strickland v. Washington, — U.S. -, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984), established a two prong test to determine if counsel’s assistance was so defective as to require reversal of a conviction. The court requires that:
First, the defendant must show that counsel’s performance was deficient. This requires showing that counsel made errors so serious that counsel was not functioning as the “counsel” guaranteed the defendant by the Sixth Amendment. Second, the defendant must show that the deficient performance prejudiced the defense. This requires showing that counsel’s errors were so serious as to deprive the defendant of a fair trial, a trial whose result is reliable. Unless a defendant maxes both showings, it cannot be said that the conviction or death sentence resulted from a breakdown in the adversary process that renders the result unreliable.
After a review of the totality of representation, I find that appellant has demonstrated that he was denied effective assistance of counsel. Appellant has met the *250first prong of the test by showing that his attorney’s performance was deficient. Appellant asserts that his prior conviction was based upon a fundamentally defective information. The-allegedly defective information, which appears in the supplemental transcript, reads in pertinent part:
“... and with the intent to defraud and harm, forge the writing duplicated below by passing it (knowing it was forged) to BEATRICE MORENA....”
The Court of Criminal Appeals has held that a forgery indictment which fails to allege that the writing purported to be the act of another “who did not authorize that act” rendered the indictment fundamentally defective. Minix v. State, 579 S.W.2d 466, 467 (Tex.Crim.App.1979); Ex Parte Davis, 583 S.W.2d 794, 795 (Tex.Crim.App. 1979). Under Minix and Ex Parte Davis, the information was clearly defective. Appellant’s trial attorney should have filed a post conviction application for writ of habe-as corpus to have the prior felony probation conviction set aside and declared void. Ex Parte Ormsby, 676 S.W.2d 130 (Tex. Crim.App.1984). Instead, he failed to investigate whether appellant’s prior felony conviction was a valid conviction. If he had investigated the prior conviction, he would have discovered that the conviction could be set aside and declared void because it was based on defective information.
As for the second part of the Strickland test, I find that the attorney’s deficient performance prejudiced appellant’s defense and deprived him of a fair trial, one with reliable results. If the prior probation conviction had been set aside, the jury would never have known of the previous conviction. Appellant could have maintained his application for probation and the jury could have considered his application for probation. Clearly, appellant was denied effective assistance of counsel.
I feel that this case should be reversed because the appellant was denied a fair trial.