Court Opinion

ID: 9775496
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 19:00:50.917721+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:57:56.692341
License: Public Domain

CLINTON, Judge,
dissenting.
Appellee was indicted for the felony offense of involuntary manslaughter. The jury found him guilty of the lesser included misdemeanor offense of driving while intoxicated. The trial court sentenced appel-lee to two years confinement in the county jail, a $2,000.00 fine, and a two year suspension of his driver’s license upon his release.
Subsequently the trial court granted ap-pellee’s motion to set aside the judgment, predicated upon his claim that the statute of limitations had run on the misdemeanor offense under Article 12.02, V.A.C.C.P.1 The State appealed this ruling pursuant to Article 44.01, V.A.C.C.P., contending that because appellee had requested the jury instruction authorizing a guilty verdict on the lesser included offense, he should not be heard to rely on the statute of limitations as a bar to conviction. The Beaumont Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court, however, observing that the State had failed to object to the requested instruction, and concluding that “[i]f the State wishes to avail itself of those lesser included offenses, then the State must seek its indictment of the felony offense prior to the running of the statute of limitations on those lesser included offenses.” State v. Yount, 820 S.W.2d 252, at 254 (Tex.App.—Beaumont 1991). Having first refused the State’s petition for discretionary review, we granted its motion for rehearing in order to address the contention that by requesting an instruction on the lesser included offense of driving while intoxicated, and thus avoiding conviction for the felony involuntary manslaughter, appellee has effectively *13waived reliance upon the statute of limitations. See Tex.R.App.Pro., Rule 200(c)(2).
The State cites a host of cases in which this Court has applied a doctrine of invited error. In a number of contexts we have indeed held that a party may not, e.g., request a particular instruction, and then successfully complain on appeal when his request is honored by the trial court. E.g., Tucker v. State, 771 S.W.2d 523, at 534 (Tex.Cr.App.1988).2 The present matter is not quite that straightforward, however. Appellee has never complained that the trial court erred to give the lesser included offense instruction he specifically requested. Indeed, appellee has not complained of any action on the trial court’s part. The issue in this case really boils down to whether limitations is subject to waiver; and if so, whether appellee waived it here by requesting the lesser included offense instruction.3
I.
In almost every court that has considered it, the question of whether limitations can be waived centers around whether it is jurisdictional in nature. See Annotation: Waivability of Bar of Limitations Against Criminal Prosecutions, 78 A.L.R.4th 693. A number of courts have held that the trial court lacks authority to render judgment upon a limitations barred offense. E.g., People v. McGee, 1 Cal.2d 611, 36 P.2d 378 (1934); State v. Muentner, 138 Wis.2d 374, 406 N.W.2d 415 (1987). Others have concluded that limitations is more in the nature of an affirmative defense to prosecution, to be invoked at the option of the defendant; but that it does not otherwise deprive the trial court of the authority to convict. E.g., United States v. Wild, 551 F.2d 418 (C.A.D.C.1977); United States v. Arky, 938 F.2d 579 (C.A.5 1991); State v. Lambrechts, 585 A.2d 645 (R.I.1991); State v. Littlejohn, 199 Conn. 631, 508 A.2d 1376 (1986). Cf. Spaziano v. Florida, 468 U.S. 447, 104 S.Ct. 3154, 82 L.Ed.2d 340 (1984) (not unconstitutional to force a capital murder defendant to waive statute of limitations in order to obtain the benefit of “third option” of an instruction authorizing conviction for a lesser included offense that is otherwise barred by limitations). Some commentators have suggested that limitations should be subject to waiver whether it is perceived as jurisdictional or not, so long as the waiver is knowing and intelligent, and evidence thereof is spread upon the record. See Waiver of the Statute of Limitations in Criminal Prosecutions: United States v. Wild, 90 Harv.L.Rev. 1550 (1977); Comment, The Statute of Limitations in a Criminal Case: Can it be Waived?, 18 Wm. & Mary L.Rev. 823 (1977). At least one court has embraced this approach. Padie v. State, 594 P.2d 50 (Alaska 1979). One state has held limitations to be jurisdictional, but nevertheless subject to waiver pursuant to a particular statutory provision requiring that jurisdictional defects be preserved in the trial court to be entertained on appeal. State v. Larson, 240 Mont. 203, 783 P.2d 416 (1989). Yet another state has a specific statutory provision allowing conviction of lesser included offenses that are otherwise limitations barred if the conviction is had under an indictment charging a greater offense that, although rejected by the jury, was supported by the evidence. State v. Hicks, 495 A.2d 765 (Me.1985).
This Court has not been entirely consistent in its pronouncements regarding limitations. On the one hand we have observed that “[ljimitations are a matter of defense and must be asserted on the trial by the defendant in criminal cases.” Ex parte Ward, 470 S.W.2d 684, at 686 (Tex.Cr.App.1971).4 See also Ex parte Schmidt, *14500 S.W.2d 144 (Tex.Cr.App.1973). Given such a view, one might expect that we had held that limitations is not, in fact, jurisdictional in nature, but is, rather, optional with the defendant, and hence subject to waiver, if not outright forfeiture. That is not the case, however. Long ago our predecessor court, the Court of Appeals, held that “[i]t is not necessary for a defendant relying on the statute of limitations to plead it in bar. It devolves on the prosecuting power to show an offense within the statutory period.” White v. The State, 4 Tex.App. 488, at 490 (1878). The State indicted White for the offense of murder. The jury returned a verdict on the lesser included offense of manslaughter, and White was convicted thereon. He then challenged the conviction by way of a motion in arrest of judgment, claiming that the lesser included offense was barred by limitations. His motion was denied. The Court of Appeals reversed the trial court, however, and dismissed the cause. See also Fuecher v. State, 33 Tex.Cr.R. 22, 24 S.W. 292 (1893).
