Court Opinion

ID: 9647881
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 13:53:51.867408+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:54.495146
License: Public Domain

TEAGUE, Judge,
dissenting.
Since May 30, 1934, when this Court decided Arnold v. State, 127 Tex.Cr.R. 89, 74 S.W.2d 997 (1934), the law in this State has been that a felony conviction from a foreign or Federal jurisdiction may not be used for enhancement of punishment purposes unless it was predicated upon an offense which was also denounced by the laws of Texas. See Montgomery v. State, 571 S.W.2d 18, 19 (1978). Today, the majority changes the law and buries Montgomery, without full colors, and sub silentio overrules Arnold, supra, and Garcia v. State, 140 Tex.Cr.R. 340, 145 S.W.2d 180, 182 (1940).1 To this change in the law I respectfully dissent.
There are many reasons why such change in the law is unwarranted. Upon close analysis, the majority’s attempts to justify its holding is lacking both logic and skill in statutory construction.
First and foremost is the very simple fact that it is presumed that the Legislature, when it meets to consider enacting new laws or repealing old laws, is aware of this Court’s decisions. See State v. Anderson, 119 Tex. 110, 26 S.W.2d 174 (1930).
Montgomery, supra, was decided on September 20, 1978. On June 1, 1981, almost three years later, the Legislature of this State completed its 67th session. Interestingly, though the Legislature was presumably aware of Montgomery and Mulchahey, not one single bill to substantively overrule Montgomery or Mulchahey was proposed by *378a member of the 67th Legislature.2 Compare, this Court’s decision of Carvajal v. State, 529 S.W.2d 517 (1975), with the enactment of Y.T.C.A. Penal Code, Sec. 12.46, which effectively overruled Carvajal
Second is the statute itself. Y.T.C.A. Penal Code, Sec. 12.42(d), the present “habitual criminal statute,” is substantially a reco-dification of former Penal Code Art. 63. In drafting the remainder of Sec. 12.42 it was necessary to eliminate the former qualification “of the same offense, or one of the same nature,” because of the new categorization of felonies, see Sec. 12.04. This, however, does not evidence any intent to change the former law as established in Garcia, supra.
Third, I do not believe the majority grasps the import of its holding and the reason for the rule which the Supreme Court of Wisconsin stated in Kirschner v. State, 9 Wis. 140 (1859), which was adopted by this Court in Garcia: “Inasmuch as each state has a criminal code peculiar to itself, so that what may be regarded as an infamous crime in one state may not be in another .. .. ” Garcia, supra, 145 S.W.2d at 181.
Fourth, enhancement or recidivist statutes are to be strictly construed. “It has often been commented that such a statute is a harsh one and it is generally conceded that harsh statutes must be strictly construed.” Id. Changing the law by an inferential interpretation of the statutes, where the Legislature has refrained from specifically so amending a long-established rule is improper, yet the majority proposes to do just that by its opinion here. Cf. V.T.C.A. Penal Code, Sec. 1.05(a).
The majority, by implication, attempts to say that the Legislature finally heard what two distinguished former members of this Court said in Arnold and Garcia, supra. Judge Beauchamp, in Garcia, said: “While he [Judge Morrow in Arnold'] did not lay down a rule, he did give a strong intimation, sufficient to call the attention of the Legislature to the view which this Court would take [in the future]. In these three regular sessions the Legislature has not acted, and we can only construe their failure to act as an endorsement of the construction of our statute which these cases give to it.” Id. at 182.
But what did Judge Beauchamp also say? He sent a message to the Legislature by Garcia that if it desired to change the law to encompass any felony conviction, all that was needed was to add the words or phrases “in this or in any other state, or in any federal court” to the enhancement statutes. Garcia was decided on November 27, 1940, almost 41 years ago. Legislatures have come and gone, most recently as of June 1, 1981, but to this day that august body of government has not seen fit to change the substance of our recidivist-enhancement statutes. In fact, since 1857, the Legislature has enacted recidivist-enhancement statutes that have not varied in substance from the original statutes, except for the classification change noted below. Otherwise, there is no difference in the substance of Sec. 12.42 and its predecessors. But, the majority, ipso facto, and in very tenuous fashion, says there is a substantial difference in the statutes, but does not inform us how the “guts” of Sec. 12.42 varies from its predecessors. The majority today, I submit, acts ipse dixit; rather than merely ipso facto.
