Court Opinion

ID: 9681463
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 07:50:58.706033+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:34.108800
License: Public Domain

OPINION
WARREN, Justice.
A jury convicted appellant of aggravated robbery; the trial court found the enhancement allegation to be true and assessed his punishment at 18 years confinement. We affirm.
In his first ground of error, appellant alleges that the trial court erred in overruling his motion to strike the jury panel. After the jury had been sworn, the defense counsel dictated the following motion into the record:
At this time, Your Honor, comes now the defendant, Chester Metiers, by and through his attorney of record, Walter Pink, and would respectfully object to the jury as it is situated at this time. We would like to point out to the judge that the state has unconstitutionally, systematically excluded all blacks from the jury panel. There were some eight from the array. I did not use any of my strikes for blacks, as such. The state has used eight of its ten strikes for blacks improperly and it is an attempt to eliminate the minority.
The defendant is black and we would like the record to reflect that the state used its peremptory challenges. We would ask that this jury panel be struck and another panel brought forth.
The prosecutor responded to this motion as follows:
There is no evidence whatsoever, not even one scintilla of evidence that there was any systematic exclusion of any group based on race, and I would object to counsel saying it in those terms on the record, and I would at this time object to the record reflecting that.
The trial court denied the motion to strike the jury panel. Appellant later made a motion for new trial on the same basis, and the trial court overruled the motion for new trial.
Mere allegations of the use of peremptory challenges to strike qualified blacks from a jury venire is not sufficient to establish prohibited systematic exclusion of blacks in selection of a petit jury. Evans v. State, 622 S.W.2d 866 (Tex.Crim.App.1981); Cano v. State, 663 S.W.2d 598 (Tex.App.—Austin 1983, no pet.); see also Swain v. Alabama, 380 U.S. 202, 85 S.Ct. 824, 13 L.Ed.2d 759 (1965). Appellant argues that Swain and its progeny should be overruled or reinterpreted to allow a criminal defendant to make a prima facie case of unconstitutional discrimination by the state in its peremptory strikes by showing that the prosecutor struck every member of a minority group on the venire. However, as an intermediate court, we are bound to follow the rules enunciated by the Court of Criminal Appeals. Tex.Code Crim.P.Ann. art. 4.04, sec. 2 (Vernon Supp.1985). Appellant’s first ground of error is overruled.
In his second ground of error, appellant alleges that the trial court erred in overruling his objection to the use of the enhancement offense. The state originally alleged two enhancement paragraphs, but it abandoned the first enhancement paragraph at the time of trial. Appellant objected to the use of the second enhancement paragraph as follows:
At this time, Your Honor, the defendant would respectfully ask first to quash the second paragraph in that the defendant did not sign a waiver of trial by jury.... We ask the motion to quash because he failed to sign a waiver of trial by jury in that particular case as required by law. We would ask that that would be quashed....
When the state offered into evidence at the punishment hearing appellant’s “pen packet” for the enhancement offense, appellant again objected:
Again, we would renew our objection to the one count that is in the indictment. We renew our objection that there was no waiver of a jury trial in that one.
*90The trial court overruled appellant’s objection. Appellant offered no evidence in support of his motion to quash the enhancement paragraph.
The judgment from the enhancement offense contains the following recitation:
The defendant, in person and in writing, in open court, having waived his right of trial by jury (such waiver being with the consent and approval of the court and now entered of record in the minutes of the court, and such waiver being with the consent and approval of the District Attorney in writing and filed in the papers of this cause), waived arraignment and formal reading of the indictment, and in open court, pleaded guilty to the charge contained in the indictment.
The recitations in a judgment are presumed to reflect the events of the trial as they actually occurred, and a defendant who alleges that a judgment erroneously shows a jury waiver must present evidence to support his claim. Breazeale v. State, 683 S.W.2d 446, 451 (Tex.Crim.App.1985) (op. on reh’g). Appellant’s second ground of error is overruled.
In his third ground of error, appellant alleges that the trial court erred in admitting into evidence a pen packet containing judgments and sentences in a 1958 arson conviction and a 1959 theft conviction out of Dallas County. Appellant objected to the introduction of these documents on the basis that he was not represented by counsel at the sentencing hearings in either case.
Both judgments reflect that appellant was represented by counsel at the guilt-innocence stage of each trial. However, neither sentence reflects representation by counsel or waiver of counsel at the punishment stage at either trial. The order revoking probation for the arson charges reflects that appellant was represented by counsel at that hearing.
A defendant has the burden of presenting proof that he did not have counsel at a sentencing hearing where the judgment recites that he was represented by counsel at the guilt-innocence stage of the trial, and the judgment and sentence were entered on the same day after a plea of guilty. Turner v. State, 486 S.W.2d 797 (Tex.Crim.App.1972). In both prior offenses included in the exhibit in the instant case, the judgment and sentence were entered on the same day after pleas of guilty, and appellant failed to prove that he was not represented by counsel at the punishment hearing in either case. Appellant’s third ground of error is overruled.
The judgment of the trial court is affirmed.
Publish. Tex.R.Crim.App. P. 207.