In McKinney v. State, 96 Tex.Cr.R. 342, 257 S.W. 258 (1923), the defendant was indicted and convicted of the offense of murder. The trial court gave the jury an instruction that should it find McKinney . guilty of any of a number of lesser included offenses that were raised by the evidence but barred by limitations, it should acquit him. McKinney argued that giving the jury an all-or-nothing alternative such as this encouraged the jury to convict him of the greater offense of murder. On rehearing the Court reiterated its rejection of this claim:
“As we understand it, the proposition urged is that the court should have permitted the jury to return a verdict for manslaughter, or some grade of assault, if they found appellant to be guilty of such under the instructions of the court and then have left it to appellant to say whether he would accept the verdict or interpose his plea of limitation later. We cannot agree to the soundness of this contention. The courts are not called upon to do a useless or unnecessary thing, and the learned trial judge recognized that all offenses included under the indictment were barred save that of murder, and it was his duty to instruct the jury as he did.”
Id., at 260. This language seems unequivocally to indicate that limitations is not a matter left to the option of the accused. Instead we viewed it as a matter impacting the authority of the trial court to convict.
In other contexts over the years we also seem to have understood limitations to be jurisdictional. In Ex parte Black, 55 Tex.Cr.R. 121, 113 S.W. 534 (1908), this Court sustained a pre-trial challenge to prosecution for a limitations barred offense. In Ex parte Hoard, 63 Tex.Cr.R. 519, 140 S.W. 449 (1911), we sustained a post-conviction collateral attack on the basis of a limitations bar. In both Ex parte Conway, 118 Tex.Cr.R. 148, 37 S.W.2d 1017 (1931), and Ex parte Morin, 172 Tex.Cr.R. 322, 356 S.W.2d 689 (1962), we entertained, but rejected on the merits, collateral attacks based upon claims that applicants’ convictions were barred by limitations. And in Jackson v. State, 489 S.W.2d 565 (Tex.Cr.App.1973), we reversed a conviction on the. grounds that the applicable statute of limitations had run even though the claim was presented for the first time in a motion for rehearing. None of these avenues of relief would have been open unless this Court understood the running of limitations to deprive the trial court of the authority to convict. E.g., Ex parte Ricketts, 148 Tex.Cr.R. 569, 189 S.W.2d 872 (1945).
In the late 1970’s the Court began to be more direct in its expression that limitations presents a jurisdictional bar. We held, for example, that “if the pleading, on its face, shows that the offense charged is barred by limitations the complaint, information, or indictment is so fundamentally defective that the trial court does not have jurisdiction and habeas corpus relief should be granted.” Ex parte Dickerson, 549 *15S.W.2d 202, at 203 (Tex.Cr.App.1977), citing, inter alia, Ex parte Hoard, and People v. McGee, both supra. The Court in Dickerson went on to observe:
“Usually limitation is a matter which must be asserted as a defense in civil actions and in criminal prosecutions in some jurisdictions; however, our statute provides, as do those of many other jurisdictions, that an indictment must allege the offense was committed at a time not so remote that the prosecution of the offense is barred by limitations. Article 21.02(6), V.A.C.C.P.”
Id. Thus we seem belatedly to have identified the source for our long-time understanding that limitations is jurisdictional not in the language of Chapter 12, V.A.C.C.P., itself, wherein our statutes of limitation are found, but in Chapter 21, Y.A.C.C.P., governing pleading requisites. See also Dickerson v. State, 571 S.W.2d 942 (Tex.Cr.App.1978); Ex parte County, 601 S.W.2d 357 (Tex.Cr.App.1980).
Any notion that an indictment or information that fails to allege facts sufficient to show no limitations bar is insufficient to vest the trial court with jurisdiction, however, cannot survive this Court’s recent holding in Studer v. State, 799 S.W.2d 263 (Tex.Cr.App.1990). There we held that, following the 1985 amendments to Article V, § 12 of the Texas Constitution and Article 1.14(b), Y.A.C.C.P., defects of either form or substance in a charging instrument do not deprive the trial court of authority to proceed to trial and convict. Such defects no longer implicate jurisdiction of the court, and therefore cannot be raised collaterally, or for the first time on appeal, as before. Accordingly, whether we view an insufficient pleading as to limitations as a defect of form, see Article 27.09, § 2, V.A.C.C.P., and Articles 21.02(6) & 21.21(6), V.A.C.C.P., or as a defect of substance, see Article 27.08, § 2, V.A.C.C.P., it can no longer be said to impact the jurisdiction of the trial court.
In view of Studer I agree with the majority that limitations presents no jurisdictional impediment to prosecution. That is to say, unless raised in the trial court in a timely manner, limitations will not operate to divest the trial court of authority to convict.5 The next question is whether in this cause appellee waived limitations in the trial court by requesting a jury instruction authorizing a verdict of guilty of the lesser included offense of driving while intoxicated. It is here that I part company with the majority.
II.
