Court Opinion

ID: 9767029
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 05:06:31.706291+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:27.771792
License: Public Domain

ONION, Presiding Judge,
dissenting.
I adopt as my dissenting opinion the dissenting opinion originally prepared by Judge Carl Dally.
“The majority reverses appellant’s conviction for the lesser included offense of aggravated assault and remands the case to the trial court with instructions to enter a judgment of acquittal, reasoning that because the evidence offered failed to prove serious bodily injury as required by the court’s charge to the jury, there is insufficient evidence to support the jury’s verdict. However, the error is not in the sufficiency of the evidence, but rather in the trial court’s instruction to the jury. By incorrectly requiring the jury to find both that appellant caused bodily injury to the complainant by shooting him with a gun and that appellant did in fact cause serious bodily injury to the complainant, the trial court imposed a heavier burden on the state to prove aggravated assault than required under V.T.C.A. Penal Code, Section 22.02(a).
“The jurors should have been authorized to find appellant guilty of aggravated assault if they believed beyond a reasonable doubt that the assault was committed with *899a deadly weapon. As the majority allows, there is no dispute that appellant assaulted the complainant by use of a deadly weapon. There is thus sufficient evidence to convict appellant of the offense of aggravated assault under V.T.C.A. Penal Code, Section 22.02(a)(4). That the trial court erroneously charged the jury to find both assault with a deadly weapon and serious bodily injury was trial error, not error in proof. Accordingly, the proper disposition of the case upon reversal should be a remand of the case to the trial court for a new trial. United States v. Tateo, 377 U.S. 463, 84 S.Ct. 1587, 12 L.Ed.2d 448 (1964); Burks v. United States, 437 U.S. 1, 98 S.Ct. 2141, 57 L.Ed.2d 1 (1978); Greene v. Massey, 437 U.S. 19, 98 S.Ct. 2151, 57 L.Ed.2d 15 (1978).
“I dissent to the order that a judgment of acquittal should be entered.”
WHITE, J., joins this dissent.