Court Opinion

ID: 9778941
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 21:27:02.283521+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:33:16.249126
License: Public Domain

*320CLINTON, Judge,
concurring.
In reversing the judgment of the court of appeals, the majority finds “confusion among the jurors” and faults counsel for appellant for failures to object. Yet it is clear enough to me that a verdict finding appellant guilty of compelling prostitution and not guilty of prostitution is not a product of “confusion,” and, further assuming counsel was even aware of that verdict, that he had any ground for objecting.
After all, the whole contretemps arose when the judge of the trial court unilaterally determined that the first signed verdict form for prostitution offenses was, as the State Prosecuting Attorney characterizes it, “not suitable to the trial judge.” PDR, at 4. As a consequence there is a jury verdict finding appellant guilty of both compelling prostitution and the lesser included offense of prostitution.
And, we are given to understand, thereafter judge and counsels discussed the incident and in retrospect concluded that consistently with the charge of the court the jury never should have reached the lesser included offense. Bingo!
Considering that the jury assessed punishment for the sexual assault offense at twenty years confinement, Reese v. State, 725 S.W.2d 795 (Tex.App.—Beaumont 1987), this cause is practically much ado about nothing, so I join only the judgment of the Court.