That an indictment or information shows on its face that the offense alleged therein is limitations barred is a matter that now must be raised pretrial, or any error predicated on that defect will be lost “on appeal or in any other postconviction proceeding.” Article 1.14(b), supra; Studer v. State, supra. We cannot fairly expect a defendant to object pretrial, however, to a judgment of conviction for a lesser included offense that is barred by limitations, for, although the lesser included offense will be embraced within allegations of the greater, he has no way of knowing before trial whether the evidence may warrant a jury finding that he is guilty only of the lesser offense. He simply has no valid objection to the indictment under Article 1.14(b), supra. Nevertheless, he must make some kind of objection in the trial court to imposition of judgment on a limitations barred lesser included offense, or else, since limitations is not jurisdictional, he will lose the claim.
In the instant cause appellant did raise his limitations defense in the trial court, via a motion to set aside the judgment. See Tex.R.App.Pro., Rules 33, 34 & 35; White v. The State, supra. The question remains whether he is estopped from raising his claim at this juncture, having himself re*16quested that the jury be authorized to return a verdict of guilty on the lesser included offense. In my view he is not.
A defendant is entitled to an instruction on a lesser offense if it is analytically included within the offense alleged in the indictment, under Articles 37.08 & 37.09, Y.A.C.C.P., and if there is some evidence from which, the jury could rationally conclude that he is guilty only of that lesser included offense. E.g., Bell v. State, 693 S.W.2d 434 (Tex.Cr.App.1985). The evidence in this cause established without dispute that appellee was driving the car in which three passengers were killed, and that he was intoxicated. But there was some dispute, however minimal, as to whether it was he or the driver he struck head-on who was driving on the wrong side of the two lane highway on which the fatal collision occurred. Thus, the record presents a rational basis for the jury to doubt that appellee “caused” the deaths “by reason of [his] intoxication.” V.T.C.A. Penal Code, § 19.05(a)(2). On that basis the jury could rationally acquit him of involuntary manslaughter. Because there was evidence that appellee was guilty only of the lesser included offense of driving while intoxicated, he was entitled under our law to an instruction. The only possible legal justification for denying it is that the lesser included offense was subject to a limitations bar. But because we have concluded that limitations is not jurisdictional, we cannot say that the trial court was without power and authority to give the instruction.6
The State did not object at trial to the lesser included offense instruction. State v. Yount, supra, at 254. The State does not now argue that the trial court erred to give that instruction. Rather, the State maintains that, having given the instruction, the trial court erred to set aside the judgment on the basis of limitations. But I must agree with the observation of the Wisconsin Supreme Court that “[wjhether a defendant is entitled to a lesser included offense instruction and whether the statute of limitations has run on a crime are two separate questions.” State v. Muentner, supra, 406 N.W.2d at 420. A request for a lesser included offense instruction has been held insufficient to constitute a waiver of a limitations defense. Id.; Tucker v. State, 459 So.2d 306 (Fla.1984); Hall v. State, 497 So.2d 1145 (Ala.Cr.App.1986). Contra: United States v. Williams, 684 F.2d 296 (CA 4 1982); State v. Lambrechts, supra. I see nothing inherently contradictory in allowing an accused his right to a jury determination of exactly what grade of offense he committed, while also affording him the protection of a limitations defense should the only offense the jury finds he did in fact commit be barred by limitations.7 It may be argued as a matter of policy that an accused should be required to waive a limitations defense as a condition of obtaining an instruction on a lesser included offense that may be limitations barred. See Tucker v. State, supra; Spaziano v. Florida, supra. That question is not before us in this cause, however, since the instruction here was given unconditionally, and without objection from the State.8
*17The majority draws analogy to, inter alia, State v. Lee, 818 S.W.2d 778 (Tex.Cr.App.1991). In Lee a plurality of the Court reiterated an earlier plurality holding in Bradley v. State, 688 S.W.2d 847 (Tex.Cr.App.1985), that a defendant who fails to object to a jury instruction on voluntary manslaughter as a lesser included offense of murder cannot then complain on appeal, after he is convicted of the lesser included offense, that the evidence is insufficient to establish the necessary element of sudden passion. This holding was premised, however, on the very peculiar interrelationship between the offenses of murder and voluntary manslaughter as defined by the Legislature. See V.T.C.A. Penal Code, §§ 19.02 and 19.04. In essence we said in Bradley that an accused is not entitled to the benefit of both a jury finding that he acted in sudden passion, and an appellate determination that he did not. I do not deem Lee and Bradley controlling here because under the law appellee was entitled both to a lesser included offense instruction, and, absent an express waiver, to a limitations defense.
I would hold that by merely requesting the instruction on the lesser included offense of driving while intoxicated, appellee did not waive his claim that conviction for that offense was barred by the statute of limitations. Appellee was free to raise the issue of limitations in the trial court once the factfinder had found him guilty of the lesser, limitations barred offense. The trial court therefore did not err in granting his motion to set aside the judgment of conviction for that offense.
Accordingly, I would affirm the judgment of the court of appeals. The majority does not, and for that reason I respectfully dissent.

