Court Opinion

ID: 9761505
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 01:44:16.546502+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:24.044292
License: Public Domain

OPINION
DALLY, Judge.
This is an appeal from a conviction of the offense of theft; the punishment is imprisonment for six years.
The sole ground of error advanced by appellant is that the trial court erred in refusing to dismiss the indictment under the requirements of the Texas Speedy Trial Act, Art. 32A.02, V.A.C.C.P.
A complaint for the offense of theft was filed against appellant on December 12, 1978, and he was indicted on January 9, 1979. Appellant was in custody in the Harris County jail under an assumed name at this time. On January 15, 1979, the State filed a written announcement of ready “subject to fourteen days notice within which to secure attendance of its witnesses” provided the State located the appellant. The State thereafter filed another such announcement of ready on April 16,1979. On August 15,1979, appellant had been located and served with a copy of the indictment. On August 22,1979, the trial court appointed counsel for the appellant, the State filed a written announcement of ready for trial, and both parties agreed to set the case for trial on September 20,1979. On September 12, 1979, both parties then agreed to reset the case for trial on October 2, 1979. On September 25, 1979, appellant filed his motion to set aside the indictment alleging that he had not been brought to trial within 120 days after the return of the indictment on January 9, 1979. On October 2, 1979, a hearing was held on appellant’s motion to set aside the indictment and the motion was overruled. Appellant subsequently entered a plea of not guilty before the trial court and was found guilty based on his written stipulation in evidence.
At the hearing on appellant’s motion to set aside the indictment, appellant presented evidence in an attempt to rebut: (1) the State’s claim of readiness for trial, both on January 15 and on April 16, 1979, and (2) the State’s claim that the period of time prior to August 15, 1979, was excludable from the prescribed time limitations of Art. 32A.02, Sec. 1, supra. It is the State’s later claim that is dispositive of this appeal.
Art. 32A.02, supra, in pertinent part provides:
“Section 1. A court shall grant a motion to set aside an indictment, information, or complaint if the state is not ready for trial within:
“(1) 120 days of the commencement of a criminal action if the defendant is accused of a felony;

*409

“Section 4. In computing the time by which the state must be ready for trial, the following periods shall be excluded:
« * * *
“(4) a period of delay resulting from the absence of the defendant because his location is unknown and:
“(A) he is attempting to avoid apprehension or prosecution; or
“(B) the state has been unable to determine his location by due diligence;

“(10) any other reasonable period of delay that is justified by exceptional circumstances.”
On December 2, 1978, which was prior to the date the complaint in the instant case was filed, appellant was arrested for an unrelated offense and placed in confinement in the Harris County jail under the assumed name of “Robert Moore,” an alias appellant had never used before. He remained in confinement and on January 8, 1979, “Robert Moore” was convicted of that offense and his punishment was assessed at imprisonment in the Harris County jail for one year. On August 15, 1979, the appellant had been located in the jail and the district attorney’s office served him with a copy of the indictment; the State then announced ready for trial on August 22,1979. The State asserts that the period of time prior to August 15, 1979, is excludable under Art. 32A.02, Sec. 4(4), supra, because “[ajppellant’s use of the alias Robert Moore and the giving of a false date of birth in connection with that alias clearly thwarted any efforts on the part of the State to identify Robert Moore as being the same person as Charles Walton Hamilton ... and were clearly attempts to ‘avoid apprehension or prosecution.’ ”
Appellant argues that the period of time from the filing of the complaint through August 15, 1979, is not excludable because the State failed to show that it exercised due diligence in its attempt to locate him. He says the Harris County Sheriff’s Office knew of his whereabouts as early as January 9, 1979; appellant testified that on this date and while he was being detained under the assumed name, Sheriff’s officers transferred him to municipal court to face a charge of escape under his real name, Charles Walton Hamilton. He also says the Harris County Sheriff’s Office knew or should have known of his whereabouts because his jail record contains both his real name and the assumed name; the assumed name and all other entries on the jail record are handwritten, except that which says “Hamilton Charles Walton Real Name,” which is typed. He does not say the district attorney’s office knew of his confinement under the assumed name prior to August 15, 1979, and we find no evidence that would have supported such a contention.
There are many instances in the Texas Speedy Trial Act that exclude certain periods of time from its prescribed time limitations. Fraire v. State, 588 S.W.2d 789 (Tex.Cr.App.1979). The appellant relies on Art. 32A.02, Sec. 4(4)(B), supra, and says the State failed to exercise due diligence in determining his location. However, we find that either Sec. 4(4)(A) or Sec. 4(10) of Art. 32A.02, V.A.C.C.P., is dispositive of this appeal, since the delay in appellant’s prosecution was properly attributable to his own action in the use of an assumed name that apparently made his location unknown to the district attorney’s office until sometime in August 1979. Whatever the appellant’s actual motives were in choosing an assumed name, the trial court may have properly concluded from the circumstances peculiar to this case that the appellant’s motive was to avoid prosecution for the instant offense. See Art. 32A.02, Sec. 4(4XA), supra. In any event, we find that the State brought to the trial court’s attention an “exceptional circumstance” that justified the State’s inaction prior to August 15,1979 — the appellant was arrested and placed in confinement under an assumed name for an unrelated offense prior to the filing of the complaint in the instant offense, he was convicted of that offense under the assumed name, and there is no evidence that anyone in the district attorney’s office knew of his continuous confinement under the assumed name *410and simply neglected to prosecute him. See Art. 32A.02, Sec. 4(10), supra. See and compare Pate v. State, 592 S.W.2d 620 (Tex.Cr.App.1980). Moreover, the “Robert Moore” jail record which was made for the unrelated offense was the only record offered in evidence by appellant. Flo Gordon, a deputy in the Harris County Sheriff’s Office, was called by appellant and testified that this jail record, which now reflects the present status of appellant, had been previously consolidated with a separate jail record for Charles Walton Hamilton. The birth date shown on the jail record was May 5, 1958; appellant testified that his date of birth was February 8,1956. Gordon did not say when the jail records had been consolidated and she did not say if any cross-index of the separate records prior to their consolidation showed appellant and Robert Moore to be the same person. Thus, the evidence does not establish that the appellant’s typed in real name, which is now on the jail record, was on the record at any particular time prior to August 15, 1979. The only evidence supporting appellant’s contention is his unrebutted testimony that he had been transported by Sheriff’s officers to answer a charge of escape under his real name; however, there was no corroboration of his testimony. The trial judge, as the sole judge of the weight and credibility of the witnesses at such a hearing, apparently chose to disbelieve this part of the appellant’s testimony since he overruled the motion to dismiss the indictment. See Luckett v. State, 586 S.W.2d 524 (Tex.Cr.App.1979); Tatom v. State, 555 S.W.2d 459 (Tex.Cr.App.1977); Clark v. State, 548 S.W.2d 888 (Tex.Cr.App.1977); Powell v. State, 479 S.W.2d 685 (Tex.Cr.App.1972).
We find it unnecessary to consider the appellant’s contention that the State failed to demonstrate due diligence in determining his location, Art. 32A.02, Sec. 4(4)(B), supra, since we have found that the evidence supports the conclusion that the appellant attempted to avoid prosecution by the use of an assumed name, Art. 32A.02, Sec. 4(4)(A), supra, and his own action in using an assumed name combined with the other circumstances of this case created an “exceptional circumstance,” Art. 32A.02, Sec. 4(10), supra, that in this instance excused the State from proceeding to trial within the prescribed time period of Art. 32A.02, Sec. 1(1), supra. The trial court properly overruled the appellant’s motion to dismiss the indictment.
The judgment is affirmed.