Court Opinion

ID: 9641909
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:43:01.989302+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:40.665629
License: Public Domain

TIM TAFT, Justice,
dissenting on remand from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.
Rule 44.2(b) of the Texas Rules of Appellate Procedure provides: “Any other [non-constitutional] error, defect, irregularity, or variance that does not affect substantial rights must be disregarded.” Tex. R. App. P. 44.2(b). We have concluded that the burden of showing harm under rule 44.2(b) is upon the appellant. Merritt v. State, 982 S.W.2d 634, 637 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 1998, pet. filed).
The record shows that, nearly six months before his plea of guilty, when asked what range of punishment he faced, appellant told the doctor examining him for competency that he was unsure of the maximum, but he had been told the punishment range was five years to life. This *650was the unenhanced range of punishment that was raised to a minimum of 15 years by one enhancement in this case.
In the realm of admonishments, it is well settled that even an erroneous admonishment constitutes substantial compliance with the statutory requirement that an accused be admonished regarding the range of punishment. See Robinson v. State, 739 S.W.2d 795, 799, 801 (Tex. Crim. App. 1987) (defendant admonished that range of punishment was two to 10 rather than two to 12). The burden is then on the accused to show that he was misled or harmed by the erroneous admonishment such that he would not have entered his guilty plea if he had been correctly admonished. Id at 801.
Here, appellant was slightly mistaken in his understanding of the lower end of the enhanced range of punishment. Nevertheless, the record tends to show that appellant was substantially aware of the range of punishment. Appellant has shown nothing in the record indicating he was misled to plead guilty based on his lack of knowledge of the range of punishment.
The majority opinion holds that appellant’s substantial rights were affected because appellant did not have a full knowledge of the applicable punishment range. I submit that such a holding is not consistent with the standard applicable to review of erroneous admonishments which are the same as the rule 44.2(b) standard that should be applied to the error here.
Accordingly, I would hold that appellant has not shown that the failure to admonish him of the range of punishment affected his substantial rights. I would overrule this argument in appellant’s first point of error and proceed to review the other arguments in appellant’s first point of error and his other four points of error. To the majority’s decision to reverse, I respectfully dissent.