Court Opinion

ID: 9654995
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 18:57:13.444053+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:15.331949
License: Public Domain

CLINTON, Judge,
dissenting.
The offense is a species of prostitution denounced by V.T.C.A. Penal Code, § 43.-02(a)(1); it is committed when one “knowingly offers to engage” in sexual conduct (alleged here to be deviate sexual intercourse) for a fee.1
The majority opinion says, “A plain reading of the statute reveals that the particular offense charged is not a specific intent or result-type offense.” At 937. Since the requisite culpable mental state is “knowingly,” that reading rules out acting knowingly “with respect to a result of [one’s] conduct,” leaving acting knowingly “with respect to the nature of [one’s] conduct or to circumstances surrounding [one’s] conduct.” Id., § 6.03(b). As defined the offense does not implicate circumstances surrounding conduct; it goes to nature of that conduct. Thus the State had to prove that appellant was “aware of the nature of [her] conduct.” Ibid.
Since the majority now reverses the judgment of the court of appeals for going about it all wrong in finding against the State, the Court would ordinarily remand for a fresh determination of sufficiency of the evidence.2 But it does not, so alon’.
According to the short scenario written in the majority opinion, one officer “told appellant he wanted a ‘head job,’ ” and appellant replied “that would be $250.00.” Without further ado arrests were made. At 938.
So, the question is whether her responding by merely stating a price (“nature of conduct”) is enough to show appellant was aware that she was making an offer to *942engage in deviate sexual intercourse, as alleged. Her testimony is to the effect that she was not. The majority must believe that simply quoting a price of something is an “offer.” It cites no authority. At 940.
As the law has been developing, our past panel decisions require more, i.e., an inviting query coupled with suggestive bodily movements by accused, Morris v. State, 565 S.W.2d 534 (Tex.Cr.App.1978); an explicit proposal, Iles v. State, 637 S.W.2d 940 (Tex.Cr.App.1982); or, when complainant initiates the encounter, “protracted ‘negotiations,’ in which implied offers were made by both [parties].” McCarty v. State, 616 S.W.2d 194, 197 (Tex.Cr.App.1981); Robinson v. State, 643 S.W.2d 141, 142-143 (Tex.Cr.App.1982). See Thornberg v. State, 655 S.W.2d 239, 241 (Tex.App.—Houston [14th] 1983).
Ozack v. State, 646 S.W.2d 941 (Tex.Cr.App.1983), is the first en banc opinion of this Court on the point, and it is not unanimous. The Ozack majority professed to find “the reasoning of McCarty, supra, controlling,” id., at 943, and, dropping “protracted” from the formulation, still found verbal exchanges about doing acts of deviate sexual intercourse and an expressed agreeableness on the part of accused to do them constituted “‘negotiations,’ in which implied offers were made by both appellant and the [officer].” Ibid.3
Adhering to views expressed in the margin, I would find that a person merely quoting a price in response to being “told” what a complainant undercover officer “wanted” is not enough to show knowingly offering to engage in deviate sexual intercourse.
It is certainly true that, resolving a different issue presented, the Court wrote in Cardenas v. State, 640 S.W.2d 291 (Tex.Cr.App.1982): “The intent that must accompany future sexual contact need not accompany the offer or agreement to engage in sexual conduct.” However, the reason “intent” need not accompany an offer to engage in deviate sexual intercourse is that, unlike “sexual contact,” the definition of deviate sexual intercourse does not include an “intent” element — indeed, it does not require any culpable mental state. That is left to the definition of a particular offense involving deviate sexual intercourse.
From my reading of the opinion below, Mattias v. State, 683 S.W.2d 789 (Tex.App.—Eastland 1984), the court did not hold that “intent to consummate an offer is an element of the offense of knowingly offering to engage in sexual conduct for a fee under ... § 43.02(a)(1),” at 937. The majority is persuaded the court did so hold, and erroneously at that. At 937. However, that “intent to consummate” is not an element of the offense does not ipso facto rule out relevant evidence of intent. Surely an indication that a person “knowingly offer[ed] to engage in deviate sexual intercourse” would be strengthened or weakened by other evidence that the “offeror” did or did not intend to consummate an alleged offer. An intent to consummate leaves little doubt that the offeror is aware of having made an offer to engage in deviate sexual intercourse. In some circumstances a contrary intent might raise a doubt. In my judgment, the Eastland Court was reasoning along those lines, by reiterating that factually appellant “never *943intended” to commit a sexual act et cetera. Mattias, supra, at 790-791.
Here, in words actually spoken, the “offer” is ambiguous at best; absent are “protracted negotiations” looking to a bargain, and there are no other indicia of “implied offers.” The essential ingredients of Ozack are missing. Evidence of an intent not to consummate seems especially germane in these circumstances. Yet, the majority seems to ignore it.4
While “the trial judge was not required to believe appellant’s version,” at 940, in the findings made for the trial court the trial judge manifested his acceptance of her “version” as a matter of fact, but rejected it as a matter of law. The unique “punishment” imposed clearly reflects he was not happy at his work.
For reasons respectively given, since the cause is not to be remanded for further proceedings, I would affirm the judgment, and because the majority does neither, I dissent.
McCORMICK, J., joins.

