Court Opinion

ID: 9777940
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 20:28:16.365917+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:33:02.599584
License: Public Domain

GRANT, Justice,
dissenting.
Johnjock correctly contends that he was entitled to two separate assessments of punishment. The unequivocal language of Tex.Code Crim.Proc.Ann. art. 37.07, § 2(c) (Vernon 1981) entitles him to have punishment assessed on each count: “Punishment shall be assessed on each count on which a finding of guilty has been returned.”
The jury was asked to make only one assessment of punishment on a form bearing the numbers of both cases. Tex.Penal Code Ann. § 3.03 (Vernon 1974) requires that when cases have been consolidated for trial the sentences shall run concurrently. Since only one assessment of punishment had been made, the trial court, in order to comply with the statute, used the same assessment twice to pronounce two sentences.
Section 3.03 is not a contradiction or exception to the requirement of Article 37.07. A careful look at cases applying Section 3.03 shows that punishment in those cases was assessed on each count. Haliburton v. State, 578 S.W.2d 726 (Tex.Crim.App. [Panel Op.] 1979); Durham v. State, 557 S.W.2d 526 (Tex.Crim.App.1977); Parks v. State, 553 S.W.2d 114 (Tex.Crim.App.1977). Johnjock’s agreement to a consolidation of the two causes does not constitute a relinquishment of his right to have two separate assessments of punishment.
The harm is obvious. There is no way to know if the jury intended to assess six years on one charge and two years on the other, or four years on each charge, or any possible combination that would add up to eight years. Any way that the jury combined the sentences amounted to stacking1 instead of having them run concurrently as is required by the statute. Although counsel failed to object to this form of the charge, the error is egregious. It is fundamental that a person cannot be sentenced to a punishment that has never been assessed. Any way that the pronouncement of two eight-year sentences based upon one eight-year assessment is viewed, it amounts to a portion of the sentence not being based upon a proper assessment of punishment.
I would remand this cause for a new hearing on punishment.

. In the final argument on punishment, the State told the jury, "We have a man that has committed two crimes and the cases have been consolidated so one sentence reflects the punishment that he gets for the two different transactions." (Emphasis added.)