Court Opinion

ID: 9640962
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:19:46.858836+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:34.167207
License: Public Domain

PHILLIPS, Judge,
dissenting.
I dissent to the majority’s disposition of the issue of whether a defendant is entitled to a trial by jury when demanded by him upon a reversal and remand for trial on the two issues of fact determinative of the range of punishment, (1) whether the first allegation in the indictment of a prior felony conviction of defendant was true, and (2) whether the second allegation in the indictment of a prior felony conviction of defendant was true.
The finding of true or false as to whether a defendant has been convicted of a prior felony as alleged by the indictment clearly requires a determination of an issue of fact, upon which hinges the range of punishment within which a defendant’s punishment may be assessed. If under statutory law the State is specifically and expressly per*23mitted to exact a punishment against a defendant that is serious and not petty, that is, in excess of six months, then the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States which is applied to State action through the Fourteenth Amendment requires that the defendant be accorded the right of jury trial on issues of fact. Duncan v. State of Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145, 88 S.Ct. 1444, 20 L.Ed.2d 491; Frank v. U. S., 395 U.S. 147, 89 S.Ct. 1503, 23 L.Ed.2d 162; Dyke v. Taylor, etc., 391 U.S. 216, 88 S.Ct. 1472, 20 L.Ed.2d 538; Taylor v. Hayes, 418 U.S. 488, 94 S.Ct. 2697, 41 L.Ed.2d 897; Codispoti v. Pennsylvania, 418 U.S. 506, 94 S.Ct. 2687, 41 L.Ed.2d 912. Also, Article 1, Sec. 15 of the Texas Constitution and Article 1.12, V.A.C.C.P., provide that the right of trial by jury shall remain inviolate. A demand for a jury trial raises said fundamental constitutional right even though the Constitution is not expressly stated as the basis for said demand. By virtue of said mandates of the Federal Constitution and Article 1, Sec. 15 of the Texas Constitution, upon remand by reason of the insufficiency of competent evidence to support a finding of truth as to the allegation of a prior conviction for enhancement purposes, the appellant should be entitled to a trial by jury on said new trial of said issues of fact. The Legislature has also evidenced its intent that in any criminal trial of an issue of fact it must be submitted to a jury unless waived.
Article 36.13 V.A.C.C.P. provides:
“Unless otherwise provided in this Code, the jury is the exclusive judge of the facts, but it is bound to receive the law from the court and be governed thereby.
Article 38.04 V.A.C.C.P. provides:
“The jury, in all cases, is the exclusive judge of the facts proved, and the weight to be given to the testimony . . . ”
Article 38.23, V.A.C.C.P. provides:
“In any case where the legal evidence raises an issue hereunder, the jury shall be instructed that if it believes, or has a reasonable doubt, that the evidence was obtained in violation of the provisions of this Article, then and in such event, the jury shall disregard any such evidence so obtained.”
The majority opinion admits “there were indeed fact questions to be determined at the new penalty hearing”, but concludes that the defendant was not entitled to a jury decision thereon because they “related to the penalty to be assessed ’’. Do not the questions of fact as to whether a defendant is guilty of the offense alleged or a lesser included offense, whether the value of stolen property is over $200.00, and whether a murder committed prior to the new Code was actuated by malice aforethought, relate to the penalty to be assessed? For such reason, would the majority hold that a defendant is not constitutionally entitled to trial by jury on said fact issues? This Court has held that said issues of fact as to value and malice are properly submitted to the trier of fact at the trial on punishment. Ruiz v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 523 S.W.2d 691. But it should be obvious to all that even had the Legislature specifically provided that such issues of fact should be submitted at the trial on punishment, such would not and could not diminish a defendant’s right to jury trial on such issues of fact. Where value in excess of a certain figure is not an element of the crime, but a fact issue only to fix the range of punishment, it has been specifically held that the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments entitle a defendant to have the fact determined by the jury rather than the sentencing judge. U. S. v. Kramer, 2 Cir., 289 F.2d 909.