. Article 12.02, supra, reads:
“An indictment or information for any misdemeanor may be presented within two years from the date of the commission of the offense, and not afterward."
This provision has remained essentially unchanged since 1857.

. See also, e.g., Capistran v. State, 759 S.W.2d 121, 124 (Tex.Cr.App.1988) (Opinion on motions for rehearing); Cadd v. State, 587 S.W.2d 736, 741 (Tex.Cr.App.1979); Carriger v. State, 153 Tex.Cr.R. 390, 220 S.W.2d 169 (1949); and all cases cited therein.

. I cannot find in the record where appellee made such a request. Nevertheless, the court of appeals found that he did, and appellee concedes as much in his brief before this Court. I accept the case, therefore, in that posture.

.The Court in Ward relied for this proposition on the opinion of the United States Supreme Court in Biddinger v. Commissioner of Police of the City of New York, 245 U.S. 128, 38 S.Ct. 41, 62 L.Ed. 193 (1917). But even assuming the *14Supreme Court had authority to construe Texas law, it had no occasion to, and did not purport to do so in Biddinger. Whether under Texas law limitations is "a matter of defense [that] must be asserted on the trial” was not before the Biddinger Court.

. In a separate concurring opinion Judge Baird maintains that Studer is inapposite. If that were true, I do not see how we could escape the conclusion that limitations is jurisdictional, since before Studer the Court had always considered limitations to affect the authority of the trial court to convict. See text, ante. Yet Judge Baird also concludes that a limitations defense can be waived, without ever explaining the anomaly of holding that a jurisdictional matter can be subject to waiver.

. In McKinney v. State, supra, we held it was not error to refuse to instruct the jury that it could find McKinney guilty of any of several lesser included offenses, as he had requested. Instead we held the trial court correctly instructed the jury that if it should find he committed one of those offenses rather than the indicted offense of murder, they should acquit him altogether. This may be the only appropriate disposition if we understand limitations to impose a jurisdictional bar to conviction for lesser included offenses. Today the Court concludes, however, and I agree, that limitations no longer presents such a bar.

. This approach has at least one obvious advantage. It prevents the State from deliberately charging an accused with a non-barred greater inclusive offense not warranted by the evidence and forcing him to accept conviction for an otherwise limitations barred lesser included offense. I mean to impute no such overreaching to the State in this cause, of course.

. Spaziano v. Florida, supra, does not hold, as the State suggests, that all defendants, including those in Texas, must waive the statute of limitations in order to invoke the benefit of an instruction on a limitations barred lesser included offense. That is purely a question of state law, beyond the province of the United States Supreme Court. See n. 4, ante. The Supreme Court simply held in Spaziano that it does not violate the Eighth Amendment for Florida to *17require its defendants to waive the statute of limitations as a condition of obtaining an instruction on a limitations barred lesser included offense in a capital murder prosecution. Here the State did not insist on such a waiver in the trial court.