Court Opinion

ID: 9666483
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:17:23.345736+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:58:30.303102
License: Public Domain

MICHOL O’CONNOR, Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent. I believe that defense counsel’s performance was deficient and the appellant was harmed. I would reverse and remand.
The appellant knew he had to plead guilty because the facts of this case were too inflammatory to submit to a jury. Defense counsel was hired to do only one thing: secure the lowest sentence possible. Defense counsel did not take any steps to do the only thing he was hired to do. I do not see how his performance was anything but ineffective.
Defense counsel had only one short conversation with the assistant district attorney (ADA), in which she said an offer, which would have to be approved by her superior, would not be less than 50 years. Defense counsel did not ask the ADA to make a formal offer. Instead of asking her to secure permission to make an offer, or taking procedural steps in the case as a way of improving the appellant’s bargaining position,1 defense counsel did nothing. Compounding his breach of duty, defense counsel did not tell the appellant about the ADA’s position on sentencing.
The appellant understood the difficulty of his situation — a jury would not have been sympathetic toward a defendant charged with the murder of a young mother and her child, who fled the scene and was drunk. Understanding he faced a long jail sentence, he testified by affidavit at the new trial hearing that he would have accepted an offer of 40 years.2 Because defense counsel did not tell him the ADA’s evaluation of the case, he deprived the appellant of the opportunity to consider a 50 year offer. Therefore, regardless of whether any plea negotiations would have resulted in a sentence of less than 50 years, the appellant was harmed because he was sentenced to 60 years.
The information withheld from the appellant was critical to his decision to plead *488guilty. Negotiations regarding sentencing involves both the State and the defendant. Before a defendant learns about an ADA’s position regarding sentencing in the case, the defendant may not have a realistic understanding of his options. Because the appellant was not told about the valuations placed on his case by the ADA, the appellant pled guilty without a sentencing recommendation. Therefore, the appellant’s plea was not made knowingly and voluntarily.
I would reverse the trial court’s judgment and remand for further proceedings.

. In point of error three, the appellant contends defense counsel was ineffective because he did not file a motion to quash the defective indictment. The indictment was defective because it did not name the complainant in the underlying arson. If defense counsel had filed a motion to quash, the ADA would have had to re-submit the case to another grand jury panel, delaying the disposition of the case. The appellant argues the additional work involved in re-indicting him and the delay in disposition might have encouraged the ADA to reduce the offer to less than 50 years.

. The appellant’s affidavit stated, in part, as follows:
Given the circumstances surrounding the two counts of murder with which I was charged, I would have accepted the State's settlement offer of forty years had Mr. Graizer [sic] timely conveyed the offer to me. I would have accepted this offer, quite simply, because I knew that my chances of obtaining deferred adjudication were very slim and that I could have easily been sentenced to more than forty years.