Court Opinion

ID: 9775464
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 18:59:38.571827+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:26.426336
License: Public Domain

CLINTON, Judge,
concurring.
Since this Court has just about wrestled down the issue of whether an announcement of ready for trial on one indictment by the State carries over to a subsequent indictment alleging an offense arising out of the same transaction, we need to rule out some of the fouls committed in the long match.
The Texas Speedy Trial Act, essentially Article 32A.02, Y.A.C.C.P. (Act), is based on a concept that a “criminal action” embraces a “transaction” out of which may arise one or more statutorily defined “offenses.” Article 32A.02, § 2(a) and (c). To move speedily along to final disposition of the whole of the criminal action, the Act is designed so that after analyzing the transaction the State is required “promptly to sort out its offenses, obtain one or more charging instruments and get ready for trial within the prescribed period of time from commencement of the criminal action.” Rosebury v. State, 659 S.W.2d 655 (Tex.Cr.App.1983) (Concurring Opinion, at 657). The Court acknowledged in its opinion on original submission in this cause, “The prescribed periods of time in § 1 of Article 32A.02 may not be elongated by stringing out successive ‘reindictments’ for the various offenses committed in that transaction far beyond the limitations imposed.”
As a general proposition the State must be prepared to be, and timely to announce, ready on each and every offense it opts to charge from the same transaction. The key is the fact that one or more statutory elements of each offense are usually different from every other one arising out of the same transaction. Thus, an announcement in one will not suffice for any other different offense.
Today the Court correctly rejects the global rationale of Denson v. State (Tex. Cr.App. No. 63,428, delivered July 7, 1982, this day decided), viz: “Since the Speedy Trial Act takes into account and treats together all offenses arising from the same transaction, announcements of ready or *158continuances granted one offense will apply to another offense when both offenses arise out of the same transaction.” Slip Opinion, at 3. That construction is untenable under the Act, and to effectuate it would destroy the Act.
Some opinions have spoken in other terms, i.e. “case.” However, as explained in Behrend v. State, 729 S.W.2d 717 (Tex. Cr.App.1987), the Act is not concerned with a “case.” At 722. Others have looked at offenses in light of common matters of admissible evidence. But since the whole notion is timely to dispose of all offenses the State chooses to charge, and thereby finally terminate the criminal action, it follows that when raised courts must address issues of readiness in terms of elements of the offenses in question. Readiness on one is not necessarily readiness on all.
With those observations I join the judgment of the Court.