Court Opinion

ID: 9677937
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 06:06:15.845998+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:00.385824
License: Public Domain

KEASLER, J.,
delivered this concurring opinion.
I concur only in the judgment of the Court because I think we have ample reasons in our own jurisprudence for reaching the same conclusion.
The Rules of Appellate Procedure govern the actions of a court of appeals. In particular, Rule 43.2 provides as follows:
The court of appeals may:
(a) affirm the trial court’s judgment in whole or in part;
(b) modify the trial court’s judgment and affirm it as modified;
(c) reverse the trial court’s judgment in whole or in part and render the judgment that the trial court should have rendered;
(d) reverse the trial court’s judgment and remand the case for further proceedings;
(e) vacate the trial court’s judgment and dismiss the case; or
(f) dismiss the appeal.
In this case, the Court of Appeals acted under subsection (c) of Rule 43.2: it reversed the trial court’s judgment in whole and “rendered] the judgment that the trial court should have rendered,” i.e., an acquittal. The same phrase is in Rule 43.3:
When reversing a trial court’s judgment, the court must render the judgment that the trial court should have rendered, except when:
(a) a remand is necessary for further proceedings; or
(b) the interests of justice require a remand for another trial.
Rules 43.2 and 43.3 only became effective September 1, 1997. But similar language existed in former Rules 80(b) and 81(c) (“... render the judgment or decree that the court below should have rendered ... ”). Before the Rules of Appellate Procedure were enacted in 1986, the language appeared, for criminal cases, in former Article 44.24(b) of the Code of Criminal Procedure (“reform and correct the judgment”); and, for civil cases, in former Rule of Civil Procedure 434 (“render such judgment or decree as the court below should have rendered”).
We have not previously considered this language as it exists in Rule 43.2, but we have considered former Art. 44.24(b). In Milczanowski v. State, we held that “reformation of judgment and sentence [under Art. 44.24(b) ] may be done only to cause those instruments to reflect the true finding of the fact finder when such a finding is reflected in the verdict or, in a bench trial, the pronouncement of the court’s finding.”1
We examined this language in Bogany v. State2 that same year. In that case, the court of appeals reformed a judgment pursuant to Art. 44.24(b) when the punishment assessed had been unauthorized by law. We noted that, under Milczanowski, a court of appeals may reform a judgment only to cause it to “reflect the true finding of the fact finder.”3 We concluded that an unauthorized sentence does not fall within that category, apparently because, although the sentence was illegal, it still reflected what the jury had imposed. *784Based on Milczanowski and Bogany, Art. 44.24(b) gave the courts of appeals authority to reform a judgment only on clerical grounds, to “reflect the true finding of the fact finder.”
In Bigley v. State4 we addressed Rule 80. The court of appeals reformed a judgment to reflect a conviction for a lesser-ineluded offense. The reformation was not on clerical grounds but was based on judicial reasoning. The defendant argued that Rule 80 only permitted reformations involving clerical errors, not judicial reasoning. We specifically rejected this argument, noting that nothing in the language of Rule 80 limited reformations to clerical errors.5
Finally, the Supreme Court considered former Rules 80(b) and 81(c) in Horrocks v. Texas Dept. of Transportation.6 There, a jury found in favor of the plaintiffs in a personal injury case, and the trial court rendered judgment on the verdict. The State, as the defendant, had not challenged the sufficiency of the evidence as to its actual knowledge of the defect by objecting to jury submissions or moving for a directed verdict. But the State did raise that claim in a motion for new trial. The court of appeals reversed the judgment of the trial court and rendered judgment for the State.
The Supreme Court held that the court of appeals erred in rendering judgment for the State because all that the State had requested in its motion was a “new trial.”7 The Supreme Court recognized the language of Rule 81(c), requiring that the appellate court “render such judgment or decree as the court below should have rendered.”8 Since the State had only requested a new trial, that was the only relief to which it was entitled.
