Court Opinion

ID: 9778144
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 20:33:56.479273+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:33:04.090269
License: Public Domain

ONION, Presiding Judge,
concurring.
I concur in the result reached. I would point out, however, that part of the difficulty involved in the instant case is the failure of the trial court to assess punishment at the time the guilty plea was entered before the court. The use of presentence investigation reports is to be commended. The only reference to such reports, however, to be found in the Code of Criminal Procedure is in Article 42.12, Section 4, V.A.C.C.P. The proper use of such reports is to enable the trial court to pass on the issue of probation, not to determine the punishment to be assessed. These reports frequently contain hearsay, information concerning inadmissible extraneous offenses, and other matters that would not be admissible at trial.
If punishment in a felony case is assessed at the time of the plea of guilty or nolo contendere and that punishment is less than ten years so that probation is a possibility and a pre-sentence investigation is ordered, it will be clear later that the report obtained as a result of that investigation was used only to pass on the issue of probation. This avoids the problem inherent in the instant case of one judge serving by administrative assignment,1 from hearing the evidence, and another judge, who may or may not have any evidence before him, assessing punishment at a later date.
Article 37.07, V.A.C.C.P., providing for bifurcated trials is, by its very terms, not applicable to guilty pleas in felony cases either before a judge or jury. Basaldua v. State, 481 S.W.2d 851, 853 (Tex.Cr.App.1972), and cases there cited. See also Johnson v. State, 492 S.W.2d 505 (Tex.Cr.App.1973); Morales v. State, 416 S.W.2d 403 (Tex.Cr.App.1967). While a judge without statutory authority may convert a guilty plea in a bench trial into bifurcated proceedings, particularly where there is no objection, many problems can arise from such action. Records coming before this Court, particularly from Harris County, have demonstrated a growing tendency to bifurcate these proceedings. In most of these eases the punishment is not assessed at the time of the guilty plea and the cases have been reset for the purpose of obtaining a pre-sen-tence investigation. At the second hearing, instead of the court passing on the issue of probation, the courts have been permitting the defense to reopen and present evidence as to the facts surrounding the offense as well as presenting reputation witnesses. The State often counters with other evidence concerning the offense. In many of the records the defendant or other defense witnesses at the second hearing raise by their testimony defenses of alibi, self-defense, etc., which in turn raises the question of whether the trial court should have sua sponte withdrawn the guilty plea under the rule that where the evidence makes evident the innocence of the defendant or which fairly and reasonably raises such issue, the court should withdraw the guilty plea on its own motion if the defendant does not do so himself or fails to withdraw such evidence raising such issue.
*822Many of these problems can be avoided by hearing all the evidence, including reputation witnesses at one hearing upon a guilty plea before the court. If punishment is then assessed, the only issue left is the question of probation to be determined by the court following a review of a pre-sen-tence report. Thus, a second hearing on punishment is avoided and the valuable time of our trial courts with heavy trial dockets is saved.
If such procedure had been utilized in the instant case we would not be dismissing the appeal.
I concur.

. These judges are referred to in the majority opinion as “visiting judges.”