Court Opinion

ID: 9684609
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 14:03:40.539175+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:57.760786
License: Public Domain

CLINTON, Judge,
dissenting.
The record of this cause reflects an order rendered by the trial court in which the court finds that “after a hearing the Court determined that the Defendants, FERGUSON and GARZA, should be tried together.” 1 The trial docket sheet in the record of this cause contains an entry that on or about November 15, 1976 “Motion for New Trial filed in Aaron D. Ferguson cause # 241712 pertains to D. Garza also.” Consistently, the record in this cause does not reveal a motion for new trial,2 but it does contain an order overruling one on November 19,1976. Then January 21,1977, appellant filed, and the clerk of the trial court gave written notice to the trial judge that appellant had filed, his formal bill of exception, to which the majority alludes in the second paragraph of its opinion. I prefer to set out in its entirety — ellipsing only a name — that which the bill asks the trial court that “BE IT REMEMBERED,” viz:
“The defendant, Daniel Garza, requested of the Court that he be allowed to adopt *94all of the objections and exceptions of the Attorney ... who was representing AARON D. FERGUSON, without the necessity of also objecting whenever those objections were made. That the Court granted such motion and that for the purposes of Appeal, any objection made by the Attorney for the Defendant AARON D. FERGUSON, whether through pretrial or trial motions and whether in the form of formal motions or objections during the course of the trial are taken as if the Defendant, DANIEL GARZA, of his attorney had made such objections and motions of AARON D. FERGUSON or his attorney will not be deemed to have waived the objections.”
Service of a true and correct copy of the bill upon the Harris County District Attorney’s Office, Appellate Section, et cetera was certified. The record in this cause contains no reaction or response from that recipient.
In due course, though the trial court neither specifically qualified or approved the bill of exception, without objection in this respect the court certified that the record including the bill is “a true, complete, and correct record in the above styled and numbered cause.”
At the outset of appellant’s brief in this cause is a page entitled prologue. In part he states that under the bill of exception appellant “was allowed to adopt as his own, for the purposes of Appeal, any objection made by the Attorney for the Defendant Aaron Ferguson” and, therefore, as to those matters not in the Garza record “reference will be made ... to the transcript on Appeal of Aaron Ferguson, the Co-Defendant.” In the State’s reply to the first ground of error, complaining of overruling the motion to quash, prologue assertions of appellant are not challenged; rather there is the following flat statement of fact: “Garza’s motion to quash was filed on the day of trial . .. and was not timely...”
The majority opinion invokes the longstanding strict rule for a bill of exception drawn under Article 36.20, V.A.C.C.P. and its predecessors designed to complain about adverse actions of the trial court. See, e. g., Stevens v. State, 146 Tex.Cr.R. 42, 171 S.W.2d 135, 138 (1943). But Article 40.09, § 6(a), V.A.C.C.P., by its terms, permits a broader utilization of the bill. Thus, “[a] party desiring to have the record disclose some action . .. proceeding ... or other event or occurrence not otherwise shown by the record may utilize a bill of exception for this purpose.”
Patently, the bill before us was to show that the trial court GRANTED the motion for appellant, when that grant was not to be otherwise shown of record, rather than to complain of any adverse ruling. And the very matters characterized in the bill were then before the trial court, and are before this Court. That each bears its respective cause number was of no moment whatsoever below and should not be here, that being merely a matter of “clerk’s choice.” In any event, as to the motion to quash, the trial court in effect incorporated by reference portions of one into the other.
The majority “decline[s] to review the records of another case to find support for contentions raised in this appeal.” But Ferguson’s is simply not “another case” — it is the same case as appellant’s, and had been handled as such by all parties and the trial court at that level of the criminal prosecution.3 Now, only after panel opinions were handed down upon original submission does the majority undertake to separate these judicial Siamese twins and then treat them disparately.4
*95Because the majority withholds from appellant the relief to which he is entitled, I dissent.
ONION, P. J., and ROBERTS and TEAGUE, JJ., join.

. Capitalization is by the trial court. All emphasis throughout is mine unless otherwise indicated.

. At the joint hearing on motion for new trial, the transcription of which is before us in this cause, the trial counsel for appellant Garza addressed the trial court as follows:
“If Your Honor please, the Defendant, Daniel Garza, who was jointly charged, jointly tried and jointly convicted by the Jury herein, will now stand on all pleadings heretofore filed in behalf of the other Defendant Aaron Delbert Ferguson as to the motion for new trial ... [and] ... we adopt the same affidavits filed on behalf of the Defendant Aaron Ferguson because the Jury heard the same facts and tried both Defendants.”
Notice of appeal was then given in open court and there was a colloquy about appointment of an appellate attorney for appellant Garza; when the court was informed that appellant wanted to talk with the trial attorney for Ferguson about also handling his appeal, the trial judge indicated that “would be all right” and asked to be informed of the decision.
A January 13, 1977 trial docket entry recounts that upon appellant’s pauper’s oath the trial court ordered the court reporter to prepare a statement of facts and identified Ferguson’s trial attorney as appellate counsel for appellant Garza.

. Indeed, the State stoutly resisted a motion for severance since its theory was that the accused were part of a conspiracy to deliver the controlled substance. The prosecuting attorney, accordingly, testified at a pretrial hearing on the motion:
“Q: Are they indicted as co-defendants or are they each separately?
A: They are each separately indicted, but listed as co-defendants on the docket.”
And, to be recalled, is that it was the trial court that “determined” the two “should be tried together.”

. The cruelest cut of all is that relief being denied one is this day granted the other in Ferguson v. State, - S.W.2d - (Tex.Cr.App., No. 58,518).