Court Opinion

ID: 9682650
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 08:15:14.039451+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:40.580470
License: Public Domain

OPINION ON STATE’S MOTION FOR REHEARING
ODOM, Judge.
This is an appeal from a conviction for felony riot, V.T.C.A., Penal Code Sec. 42.02. Punishment was assessed at three years and appellant was granted probation. On original submission a panel of this Court held the conviction was obtained in violation of the jeopardy clauses of the Texas and United States Constitutions, and reversed the conviction.
The record reveals that appellant was prosecuted on an indictment alleging two offenses in separate counts: (1) felony riot and (2) aggravated assault. In the first trial, at the close of the evidence, the state elected to proceed on the aggravated assault charge. The jury subsequently was unable to agree upon a verdict and was discharged. At the second trial, after the evidence was closed, the state elected to proceed on the felony riot charge. The conviction challenged in this appeal followed.
The issue decided in appellant’s favor on original submission is whether the state’s decision to abandon the felony riot charge after jeopardy attached in the first trial created a jeopardy bar to further prosecution of that charge, even though the first trial subsequently resulted in mistrial as to the aggravated assault charge when the jury was unable to agree upon a verdict.
The general rule is well established. In Ex parte Scelles, 511 S.W.2d 300, 301 (Tex.Cr.App.1974), the Court wrote:
“In Parish v. State, 145 Tex.Cr.R. 117, 165 S.W.2d 748 (1942), the court held that where the second count only of the two count indictment was submitted to the jury, failure to submit the first count had the same effect as if such count had been quashed, and ‘jeopardy’ attached on such count, since failure to submit was tantamount to a ‘dismissal’ of such count. See also Black et al. v. State, 143 Tex.Cr.R. 318, 158 S.W.2d 795 (1942).
“And in Deisher v. State, 89 Tex.Cr.R. 467, 233 S.W. 978 (1921), it was held that *159where the second count of the indictment was abandoned and the court submitted only the first count, the defendant cannot on a subsequent trial be prosecuted on the abandoned count. See also Johnson v. State, 97 Tex.Cr.R. 658, 263 S.W. 924, 927 (1924); Gilliam v. State, 131 Tex.Cr.R. 8, 96 S.W.2d 86 (1936); Mizell v. State, 83 Tex.Cr.R. 305, 203 S.W. 49 (1918).”
Under this general rule it is clear that the panel correctly decided this case. It is contended by the State, however, as it was in the dissenting opinion on original submission, that the general rule does not apply because the first trial ended in a mistrial when the jury was unable to reach a verdict. We find no persuasive reason to support an exception to the general rule in these circumstances. The jeopardy bar arises from the state’s decision to abandon prosecution after jeopardy had attached. The jeopardy bar arises at that moment, and the abandoned prosecution passes out of the case. Having been terminated by the state’s decision to abandon prosecution, the cause is complete.
In its brief on rehearing the state relies on the arguments advanced in the dissenting opinion on original submission.
The dissent relied on Jones v. State, 586 S.W.2d 542 (Tex.Cr.App.1979); Walker v. State, 473 S.W.2d 499 (Tex.Cr.App.1971); and Stanley v. State, 625 S.W.2d 320 (Tex.Cr.App.1981). None of those cases, however, involved a multicount indictment; none involved an election by the state whereby a charged offense in which jeopardy had attached was abandoned; none, in sum, presented any of the controlling facts present in this case. The rule applied today was not implicated in those cases, nor is any rule from those cases applicable to the facts in this case.
The dissent also relied on Articles 36.31 and 36.33, Y.A.C.C.P., for the proposition that when a jury is discharged because it is unable to reach a verdict “the ’cause may be again tried.” This was certainly true as to the charge submitted to the jury and upon which they were unable to reach a verdict. It is not relevant, however, to this case. The felony riot cause was abandoned and never submitted to the jury; it was not a cause upon which the jury was unable to reach a verdict and for which it was discharged. To hold that Arts. 36.31 and 36.-33, supra, authorize retrial of the felony riot charge in this case would require a similar holding under Articles 44.29 and 40.08, V.A. C.C.P., that a reversal of a conviction on one count of a multicount indictment after abandonment of other counts would allow reprosecution of the abandoned counts, because Arts. 44.29 and 40.08, supra, place a cause after reversal “in the same position in which it was before any trial had taken place.” Such a construction of those statutory provisions, however, would be in direct conflict with previous holdings of this Court, e.g., Ex parte Scelles, supra; Black v. State, 143 Tex.Cr.R. 318, 158 S.W.2d 795; Gilliam v. State, 131 Tex.Cr.R. 8, 96 S.W.2d 86, and would be contrary to the protection afforded by the jeopardy clause of the Texas and federal constitutions. The misplaced reliance on Arts. 36.31 and 36.33, supra, is precisely analogous and equally without merit.
The arguments raised on rehearing are without merit. Furthermore, as in Black v. State, supra, no prosecution may now be had on either count of the indictment. One count of the indictment was abandoned after jeopardy attached at the first trial; the other count was abandoned after jeopardy attached at the second trial. Thus, a jeopardy bar has been created against prosecution of either count.
The motion for rehearing is overruled.