Court Opinion

ID: 9642234
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:52:43.41872+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:44.956443
License: Public Domain

TEAGUE, Judge,
dissenting.
It appears to me that the majority opinion, see particularly its footnote 3 of the opinion, has totally failed to give appellant the benefit of the principles of law stated in Bonner v. State, 640 S.W.2d 601 (Tex.Cr.App.1982). See Art. 21.09, V.A.C.C.P.
Appellant, in his final ground of error, argues that the trial court should have granted, rather than overruled, the pre-trial motion to quash he had filed. He claimed in the motion that the words, “an automobile,” should have been more definitely stated in the charging instrument. The majority overrules the ground of error, holding that the mere description, “an automobile,” was sufficient to give the appellant notice of what he was accused of committing.
It is, of course, the general rule that the charging instrument is to be judged by what is facially stated and not by what the evidence may later reveal at trial. Jeffers v. State, 646 S.W.2d 185 (Tex.Cr.App.1983) (On State’s Motion for Rehearing).
However, in Bonner v. State, supra, this Court was confronted with a charging instrument that alleged the defendant broke into and entered “a vehicle.” The defendant filed a pre-trial motion to quash, claiming therein that he was entitled “to particularity as to what kind and type of vehicle was involved in the offense to be prosecuted.” The motion was overruled. The evidence adduced at trial reflected there were three motor vehicles, and not just one motor vehicle, involved in the case. This Court first held that the motion to quash should have been sustained, and then held that because there were three motor vehicles involved, the error was not harmless to the defendant’s case.
Because I am unable to distinguish in principle either the charging instrument in Bonner or the facts in Bonner from the charging instrument or the facts in this cause, I must respectfully dissent to the majority’s holdings; that the motion to quash was not any good and that appellant has not shown any harm in this cause.
*422If, however, the majority is holding, without so stating, there is a distinction between the terms “an automobile” and “a vehicle,” in the context of these two causes, show me dissenting twice.
As reflected by many of this Court’s past decisions, the terms “automobile” and “vehicle” are used interchangeably, and are often used one for the other to mean the same thing: a form of conveyance. Thus, I have always thought that whether a particular form of conveyance was described as a “car,” a “motor car,” an “auto,” and “automobile,” a “jalopy,” “wheels,” a “heap,” a “vehicle,” or a “motor vehicle,” made no difference as the meaning was the same: the term used was simply a shorthand rendition to describe a motor propelled conveyance. Bonner, however, says there is a difference. There is no difference. Bonner should be reaffirmed or it should be overruled. To the majority’s failure to do either, I respectfully dissent.
ODOM and CLINTON, JJ., join.