Court Opinion

ID: 9767855
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 05:30:58.212226+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:33.909899
License: Public Domain

ODOM, Judge
(concurring).
I concur in the opinion of the majority that reversal is required in this case because the record does not contain suffi*9cient language to show that it did in fact plainly appear to the trial court that appellant in pleading guilty was uninfluenced by any consideration of fear. See my concurring opinion in Cameron v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 508 S.W.2d 618, 619.
The dissent would find the single general question “Are you pleading guilty because you are guilty and for no other reason?” sufficient to determine whether a defendant is uninfluenced by any consideration of fear or by persuasion or delusive hope of pardon.1 Clearly this single general question cannot in one sweep make the absence of all such elements plainly appear.
Mitchell v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 493 S.W.2d 174, and Espinosa v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 493 S.W.2d 172, were properly decided and the reasoning expressed therein remains sound. On the total set of facts as stated in those cases, this Court found support for the conclusion that the requisites for accepting a guilty plea plainly appeared to the trial court. True, this Court therein noted that no magic words are required to comply with Article 26.13, V.A.C.C.P. The dissent asserts that “Are you pleading guilty because you are guilty and for no other reason?” are the magic words which show compliance. It is the total factual situation as reflected in the record, and not some elaborate or shorthand magic formula, that must be considered before determining whether the record contains sufficient language to show the requisites did, in fact, plainly appear.
The dissenting opinion’s effort to distinguish Ex parte Scott, Tex.Cr.App., 505 S.W.2d 602, is not convincing. Scott was reversed not upon the absence of the single general question urged by the dissent as controlling here, but upon the failure of the trial court to “determine if the pleas were voluntarily made uninfluenced by fear, persuasion, or promises,” after examination of the entire record. This Court in Scott made no suggestion whatsoever that the single question formula urged by the dissent would have been sufficient had it been asked. Scott, like the instant case, did not reflect sufficient inquiry by the trial court to justify the conclusion that the stated conditions'plainly appeared.
MORRISON, J., joins in this concurring opinion.

. Although the dissent in this ease only asserts that the general question was sufficient to reflect no influence by reason of fear, the logic that “for no other reason” must negate any influence of fear certainly would apply with equal force to negate any influence by persuasion and any influence by delusive hope of pardon. Necessarily, then, the logic of the dissent would dictate that the single question “Are you pleading guilty because you are guilty and for no other reason?” is sufficient to make it “plainly appear” that there is no other influence, to-wit, fear, persuasion, delusive hope of pardon. Or at most, the dissent’s logic would require the asking of “no other reason” thrice, tliusly: “no other reason? ... no other reason? . no other reason?”, once for each “other reason” which must plainly appear to be of no influence, and then, like the Bellman in Lewis Carroll’s “The Hunting of the Snark”, proclaim, “What I tell you three times is true.”