Court Opinion

ID: 9672636
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:58:18.619798+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:17.605547
License: Public Domain

TEAGUE, Judge,
dissenting.
In this cause, it should not be open to question that had counsel on direct appeal for Jose Manuel Maldonado, applicant, or any member of the panel of this Court which decided his cause, see the unpublished opinion of Maldonado v. State, 629 S.W.2d 957 (Tex.Cr.App.1982), which panel was composed of Judges Odom, Davis, T., and Clinton (who is the author of the majority opinion in this cause), observed that the trial court’s charge was fundamentally defective, Maldonado’s conviction would have been set aside in 1982, because the error in the trial court’s charge to the jury caused the verdict of the jury to be erroneous, because the jury was not required to find *117essential elements of the offense of aggravated robbery beyond a reasonable doubt; a more egregious error of which I am unable to imagine can occur.
I must ask the majority: If Maldonado is not entitled to post-conviction relief because he was convicted by a jury on an erroneously and fundamentally defective jury charge, then why is he not entitled to relief because of ineffective assistance of counsel on appeal, or why is he not entitled to relief because of the Panel’s error in not “catching” the error in the charge when the cause was before the panel on direct appeal?
Something is sadly wrong with our system when one such as Maldonado does not obtain relief because of the egregious error that was present in his trial, as well as the manner in which his appeal was handled.
We learn today, however, that “Almanza the Terrible,” see Kucha v. State, 686 S.W.2d 154 (Tex.Cr.App.1985), (Teague, J. Concurring Opinion), which figure of speech is a shorthand rendition I have given for this Court’s decision of Almanza v. State, 686 S.W.2d 157 (Tex.Cr.App.1985), was not really an aberration on the part of this Court, but that the opinion represents only an extension of “Coleman the Horrible,” which figure of speech is a shorthand rendition I have given for this Court’s decision of Ex parte Coleman, 599 S.W.2d 305 (Tex.Cr.App.1978), which held that fundamental error in a trial court’s charge could not be raised through an application for post-conviction habeas corpus relief: “The writ of habeas corpus cannot be utilized, after conviction, to point out alleged errors in a court’s charge, as these are matters which should be urged on appeal quoting from Ex parte Gomez, 389 S.W.2d 308, 310 (Tex.Cr.App.1965) cert. denied 386 U.S. 937, 87 S.Ct. 958, 17 L.Ed.2d 810 (1967). Cf., however, Ex parte Clark, 597 S.W.2d 760 (Tex.Cr.App.1980).
The majority implicitly tells Maldonado to go back to “the writ room” and take the following test before he repleads: “In a postconviction collateral attack, the burden is on the applicant to allege and prove facts which, if true, entitle him to relief. In the context of an allegation of an egregiously erroneous charge, one which rises to the level of having denied the applicant a fair and impartial trial, this requirement of pleading will be strictly pursued. In other words, it is not sufficient that the petition allege the denial of a fair and impartial trial or due process of law, which are mere conclusions of law; neither is it adequate to allege the bare fact that the court’s charge was somehow erroneous. Rather, the applicant must allege the reasons a given error in the charge, in light of the trial as a whole, (footnote omitted), so infected the procedure that the applicant was denied a fair and impartial trial. Once alleged, the burden on the applicant to prove such a denial is heavy and cannot be carried by merely attaching a certified copy of the court’s charge to the application for writ of habeas corpus, as was done here.”
I must ask the majority one last question — in this cause: “Is Ex parte Clark, supra, also no more?”
All that I can say to Maldonado, when he takes the above test in “the writ room,” is “Lot’s of luck,” because I do not believe that either he or any other inmate in the Department of Corrections can pass the test that the majority has devised.
To the majority’s extension of Almanza v. State, supra, to this cause, I must respectfully dissent.