Court Opinion

ID: 9680243
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 07:27:28.604983+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:27.208670
License: Public Domain

CLINTON, Judge,
concurring.
The Constitution of the State of Texas mandates that before entering upon the duties of office each Judge of this Court, like every other officer and member of the Legislature, swear or affirm that he will faithfully execute the duties of office and “will to the best of my ability preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution and laws” of the State of Texas and of the United States.1 Accordingly, we are obliged to take the law as we find it and follow it, to the end that the law is preserved, protected and defended.
Article 36.19, V.A.C.C.P., alluded to in the dissenting opinion, is rooted in the Old Code. In the Code of Criminal Procedure of 1895 it was Article 723, and purported to require an exception to the court’s charge, either by bill of exception or in motion for new trial, in order for a claimed defect in the charge to be considered on appeal. But, though the learned jurists of the time knew not any mantra, they uniformly insisted that the charge of the trial court conform to the allegations in the indictment which were supported by facts proven in the case 2 —somewhat as this Court recently did in Jackson v. State, 578 S.W.2d 748 (Tex.Cr. App.1979):
“Many cases such as this have recently come before this Court. It is difficult to understand why so many courts are submitting charges to juries which allow the juries to convict defendants for offenses not alleged in the indictment. It would seem much easier when submitting the charge to the jury to correctly charge the jury by following the allegations in the indictment. Also, it would seem that prosecutors would advise trial judges that a charge is incorrect which does not follow the indictment but allows a jury to convict for an offense which has not been alleged in the indictment.”
Id., at 749, n.2. Yet, the lesson of history is that fundamental error in a court’s charge has long been an appellate concern.
*334By no means the first expression but illustrative is Williams v. State, 53 Tex. Cr.R. 2, 108 S.W. 371 (1908). The charged offense was burglary by breaking with intent to commit theft; however, the charge permitted the jury to find guilt if intent was either to commit a felony or theft. Pointing that out, the Court through former Presiding Judge Davidson found and held:
“... The court’s charge authorized a conviction for an offense not charged, to wit, a burglary with intent to commit a felony. Under the following authorities, we are of the opinion that this was error of such moment as requires a reversal of the judgement. [Citations omitted].”3
Thirty two years later the exact same error appeared in charges from the same trial court in two separate cases: Gooden v. State, 140 Tex.Cr.R. 347, 145 S.W.2d 177 (1940) and Gooden v. State, 140 Tex.Cr.R. 351, 145 S.W.2d 179 (1940). For the Court Judge Graves wrote that the authorities sustained the proposition that “the giving of such a charge under an indictment charging burglary with intent to commit the crime of theft is fundamental error, and therefore saves itself without being objected to at the proper time,” id., 145 S.W.2d at 178, and also noted that “the testimony evidences a burglary with intent to commit the crime of theft, and the trial court was in error in charging relative to a burglary with intent to commit a felony” — an error that was also “fundamental,” id., 145 S.W.2d at 179.
The Gooden court relied on and quoted copiously from earlier opinions of the Court — most of them also written by Presiding Judge Davidson. The point that Article 723 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of 1895 did not vitiate the doctrine of fundamental error in a court’s charge was perhaps best made in Grant v. State, 59 Tex. Cr.R. 123, 127 S.W. 173 (1910). Up until then, the Court noted, “It has not been held that a charge which authorizes the conviction of a party for an offense with which he is not charged comes within the purview of Article 723,” id., 127 S.W. at 174.
Under the penal code then in effect theft from the person was committed in one of two ways: first, without the knowledge of the person from whom property was taken and, second, so suddenly as not to allow time to make resistance before the property was taken. The indictment against Grant charged the latter manner. The victim testified, however, that he knew when the watch had been taken from him but for some unexplainable reason he could not, and did not, resist. The trial court charged the jury that it could convict Grant if it found that he had taken the property “without his knowledge or consent.” As former Presiding Judge Davidson pointed out in the opinion of the Court, what the trial court charged was not alleged in the indictment and “therefore could not form the predicate for conviction.” So, the applicability of Article 723 was rejected.
