Court Opinion

ID: 9771661
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 16:50:30.479328+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:34.919814
License: Public Domain

ON APPELLANT’S motion for rehearing
WOODLEY, Judge.
The trial court, in his charge, instructed the jury that if they found that appellant by means of an assault and by violence robbed Theobald of his money “you will find the defendant guilty as charged in the indictment and assess his punishment at confinement in the penitentiary for life or for any term of time not less than five years.”
Later in the charge the jury was instructed to the effect that if they found appellant had been previously convicted of the offense of burglary in Dallas County and the offense of burglary in Tarrant County, in the cases described in the indictment, and had found appellant guilty of robbery “you will find the Defendant guilty as charged and assess his punishment at imprisonment for life in the penitentiary.”
The verdict reached by the jury read “We, the jury, find *367the defendant guilty and assess his punishment at life imprisonment in the penitentiary.” It was amended by the trial court so as to add, after “guilty,” the words “as charged in the indictment.”
If the jury, having agreed that appellant was guilty of the primary offense of robbery, saw fit to assess his punishment, at confinement in the penitentiary for life it was not necessary that they make any finding as to the prior convictions alleged '• for enhancement of punishment purposes.
Unless the verdict as returned by the jury, construed in the light of the indictment and the court’s charge, includes a find-, ing that appellant has been previously convicted as charged the verdict assessing a life term is a conviction for the primary of-, fense alone. ■ • ■
The trial court did not err in correcting the form of the verdict, so long as the verdict remained the finding of the jury.. He could not, by addition to the verdict, supply a finding that, the jury had not made. Moore v. State, 154 Texas Cr. Rep. 307, 227 S.W. 2d 219.
There was nothing in the verdict which the jury returned to show that the jury had not assessed a life term for the primary offense alone, as authorized by the court’s charge, and' the court was without authority to include another finding.
Under the verdict, the trial court was not warranted in including in the judgment a finding that appellant was convicted of robbery “and of having been twice theretofore convicted of felonies less than capital” and in failing to apply the indeterminate sentence law in the sentence.
The judgment and sentence will be reformed so as to adjudge appellant to be guilty of robbery and to sentence him to a term of not less than 5 years nor more than life.
As reformed, the judgment is affirmed and appellant’s motion for rehearing is overruled.