Court Opinion

ID: 9662514
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 23:11:47.724016+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:40.281583
License: Public Domain

RONALD L. WALKER, Chief Justice,
concurring.
I concur in the result reached by the lead opinion. The core of due process is the right to notice and a meaningful opportunity to be heard. LaChance v. Erickson, 522 U.S. 262, 266, 118 S.Ct. 753, 756, 139 L.Ed.2d 695, 700 (1998); Cleveland Bd. of Ed. v. Loudermill, 470 U.S. 532, 542, 105 S.Ct. 1487, 1493, 84 L.Ed.2d 494 (1985); Ex parte Geiken, 28 S.W.3d 553, 560 (Tex.Crim.App.2000). It is obvious that appellant’s liberty interest was at stake in the criminal prosecution he faced in the trial court below. Under the unique circumstances of this case, it is clear to me that providing trial counsel with notice of the enhancement allegation on the Friday before the commencement of trial the following Monday did not provide appellant with a meaningful opportunity to be heard.
Until the State presented trial counsel with the proper notice of the enhancement allegation, appellant was on notice that his punishment exposure was to be that of a first degree felon — “life or for any term of not more than 99 years or less than 5 years.” Tex. Pen.Code Ann. § 12.32 (Vernon 1994). Section 12.32 can be said to provide for a range of punishment options with regard to the number of years of incarceration for the discretion of the punishment factfinder. Trial counsel might *456consider a number of trial strategies in an attempt to mitigate his client’s exposure to the higher end of the punishment range when facing punishment under section 12.32.
However, when the State presented trial counsel with the enhancement notice on Friday, appellant faced being punished under Tex. Pen.Code AnN. § 12.42(c)(2)(A)(i) (Vernon Supp.2002), which provides that if a defendant is convicted of an offense under section 22.021 (Aggravated Sexual Assault), as was the charge against appellant in the instant case, “[a] defendant shall be punished by imprisonment in the institutional division for life [.] ” (emphasis added). With the State’s enhancement notice, appellant’s original punishment range, along with any discretion of the punishment factfinder, was virtually eliminated. Once the punishment factfinder determined the enhancement allegation evidence to be “true,” the usual punishment assessment factors such as range, discretion, and mitigation vanished. Under section 12.42(c)(2)(A)(i), life is mandatory.
I agree with the lead opinion’s statement that we are not making a determination that a minimum number of days is required for all cases involving eleventh-hour enhancement notice. I would consider future similar issues on a case by case basis. The amount of “notice time” given one defendant might afford a reasonable opportunity to be heard under one particular set of facts while the same amount of “notice time” may completely deprive another defendant of such an opportunity under an entirely different set of facts. Under the particular facts and circumstances presented in the record appellant was not afforded a reasonable opportunity to be heard in violation of his right to due process.
For these reasons, and for the harm flowing from the due process violation, I concur in reversing the sentencing portion of the trial court’s judgment and remanding the cause for a new punishment hearing. Naturally, since the lead opinion’s reversal of the punishment error is without instructions to conduct the new punishment hearing in a particular way or to render a specific sentence, the effect is to restore the parties to the same situation as that in which they were prior to the appeal. See Musgrove v. State, 82 S.W.3d 34, 37 (Tex.App.-San Antonio 2002, pet. ref'd). See also Tex.Code Crim. Proc. Ann. art. 44.29(b) (Vernon Supp.2002) (If “new trial” is awarded based solely on punishment stage error, “the [trial] court shall allow both the state and the defendant to introduce evidence to show the circumstances of the offense and other evidence as permitted by Section 3 of Article 37.07 of this code.”). As art. 37.07, sec. 3(a) permits the State to offer evidence of, among other things, the prior criminal record of the appellant, the State would not be precluded from offering the August 6, 1982, prior conviction for sexual assault in an attempt to enhance appellant’s punishment. With these observations, I concur in the result reached by the lead opinion.