Court Opinion

ID: 9682355
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 08:09:51.43652+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:38.865112
License: Public Domain

CLINTON, Judge,
concurring.
In Moser v. State, 602 S.W.2d 530 (Tex.Cr.App.1980), the Court rejected a due pro*397cess contention through the process of implying or inferring from language in the indictment, in the charge and in the verdict that the phrase “guilty of murder as charged in the indictment ... must amount to an affirmative finding that the appellant used a firearm in the commission of the offense,” id., at 533. Today, as I understand the majority opinion, it seeks to pull the bench and bar out of the Moser “quagmire” of implied or inferred findings. Thus it expressly disapproves language in Moser and other cases that “would perpetuate this practice.”
The effort by the Court to clear up much uncertainty and some confusion surrounding Article 42.12, § 3f(a)(2), V.A.C.C.P., is overdue, but in my view it fails to address a threshold problem presented by the factual situation in this cause and every other one in which the charging instrument does not expressly allege that a weapon said to have been used or exhibited is a “deadly weapon.” When denial of grant of probation by a trial court and deprivation of freedom and liberty by extended confinement in a penitentiary hang on that very question, due process and due course of law require that the trier of fact at any stage of trial on criminal action not be authorized to make an adverse finding against an accused unless and until the issue has been tendered by the pleading of the State.
The majority lays down the rule that an affirmative finding by a jury must be made in response to a special issue submitted during punishment stage of trial with two exceptions. (Opinion, p. 396). When a trial court is trier of fact presumably it must respond to a specific inquiry made in effect by the judge. However, in either case the majority will allow the inquiry to be made in at least two instances in which the issue was never expressly tendered by the charging instrument.
In basic rudimentary fundamentals trials of civil case and of a criminal action are conducted under the same principles. Simply stated, “[a] trial generally includes a judicial examination of the issues between the parties, whether of fact or of law.” Railroad Commission v. Shell Oil Co., 139 Tex. 66, 161 S.W.2d 1022, 1029 (1942). Issues are tendered by pleadings, thereby among other functions giving the opposite party notice of what is claimed — in a criminal action the State through its charging instrument and the accused through special pleas and plea to the charge. Compare 56 Tex.Jur.2d 404, §§ 70 and 71 and id., 408-409, §§ 74 and 75; see Article 36.01, V.A.C. C.P. Until the charging instrument has been read in open court and a plea entered by accused, no issue is joined by the parties. Castillo v. State, 530 S.W.2d 952, 954 (Tex.Cr.App.1976), quoting approvingly from Johnson v. State, 118 Tex.Cr.R. 291, 42 S.W.2d 782, 783 (1931). Issues that have been joined are ultimately resolved by the trier of fact informed by germane law applicable to the facts of the matter. Article 36.14 and 36.16, Y.A.C.C.P.; cf. T.R. C.P. Rules 277 and 279. A verdict of a jury “must be supported by the pleadings, the evidence and the facts admitted of record,” 57 Tex.Jur.2d 43, § 409.
From the legislative history recounted in the majority opinion at note 1 one cannot be sure what kind of “affirmative finding” Senator Meier and his colleagues had in mind. However, in parlance of the civil side it is a commonly used term. See, e.g., T.R.C.P. Rule 277, and General Commentary following Rule 279.1 Thus a general practitioner is not only familiar with what an “affirmative finding” is but also knows its purpose and function. So it is perfectly reasonable to attribute to legislators who are lawyers that knowledge and understanding.
Therefore, in the jurisprudence of this State special issues and affirmative findings are neither new nor novel, and this *398Court should have no hesitancy in finding in relevant civil rules an analogue to the provisions of Article 42.12, 3f(a)(2), V.A.C. C.P.
However, some offenses do not require use or exhibition of a deadly weapon, so ordinarily an accused would not be put on constitutional notice by the State’s pleading, the charging instrument, that the issue is in his criminal action. Under the common principles summarized above, the issue is really not in the case, and an accused does not join issue on that matter. Yet, according to the majority the inquiry may still be made. On that point I simply cannot agree.
When the State intends to invoke provisions of § 3f(a)(2), there is no valid impediment to a requirement that it include in its charging instrument an averment of that which it expects to prove — that is, the accused used or exhibited a deadly weapon during the commission of the alleged offense or during the immediate flight therefrom. Indeed, an affirmative finding may not be properly made by any fact finder under § 3f(a)(2) without that being “shown.” And according to Article 21.03, V.A.C.C.P., “Everything should be stated in [a charging instrument] which is necessary to be proved.”
Though I would require an appropriate allegation of what the State intends to prove in this regard — perhaps a simple averment in a separate paragraph of the charging instrument — nevertheless if the Court will not now require an allegation of that which must be proved, I concur with its finding that a special issue must be submitted to the jury. However, when it is not pleaded as a deadly weapon, to avoid our still having to look to the facts of the case in order to determine whether a particular weapon in question is per se a deadly weapon, we should eliminate category 2 at page 9, and subject it to a special issue as well.
Further, though not directly presented in this cause the majority would have the special issue submitted during the punishment stage of trial, believing that is “the better practice,” n. 3. While it is true that Article 37.07(a), V.A.C.C.P., provides that a verdict must be general, it also adds: “When there are special pleas on which a jury is to find [it] must say in [its] verdict that the allegations in such pleas are true or untrue.” It will be said that “special pleas” are those of an accused alluded to in Article 27.05, V.A.C.C.P., but the literal language of Article 27.01, Y.A.C.C.P.— “The primary pleading ... on the part of the State is the [charging instrument].” — is broad enough to admit a “special plea” by the State.
Moreover, we have held that a finding pursuant to § 3f(a)(2) is appropriate only when it is shown that “the defendant [himself] used or exhibited a deadly weapon.” Travelstead v. State, 693 S.W.2d 400 (Tex.Cr.App.1985). There will be trials in which a jury is trier of fact on guilt but the trial court alone will assess punishment. Though the jury may well have concluded that an accused did not himself use or exhibit a deadly weapon but was criminally responsible under the law of parties, the judge of the trial court will be free to make a contrary affirmative finding. To allow the trial court to find that which the jury may have rejected infringes the right to trial by jury and smacks of a violation of due process and due course of law.
In the case at bar, however, as the majority points out, the indictment did not aver the knife to be a deadly weapon nor did the charge allude to it as such; so the jury did not find it to be one. Not being the trier of fact the trial court was not authorized to make an affirmative finding.
For reasons given I join only the judgment of the Court.

. Issues are submitted in the affirmative when called for by a proper pleading and evidence, T.R.C.P. Rules 277 and 279, in response to which the jury may make "an affirmative finding," Rule 277. Denbow v. Standard Acc. Ins. Co., 143 Tex. 455, 186 S.W.2d 236, 238 (1945); see Texas Employers Ins. Assn. v. Patterson, 144 Tex. 573, 192 S.W.2d 255, 257 (1946).