Court Opinion

ID: 9767207
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 05:12:50.510137+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:29.581248
License: Public Domain

UTTER, Justice,
concurring.
I concur with the majority opinion in its reasoning as to why an affirmance is mandatory under the prior opinion of the Court of Criminal Appeals in this case. However, I cannot rationalize the Court of Criminal Appeals reasoning in remanding this case for assessment of punishment only.
My first problem is to decide how to describe the process by which this accused has now been convicted and had punishment assessed. The process cannot be labeled a plea bargain because the appellant’s guilt was adjudicated before the length of punishment was determined. It is axiomatic that in a plea bargain the accused is aware of and acquiesces in the assessment of a certain and negotiated punishment pri- or to the entry of his plea. The decision to plead guilty is based on the knowledge that a certain punishment will be assessed. Without the determination of punishment *213before the entry of a plea of guilty there is, in effect, no plea bargain.
The plea bargain situation is quite unlike the case where the accused pleads guilty and then allows the judge or jury to determine the punishment. In these situations, guilt is determined before the assessment of punishment and the length of time assessed as punishment has no connection with and provides no inducement for the plea. The process used to gain the appellant’s plea in this case is unlike that, for here the appellant’s plea resulted from negotiations in which the State, for whatever reason, agreed to proceed on one enhancement count and recommend a twenty five year punishment. Therefore, we cannot consider the process used to obtain the appellant’s original plea of guilty in the same category with those pleas which are entered without resort to plea negotiations and agreements.
We have a strange hybrid type of supposed plea bargain agreement where now the appellant’s guilt is determined (apparently conclusively) before punishment is determined. With no precedent on which to rely in labeling this process, we will refer to it as a hybrid plea bargain.
I believe the appellant should have been allowed to withdraw his plea of guilty when the trial court refused to accept the State’s recommendation on punishment. Where the accused and the State negotiate for a plea of guilty, the accused is statutorily entitled to certain admonishments and assurances prior to the entry of his plea. 1977 Tex.Gen.Laws, Ch. 280 at 748. These include the right to know whether the court will follow the plea bargain and the right to withdraw the plea if it is not followed. As noted in the majority opinion, the State and appellant agreed on ten years confinement. In upholding the trial court’s action in assessing sixteen years, we are permitting the trial court to ignore the punishment agreement — something it could not have done in the original plea bargain proceeding. This gives the trial court unbridled discretion to assess punishment, on remand, as it sees fit where the plea of guilty was entered pursuant to a plea bargain. This is patently unfair to the accused.
In this case, under the original indictment, before the plea bargain agreement, appellant was facing a punishment of 99 years to life in prison. At that time, the plea of guilty to the reduced charge plus the one enhancement count was freely and voluntarily given and the appellant was bound by his plea. Once the prior conviction was held void, however, the facts of this case changed materially. The appellant (on remand) was facing a maximum of 20 years in prison instead of the 99 years or life. By upholding the trial court’s action, we are, in essence, denying the accused the right to further bargain with the State. Is the appellant now to be severely limited in the bargaining process because he was able to eliminate the enhancement portion of the indictment? If the circumstances have changed from the time of the original plea bargain can it be said that his plea of guilty is free and voluntary?
It cannot be said this hybrid plea bargain, if error, is harmless because the accused now has a shorter sentence than originally agreed to between the State and the accused. In situations such as these, the initial punishment (using a void conviction for enhancement) will certainly be greater than if no enhancement count were alleged. Are we to say that no harm befalls an accused who succumbs to the pressures exerted by an enhancement count and then pleads guilty only later to learn that there was no valid prior conviction? The accused who negotiates a punishment with the State based on a supposedly valid enhancement count bargains from a much weaker position than an accused in the same situation without a prior conviction.
The fundamental problem with this hybrid plea bargain is that the accused’s guilt is conclusively determined before punishment is assessed. The majority opinion cites Bullard v. State, 533 S.W.2d 812 (Tex.Cr.App.1976) and Tyra v. State, 534 S.W.2d 695 (Tex.Cr.App.1976) which hold that when punishment is originally assessed by the trial court, the case can be properly re*214manded for assessment of punishment only. It does not appear to me that either case is applicable to this cause in which the appellant was originally induced to enter a plea of guilty based upon a plea bargain agreement. We have found no Texas cases on point — except, of course, the Court of Criminal Appeals’ opinion in this case.
I find this type of hybrid plea bargain process to be unfair to the accused. I find this particular situation even more distressing since the trial court exceeded the punishment recommended by the State on remand. In remanding for assessment of punishment only, I believe the Court of Criminal Appeals may have overlooked the fact that this case was one in which the original plea and punishment resulted by reason of a valid plea bargain agreement.