Based on the language of Rule 43.2 and the above-mentioned cases, I think the “judgment that the trial court should have rendered” can only be a judgment that the trial court was capable of rendering, given the instructions to the jury. If a jury is only instructed on one offense, then the trial court can only render judgment on that offense or a judgment of acquittal. Conversely, if a jury is not instructed on a lesser-ineluded offense, a trial court is not able to render judgment on that lesser-ineluded offense. A court of appeals cannot reform a judgment to reflect a conviction for a lesser-ineluded offense unless that lesser-ineluded offense was submitted in the jury charge.
This limitation, of course, should apply only when the case is tried before a jury, since there are no jury instructions in a bench trial. In a bench trial, the “judgment that the trial court should have rendered” can always be a conviction for a lesser-ineluded offense because the trial court is authorized to find the defendant guilty of any lesser offense for which the State provides the required proof.9
The State argues that Rule 80 expanded the reformation authority of the courts of appeals. It does appear that, under former Art. 44.24(b), the courts of appeals had authority to reform judgments only for clerical errors, but under Rule 80, the courts of appeals had authority to reform on judicial grounds as well. Nevertheless, the State’s implication that the expansion was so great as to permit a court of appeals to render a judgment that was completely unavailable at the time of trial is simply not supported by caselaw or the language of Rules 80 and 43.2.
It could be argued that the court of appeals could simply act pursuant to subsection (b) of Rule 43.2; that is, it could *785“modify the trial court’s judgment and affirm it as modified.” Under this option, the argument goes, the court of appeals could modify a trial court’s judgment of a greater offense to reflect a conviction instead for the lesser-included offense, and then affirm that judgment as modified. There would be no need under this option for the jury to have been instructed on the lesser-included offense because there is no requirement under Rule 43.2(b) that the court of appeals render the judgment “that the trial court should have rendered.”
But this contention misses the important distinction between subsections (b) and (c) of Rule 43.2. Each subsection of Rule 43.2 is intended to apply to different types of situations. Under the above construction, subsections (b) and (c) overlap in full. This cannot be right. Subsection (b) of Rule 43.2 formerly existed as Rule 80(b)(2): “modify the judgment of the court below by correcting or reforming it.” This language indicates a minor change to the judgment below. Indeed, this appellate option has been used by courts of appeals to make minor revisions in the judgment, such as reforming probation requirements or deadly weapon findings.10
In the instant case, the court of appeals did more than simply modify the judgment below. It completely reversed Collier’s conviction for causing serious bodily injury to a child. Having found the evidence insufficient to support a conviction for that offense, the court of appeals had no choice but to reverse that conviction. The issue remains whether the court of appeals could render another judgment, such as one for the lesser-included offense, and we I have concluded that the court of appeals could not do so in the absence of a jury instruction on that offense. But rendering a judgment on a lesser-included offense when the evidence is insufficient to support a conviction for a greater offense is not simply “modifying” the judgment below. It is a reversal of the conviction below and entry of another judgment entirely. As a result, I do not believe subsection (b) of Rule 43.2 comes into play in this case.
I would affirm the judgment of the court of appeals for these reasons.

. 645 S.W.2d 445, 447 (Tex.Crim.App. 1983) (emphasis added).

. 661 S.W.2d at 957 (Tex.Crim.App.1983).

.Id. at 958.

. 865 S.W.2d 26 (Tex.Crim.App.1993).

. Id. at 27.

. 852 S.W.2d 498 (Tex. 1993).

. Id. at 499.

. Ibid, (emphasis in original).

. See Shute v. State, 877 S.W.2d 314, 315 (Tex.Crim.App. 1994).

. Lemon v. State, 861 S.W.2d 249, 250 (Tex. Crim.App.1993) (court of appeals deleted community service requirement and affirmed as modified); Rachuig v. State, 972 S.W.2d 170, 179-80 (Tex.App.—Waco 1998, pet. ref d) (modifying deadly weapon finding and affirming as modified); Howard v. State, 966 S.W.2d 821, 829 (Tex.App.—Austin 1998, pet. ref’d) (modifying to delete deadly weapon finding and affirming as modified); Allen v. State, 951 S.W.2d 925, 928 (Tex.App.—San Antonio 1997, pet. ref'd) (modifying to delete cumulation order and affirming as modified).