Court Opinion

ID: 9655332
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 19:06:39.266654+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:17.823721
License: Public Domain

DAVIDSON, Judge
(dissenting).
I agree that an appeal is not authorized from the nunc pro tunc entry of a judgment in a felony case. I therefore concur in the dismissal of the appeal in this case.
What I object to is the action of my brethren in determining the validity of the sentence which was passed upon the invalid judgment, in the first instance, before the judgment was corrected by the nunc pro tunc order.
My objection goes especially to that part of the opinion which says:
“Appellant is not entitled to appeal from the conviction since the State relies now as before upon the sentence upon which he has more than two years credit, and the judgment as originally entered on the jury’s verdict is sufficient to support the sentence.”
Just how could the majority of this court be more inconsistent? In one breath my brethren say that no appeal is before this court and therefore the appeal is dismissed, and in the next breath they proceed to determine the validity of the sentence imposed upon the appellant, which is not before this court.
If there is no appeal in the case, no authority exists to make any order other than to dismiss the appeal.
*644A more typical case of blowing both hot and cold could hardly be imagined. If my brethren are going to pass upon the validity of the sentence then they ought to hold it invalid as not being based upon or supported by a valid judgment. Lewis v. State, 235 S.W. 2d 162; Elliott v. State, 155 Texas Cr. Rep. 495, 236 S.W. 2d 796. The indefinite punishment of not less than two nor more than twenty years in the penitentiary rendered the judgment invalid.
If the judgment as originally entered was valid, why the nunc pro tunc proceeding to correct it? The asking of the question answers it, because the judgment was invalid and had to be corrected.
An invalid judgment will not authorize the passage of a valid sentence. Horn v. State, 117 Texas Cr. Rep. 22, 35 S.W. 2d 145.
To this open and flagrant usurpation of authority by this court in determining the validity of the sentence in this case I can but dissent.