. The judgment recites that appellant “be punished by a fine of f1.00 and by confinement for none in the Dallas County Jail," and later on she is placed on probation "for a period of 1 day from this date, and then given thirty-five days to pay the one dollar fine. Thus, though he found her guilty, the trial judge provided meaningful insight as to his real evaluation of this prosecution." (All emphasis is mine unless otherwise noted.)

. Addressing the only two reasons for review, cast by the State as "grounds for review," at 936 -937, the majority holds that the court of appeals erred in testing sufficiency of the evidence by testimony and a finding that appellant "never intended to commit a sexual act," and in using "findings and conclusions" of the trial court for that purpose at all. At 937 and 940-941, respectively. Accordingly, having reviewed those two "grounds,” it reverses the judgment of the court of appeals, thereby granting all the relief for which the State prays in its PDR. Because the State did not present a ground for review in its PDR that the evidence is sufficient, that issue is not before the Court. Funderburg v. State, 717 S.W.2d 637, 640-641, n. 3 (Tex.Cr.App.1986). Therefore, the proper judgment here is to remand the cause to the court of appeals for it to review sufficiency under what the majority says is the correct standard. Instead, the majority makes its own examination of record evidence and, finding the evidence sufficient, directly affirms the judgment of the trial court. To its providing sua sponte that inappropriate remedy, I respectfully dissent. Appellant is entitled to rebrief and the Eastland Court to an opportunity to reconsider sufficiency in the light the majority says is right.

. Against that finding this writer dissented [omitting footnotes], viz:
“The meaning of ‘offer/ not defined in the Penal Code, apparently has not acquired a technical or particular meaning even on the civil side. Thus, we are directed by the Code Construction Act ... to read the word in context and construe it according to rules of common usage. Clearly, in context ‘offers to engage' is intend to mean something other than ‘agrees to engage, or engages' in sexual conduct, and in view of the express provision of § 43.02(a)(2) is not to mean ‘solicits another’ to engage in sexual conduct. [After some nuances are excluded by its context,] [w]ha-. tever the remaining reach of 'offer,' that which is shown to have occurred here is not within it. While appellant said she was 'agreeable' to half and half prostitution, still by all accounts she was responding to the initiative of Officer Hill.”

. The majority is too busy lecturing the trial court and the court of appeals that making findings of fact and conclusions of law is an "unauthorized practice." At 938-939. Yet, in the very first case cited by the majority for holding they are not authorized to be filed, the Court nonetheless "read these conclusions, because they furnish us the basis upon which the court adjudged appellant guilty;" thereby informed, the Court found error and reversed the conviction. Morris v. State, 73 Tex.Cr.R. 67, 163 S.W. 709, 710 (1914). Thus findings of fact and conclusions of law do serve a purpose, the trial court is not prohibited from making them and, as an appellant is so often admonished, the State did not object. Judicially erected, such an archaic impediment to ascertaining the true basis on which a trial court finds guilt ought to be similarly removed. I would not fault the court of appeals for doing precisely what the Court did in Morris v. State, supra.