The crossroads where my brethren and I have parted in our path of reasoning is that they make no distinction between (1) a question of fact that fixes the range of punishment within which punishment may be assessed, and (2) the discretionary assessment of punishment within that range. The right of trial by jury is an absolute Federal and State Constitutional right as to the first but not as to the second. My brethren’s failure to draw said distinction is apparent from their focusing on and repeatedly stating the issue herein to be whether there is a constitutional right to have a jury assess punishment. That such *24constitutional right does not exist is evident from all decisions and the function for two hundred years of the Federal Judiciary system. James v. Twomey, 7 Cir., 466 F.2d 718; Parrish v. Beto, 5 Cir., 414 F.2d 770. But such is simply not the question here.
My brethren next assert that the defendant irrevocably waived any right he may have had to a jury trial of said issues of fact by electing at the beginning of the prior trial to have the court assess his punishment. When a defendant elects, prior to impanelment of his jury at his initial trial, to submit the question of punishment to the court, he does so faced with circumstances and conditions which might be altogether different from that facing him upon retrial of the issue of fact as to the truth or falsity of enhancement allegations. For example, he may have initially waived a jury on said issue of fact by reason of the composition of the jury panel he faced that particúlar morning, or a witness whom he deemed effective before the jury but not before the court might have been unavailable at that time but available at his later retrial on said issue. There is a strong presumption against the waiver of a constitutional right and to be effective it must be knowledgeable, affirmative and clear. Austin v. Erickson, 8 Cir., 477 F.2d 620; U. S. v. David, 167 U.S.App.D.C. 117, 511 F.2d 355; Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694; Sullins v. U. S., 10 Cir., 389 F.2d 985. The recent decision of U. S. v. Lee, 6 Cir., 539 F.2d 606 (1976) specifically answers the theory of some implied, but actually imaginary, waiver that is advanced by the majority opinion, as is shown by the following extracts from said decision:
“. . . Unless the language of a waiver unambiguously states that it will apply in all retrials should they be ordered, a waiver should not continue in effect after the jurisdiction of the court to which it was tendered terminates upon the taking of an appeal.
The general rule to be applied where a judgment of a trial court is reversed after a bench trial was stated in Burnham v. N. Chicago St. Ry. Co., 88 F. 627, 629-630 (7th Cir. 1898):
2. The stipulation to waive a jury, and to try the case before the court, only had relation to the first trial. There could be no presumption then that there would ever be a second trial; and therefore it should not be presumed that the parties, in making the stipulation, had in mind any possible subsequent trial after the first, to which the stipulation could refer. The right of trial by jury in cases at law, whether in a civil or criminal case, is a high and sacred constitutional right in Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence, and is expressly guaranteed by the United States constitution. A stipulation for the waiver of such right should therefore be strictly construed in favor of the preservation of the right.
The rule and the reason for it are fairly laid down by the supreme court of Alabama in Cross v. State, 78 Ala. 430, as follows:
‘All we decide is that the agreement to waive the right of trial by jury must ordinarily be construed to apply only to the particular trial at which it is made. Such a waiver is a renunciation of a valuable constitutional right, and must be strictly construed. It may well be supposed that a defendant would be perfectly willing for a particular judge to try him, when he would not risk his successor, or that he would be willing to be tried the first time by a judge, when he would not submit to a second trial by the same judge after such officer had convicted him one or more times, so that the judicial mind might not afterwards be perfectly free from the influence of a bias created by the circumstances of such previous conviction. This would be sufficient ground for the challenge of a juror, and ought not to be considered as waived in the case of a judge, — at least on doubtful implication.’
. As the Burnham court noted, the right to a jury trial is a fundamental right, and a waiver should not be presumed . . . even though a defendant has consented once to a bench trial, he could reasonably be expected to *25object to retrial without a jury before the same judge who had previously convicted him of the same offense Nevertheless, Lee was not permitted to withdraw his consent in order to have the issue of his knowledge tried before an impartial jury in the district court . ‘ “courts indulge every reasonable presumption against waiver” of fundamental constitutional rights,’ and that they require a showing of ‘an intentional relinquishment or abandonment of a known right or privilege.’ Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458, 464, 58 S.Ct. 1019, 1023, 82 L.Ed. 1461 (1938).”
