Court Opinion

ID: 9659867
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 21:56:21.856451+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:12.244393
License: Public Domain

KELLER, Judge,
concurring.
I do not believe the interpretation of the statutes addressed in this case requires a resort to legislative history. As we noted in Boykin, an appellate court may not consider extratextual factors in statutory interpretation absent ambiguity or absurd results. Boykin v. State, 818 S.W.2d 782, 785-86 (Tex.Crim.App.1991). I think the plain language of these enactments provides ample guidance for the resolution of the ease before us.
Section 1.18 of Senate Bill 1067 provided that the sweeping changes to the penal code, effective September 1, 1994, applied only to offenses committed after that date and that *642“an offense is committed before the effective date of this article if any element of the offense occurs before the effective date.” Act of May 29, 1993, 73rd Leg., R.S., ch. 900, § 1.18, 1993 Tex. Gen. Laws 3586, 3705. This provision leaves no ambiguity or absurdity; the only question remaining is whether the date of the prior offense is an element of the offense under § 46.04.
Section 46.04 provides that A person who has been convicted of a felony commits an offense if he possesses a firearm:
(1) after conviction and before the fifth anniversary of the person’s release from confinement following conviction of the felony or the person’s release fromsupervision under community supervision, parole, or mandatory supervision, whichever date is later; or
(2) after the period described by Subdivision (1), at any location other than the premises at which the person lives.
Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 46.04 (Vernon 1994). The petitioner in this case was charged under subdivision (2). As the State points out, the penal code provides that “ ‘element of offense’ means (A) the forbidden conduct; (B) the required culpability; (C) any required result; and (D) the negation of any exception to the offense.” The Court of Appeals properly noted the “has been convicted of a felony” requirement in § 46.04 falls under the “conduct” heading as a “cir-cumstanee[ ] surrounding the conduct.” State v. Mason, No. 14-97-00189-CR, slip op. at 4, 1997 WL 528912 (Tex.App. — Houston [14th Dist.] 1997) (citing Caballero v. State, 927 S.W.2d 128, 130 (Tex.App. — El Paso 1996, pet. refd). As such, the elements of the offense with which petitioner was charged were:
(1) petitioner was a felon, and
(2) petitioner possessed a firearm outside his home.
That is, on the day of the offense, petitioner must have been a convicted felon, and he must have possessed a firearm outside his home. As the majority correctly notes, while petitioner’s status as a previously convicted felon was an element of the offense, the date of the previous conviction was not.1 The plain language of § 46.04 makes this clear. The date of the previous conviction is wholly irrelevant to the State’s case, except to the extent that it must have occurred prior to the possession.
Nor do these two statutes considered in tandem lead to an absurd result. The result the majority considers absurd would only follow from an assumption that the date of the prior conviction is an element of the offense. As the plain language of § 46.04 does not support this assumption, no danger of an absurd result exists. Therefore, Boy-kin forbids any further inquiry into extratex-tual matters.
With these comments, I join the opinion of the Court.
BAIRD and WOMACK, JJ. join.

. While a charge under § 46.04(1) (criminalizing possession by a felon in his home within five years of release from confinement or supervision) might arguably require proof of a specific date of conviction, we are not faced with that question here.