“. . . It is the law in Texas that, in order to convict a party of a crime, he must be charged with an offense, and that conviction must be predicated upon the charge in the indictment, and the facts must support and correspond with the allegations of said indictment. It has not been held that a party may be charged with one offense, and on trial be convicted of an entirely different offense. To sustain this conviction would be to hold that a party could be convicted of a felony without an indictment preferred by a grand jury. This would be directly violative of section 10 of the Bill of Rights.”
Similarly, in Moore v. State, 84 Tex.Cr.R. 256, 206 S.W. 683 (1918), where the indictment alleged receipt of stolen property from some party to the grand jurors unknown but the charge permitted a conviction if received from anyone, known or unknown, the Court, again through Presiding Judge Davidson, stated the law as follows:
*335“Wherever the indictment charges an offense, the facts and the charge of the court must conform to the charges contained in the indictment, and it is fundamentally wrong to authorize a conviction on any state of facts other than those which support the finding of the truth of the indictment.
It is error of a fundamental nature to authorize a conviction for any other offense than that charged, and this is true whether there was an exception reserved or not to the action of the court in so charging.”
Therefore, the judgment of conviction was reversed.
Article 723 became Article 743 in the 1911 Code of Criminal Procedure, and in 1913 it had been amended to delete the phrase that allowed an error in the charge to be claimed for the first time in a motion for new trial. See Acts 1913, p. 278. Concerning the effect of the amendment and the constraints remaining after modification, the Court stated in Wright v. State, 73 Tex.Cr.R. 178, 163 S.W. 976 (1914):4
“... So it is clear that the intent and purpose of the Legislature is that we should not reverse a case because of error in the charge, if error there be, unless it was excepted to at the time of the trial, and not then unless the error appearing from the record was calculated to injure the rights of the defendant, or unless it appears from the record that the defendant has not had a fair and impartial trial. * * * We are powerless to give relief from its provisions so long as it is the law; consequently we are without authority to review the charge of the court unless complained of at the time of the trial, unless fundamental error is presented.” 5
Again the doctrine of fundamental error survived legislative enactment and was held to be without the purview of amended Article 743 — now Article 36.19, V.A.C.C.P.
Moore v. State and Gooden v. State, supra, were followed by the Court in Garza v. State, 162 Tex.Cr.R. 655, 288 S.W.2d 785 (1956), reversing a misdemeanor conviction for possession of beer in a dry area for the purpose of sale. The unanimous opinion was written by Judge Woodley, whose reputation for seeking to shield our criminal justice system from abuse is wellknown.
The trial court had charged the jury to convict if it found that Garza had in his possession “more than 24 bottles having a capacity of not exceeding 12 ounces each, or exceeding the equivalent thereof in any other kind of container, for the purpose of sale ... as charged in the information.” There was no objection to the charge. The question posed by Judge Woodley:
“... In the absence of an objection to the charge, is the defendant in a position to complain that the jury was authorized to convict him upon findings which do not constitute the offense charged in the complaint and information, or in fact constitute any offense?”
The explanation:
“The jury found that appellant possessed more than the equivalent of 24 12-ounce bottles in a dry area. The court erroneously informed the jury that this constituted a violation of law, and authorized them to return a guilty verdict without any finding that the bottles or containers contained beer.”
The answer:
“We have reached the conclusion that the error in the charge is of a fundamental nature and requires that the conviction be set aside.”
The doctrine of fundamental error has thus been shown to be firmly founded and well established in the appellate criminal law of this State. Simple in its application, the doctrine demands no more than that a jury be instructed in terms of the instrument charging an accused with committing *336penal offense to end that trial and conviction, if guilt be found, rest on the accusation and supporting proof. One sworn to uphold the law should have no hesitancy in doing so.
For these amplifying reasons I concur in the opinion and judgment of the Court.

. Article XVI, § 1, Constitution of the State of Texas.

. See generally the review of earlier cases from 1878 forward in Sattiewhite v. State, 600 S.W.2d 277, 281-282 (Tex.Cr.App.1980).

. The nine authorities are cases decided by the Court of Criminal Appeals, the former Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court of Texas.

. Judge Davidson was still on the Court, but A. C. Prendergast was Presiding Judge. The opinion of a unanimous Court was written by Judge Harper.

. All emphasis is supplied throughout by the writer of this opinion unless otherwise indicated.