Any argument that appellant waived said right when he failed to demand same as required by Art. 37.07, V.A.C.C.P., prior to the initial trial of innocence or guilt of the primary offense, fails to properly evaluate the fact that the procedure argued for would mandatorily require this appellant to accept as the trier of fact for the retrial of an issue of fact one who has already determined said issue adversely to the appellant. It would amount to the same obvious judicial impropriety, to say the least, as requiring a defendant, upon reversal of his conviction for insufficient evidence, to retry the issues of fact involved before the same jury that had already decided said issue of fact against him, though on insufficient evidence, or to hold that a defendant who waived a jury for trial of the issue of innocence or guilt could not demand a jury if his conviction by the court was reversed and remanded for a new trial.
My brethren further state that Article 37.07 V.A.C.C.P. prohibits one jury at the guilt stage of the bifurcated trial and another at the penalty stage. Said statute simply does not so provide, and if it were so construed it would be unconstitutional. Said Article merely provides that “in cases where the matter of punishment is referred to the jury, the verdict shall not be complete until the jury has rendered a verdict both on the guilt or innocence of the defendant and the amount of punishment, where the jury finds the defendant guilty”. Therefore, it is obviously intended by the Legislature that where the matter of punishment is not referred to the jury a verdict rendered on the issue of guilt or innocence shall be a complete verdict. By reason of the fact that the finding of guilt or innocence at the prior trial was a complete verdict, appellant is not entitled to a new trial as to his innocence or guilt of the primary offense. Article 37.07, V.A.C.C.P. also provides that the judge shall assess the punishment in every criminal action. It then goes further and provides that upon affirmative performance of a special condition by the defendant, the filing of an election in writing at the time he enters his plea in open court, the defendant may have the jury assess his punishment. Said statute is silent as to trial of issues of fact that fix the range of punishment. As heretofore stated, assessment of punishment by a jury is not a constitutional right, but is a statutory right to be acquired only through an affirmative act by the defendant. Such right to jury assessment of punishment is not a right that must be almost conclusively shown to have been knowingly and intentionally waived, as is the constitutional right to trial by jury on issues of fact, but is a right that does not exist unless and until the defendant affirmatively performs a required act at a prescribed time. These are the reasons I conclude that the appellant has not waived his constitutional right to trial by jury on the issues of fact that fix the range of punishment within which the assessor of punishment may act, but that the appellant could not upon remand in this instance complain of the assessment of his punishment by the court.
Lastly, my brethren point out that appellant, after denial of his right to a jury trial as to the truth of the allegations of valid prior convictions, took the stand before the judge and admitted that he was the person convicted in the alleged cause numbers, and that since such admission would be admissible at any future trial of said fact issues, to grant him the right of jury trial thereon would avail him nothing. The truth of said allegations of valid prior convictions of a defendant can depend on many issues of fact other than merely identifying the de*26fendant on trial as the defendant in said prior convictions. For instance, issues of fact on directly controverted testimony may exist as to whether the defendant had any counsel at the trial of a remote prior conviction, as to whether his attorney misrepresented the effect of his plea, whether said prior plea was induced by fraud, whether any jury waiver was in fact executed, whether any admonishment as to the range of punishment was actually given and a myriad of other factual questions that would turn solely on the credibility of the witnesses. Furthermore, as to so fundamental a right as trial by jury on an issue of fact, harmless error tests are not applicable. U. S. v. Goodwin, 6 Cir., 531 F.2d 347.
I cannot concede to the excepting out from the protection of the cherished right of jury trial even one single issue of fact. For, if it is only one today, it will be two or more tomorrow until said sacred right is finally whittled away. It is for these reasons that I am compelled to respectfully dissent from the considered views of my brethren.
ROBERTS, Judge, joins.