Although recognizing the nuances of particular recidivist-enhancement statutes, and also recognizing that many states have since followed Judge Beauchamp’s recommendation, see supra, nevertheless, my research reveals that states that have recidivist-enhancement statutes similar to ours have construed those statutes to prohibit the use of an out-of-state felony conviction unless it is also denounced by the laws of their own state. See the numerous annotations found in American Law Reports.
The long arm of the majority reaches out into the present Penal Code and grabs hold *379of the definitions of “felony” and “law” and, with what appears to be almost a feeling of euphoria, cites us to Sec. 12.41 to sustain its position. This is understandable considering the result it reaches. However, what the majority overlooks in its “quick reach” is the very simple fact that Art. 47 of the former Penal Code defined “felony” in substantially the same way as it is now defined — an offense which has a possible punishment of confinement in a penitentiary. Although the majority, in setting out Art. 47, emphasizes “any punishment prescribed in this code,” it fails to explain how this distinguishes Art. 47 from Sec. 12.41. The words have changed, but the substance remains the same.
A reading of Sec. 12.41 will reflect that it does not apply per se to our recidivist-enhancement statutes, which are provided in Sec. 12.42, but pertains to how a non-penal code offense will be classified, i. e., classification being dependent upon punishment— penitentiary, jail, or fine. See, e. g., Platter v. State, 600 S.W.2d 803, 804 (1980). As Judge Clinton said in Betancourt v. State, 590 S.W.2d 487, 489 (1979), “standing alone Sec. 12.41 is only definitional, without any operative effect unless coupled with some subsection of Sec. 12.42 for penalty purposes.” Nowhere does Sec. 12.41 set out an intent to deviate from the long-standing rule of Garcia, supra. Contrary to the majority’s assertion that “there can be no doubt that the legislature intended to make convictions for felonies in federal courts as well as courts of other states available for enhancement purposes,” the adoption of [the] new penal code in 1973 did not evidence any intent on the part of the Legislature that a different interpretation should thereafter govern. See Carvajal v. State, supra, and the Practice Commentary to Sec. 12.42(d), supra. The Legislature’s most recent omission to indicate a change is of major significance because we are here addressing a matter of statutory construction, not of judicially created rules of decision, as in evidentiary matters. Shivers v. State, 574 S.W.2d 147 (1978).
It is evident from the above observations and this Court’s past interpretations of our recidivist-enhancement statutes that Texas places a two-prong requirement on the use of a federal or foreign state conviction for enhancement of punishment:
(1) The offense must be classified, see Sec. 12.41, supra, as a felony and
(2) The substance of the offense, see Montgomery and Mulchahey, supra, must be denounced by the laws of Texas.
The above interpretation demonstrates that the Montgomery-Mulchahey decisions and Sec. 12.41 are not mutually exclusive, but are compatible with one another and are to be applied concertedly in determining whether a federal or foreign state conviction may be used for enhancement of punishment purposes.
I understand the rule of stare decisis to be one of establishing precedent and authority. The doctrine of stare decisis, simply put, is that when this Court has once established a principle of law, it will adhere to that principle and apply it to all future cases. The doctrine is a salutary one, and should not ordinarily be departed from when addressing a decision or principle of law of long standing. See also Black’s Law Dictionary, page 126 (5th Ed. 1979).
Without any basis in fact for doing so, I believe that a majority of this Court is departing from the doctrine of stare decisis in holding in this cause that any federal or foreign state felony conviction may now be used for enhancement of punishment purposes pursuant to Sec. 12.42.
For the above and foregoing reasons, I respectfully dissent to the decision of the majority in misconstruing our recidivist-enhancement statutes.

. As the majority does not see fit to discuss this Court’s recent unanimous opinion of Ex parte Mulchahey (No. 67,278, 4/1/81, State’s motion for leave to file motion for rehearing unanimously denied 4/29/81), it, too, has been sub silentio overruled. Chronologically, however, it has got to be one of the shortest-lived unanimous decisions ever handed down by this Court.

. It is significant to note, however, that Mul-chahey was decided while the 67th Legislature was in session.