Court Opinion

ID: 9668512
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 02:16:52.908789+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:45.873346
License: Public Domain

CLINTON, Judge,
concurring.
I should think an enhancement paragraph is functionally more multi-purposed than merely providing the accused with notice of the prior conviction relied upon by the State. But here the Court states, quite correctly, that the allegations of the enhancement paragraph are sufficient to accomplish that purpose of notice. So, appellant was on notice that when it came to that point in the trial where proof of the allegations were to be made, the State would undertake to prove a prior conviction in Cause No. 87954 — just as it had alleged. Yet, the State offered record evidence of a conviction in another cause number. Still, appellant did not object that the proffered material was inadmissible under the pleadings made by the State, and did not tend to support them.
Bather than relax rules of established law and overrule prior cases in order to accommodate what the Court perceives as “a transpositional error” made by someone in the prosecutorial apparatus, I would simply hold the failure to object waived any claim of variance in the cause numbers.1 Had the proper objection been made, surely the readily observable facial discrepancy could and would have been promptly resolved, and the matter then and there put to rest in the trial court.
Accordingly, I concur in the affirmance.

. Certainly, I would not turn the function of notice on its head and say, as the Court now does, that the error “would not prevent a defendant from finding the record of the prior conviction and presenting a defense.” That function relates to allegations in the indictment rather than tendered evidence of conviction as to which there was no notice given.