Court Opinion

ID: 9645852
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 21:37:11.317969+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:32.235590
License: Public Domain

*410WOODLEY, Judge,
(dissenting).
Appellant was indicted for the unlawful possession of a narcotic drug and two prior convictions for felony theft were alleged for enhancement of punishment.
Represented by counsel of her own choosing, appellant waived a jury trial and the state abandoned the prior convictions.
Appellant pleaded guilty before the court, but before the trial judge would accept the plea he asked appellant whether or not she “had this heroin,” and she said “Yes Sir.”
The examining trial testimony of M. Chavez, the arresting officer, and the report of Robert F. Crawford, the chemist who made analysis of the contents of the capsule recovered from appellant and found it to be heroin, were read to the jury under agreement of appellant and his counsel and counsel for the state “that the State be allowed to read from the examining trial testimony and certain reports from the chemist without bringing the witnesses in to testify in person.”
Reversal is ordered upon the ground that the foregoing evidence is insufficient to sustain the conviction upon a plea of guilty before the court.
The question is not whether a defendant pleading guilty to a felony before the court may waive the introduction of sufficient evidence to establish his guilt, but whether he may waive the presence of the witnesses and agree to the introduction of their statements.
If a defendant asserting his innocence at a jury trial may waive the appearance of a witness and agree to his statement being used as evidence, or agree that if present the witness would testify to certain facts, no valid reason appears why a defendant pleading guilty before the court cannot do likewise.
To say that the statement of a witness introduced pursuant to such agreement is not evidence is to deny that the appearance of the witness may be waived.
The question of whether or not the examining trial testimony and the report of the chemist, admitted pursuant to such agree*411ment, were of probative value was resolved in Ex parte Clark, 164 Tex. Cr. R. 385, 299 S.W. 2d 128; Pitcock v. State, 168 Tex. Cr. Rep. 129, 324 S.W. 2d 866; and Pitcock v. State, 168 Tex. Cr. Rep. 223, 324 S.W. 2d 867.
Under these authorities, only the portion of the reproduced testimony of Officer Chavez to the effect that the chemist to whom he delivered it “ran an analysis on the capsule and found it contained heroin” implied the possession of information rather than the possession of knowledge. Though Officer Chavez had testified in person at appellant’s trial, his statement as to what the chemist found would have had no probative value. Pitcock v. State, 168 Tex. Cr. Rep. 223, 324 S.W. 2d 866.
The report of the chemist who received the capsule and found it to contain heroin implied the possession of knowledge and, being admitted by agreement, was evidence of probative value.
As to appellant being admonished by the court of the consequences of her plea of guilty, the judgment recites that this was done and there is no bill of exception showing the contrary, as there was in Alexander v. State, 163 Tex. Cr. R. 53, 288 S.W. 2d 779.
The judgment should be affirmed.