Court Opinion

ID: 9764253
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 03:17:01.022762+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:55.320575
License: Public Domain

TEAGUE, Judge,
concurring and dissenting.
Paris Rene Duhart, appellant, concedes that at trial he did not request a separate punishment hearing and also did not object to the failure of the trial judge to conduct a separate hearing on punishment after the trial judge had adjudicated his guilt. His contention, that the failure of the trial court to conduct a separate punishment hearing violated the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, as well as Art. I, Sec. 19, Texas Constitution, was presented and rejected for the first time on appeal. See Duhart v. State, 652 S.W.2d 824 (Tex.App.—Ft. Worth 1983).
The majority holds: “Under the circumstances in the instant case, we find no merit in appellant’s sole ground of error.” [Emphasis Added]. I find that the underscored language leaves the reader with the impression that, given another but different set of circumstances, appellant would have been entitled to a punishment hearing, even if he had not requested a punishment hearing and also had failed to make an objection to the failure of the trial court to conduct a punishment hearing. However, where there has been no request for a punishment hearing, and no objection was ever properly and timely voiced to the lack of a punishment hearing, this will always cause such a complaint, that there was no punishment hearing, to be without merit.
This Court in Rogers v. State, 640 S.W.2d 248 (Tex.Cr.App.1981), also see Wright v. State, 640 S.W.2d 265 (Tex.Cr.App.1982), recently held that the defendant could not for the first time on appeal complain of the failure of the trial court to hold a second hearing. In that cause, the trial court had conducted a hearing on the State’s motion to revoke the defendant’s probation and found that the defendant had violated his probation, but then deferred the matter. Much later, and without any second hearing, to which no objection was voiced, the trial court ordered the defendant’s probation revoked. On appeal, the defendant complained of the failure of the trial court to hold and conduct a second hearing before he ordered the defendant’s probation revoked. This contention was rejected by a majority of this Court, which expressly held that before the defendant was entitled to complain on appeal of the lack of a second hearing, it was first necessary for him to have made “some type of due process objection, either at the time the judge continues the hearing and/or probation, or at the time of actual revocation or at the time of sentencing. Failure to make such an objection waives any error.”
Because there is no difference in principle between Rogers v. State, supra, and Wright v. State, supra, and this cause, I would simply hold that appellant has waived his right to complain on appeal about the absence of a punishment hearing, either because he did not request one or because he failed to object to the trial court’s failure to hold one.
*390Although the majority is correct that Article 42.12, Section 3d(b), V.A.C.C.P., does not mandate that a separate punishment hearing must be held, after the trial court has adjudicated the defendant’s guilt, nevertheless, had appellant properly and timely urged in the trial court the complaint he makes on appeal, I would hold that either due process or due course of law mandates such a hearing, and would have sustained appellant’s contention. See Daniels v. State, 615 S.W.2d 771, 773 (Tex.Cr.App.1981) (Teague, J. Dissenting Opinion), and McDougal v. State, 610 S.W.2d 509, 511 (Tex.Cr.App.1981) (Teague, J. Concurring Opinion).
Because the majority reaches the right result, I concur. To its holding that neither due process nor due course of law mandates such a hearing, when a timely and proper request or objection has been made, I dissent.