Court Opinion

ID: 9665362
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 00:46:03.229823+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:15.045543
License: Public Domain

CLINTON, Judge,
dissenting.
Though appealing at first blush, upon analysis the theory espoused by the State and accepted by the majority is untenable.
It is simply not the case that definition (A) of “appropriate”1 prescribes “an act which requires the consent of the transfer- or” that “becomes unlawful because the consent is not ‘effective for some reason’ ” provided in V.T.C.A. Penal Code, § 31.01(4). Beyond doubt if common meaning of the term is given effect, a “purported” transfer, having “the often specious appearance of being, intending, or claiming (something implied or inferred),”2 does not require consent of the purported transferor. Thus, the matter of “fair notice” is at once implicated. Gorman v. State, 634 S.W.2d 681, 684 (Tex.Cr.App.1982) (Opinion on State’s Motion for Rehearing).
Like a Hasselblad camera with accessories, a television set and three telephones are “goods,” such that interests in them “do not require possession to exist,” so that “title” to those interests may be transferred.3 Gorman v. State, supra, at 693. But Gorman does not hold, as the State and the majority would seem to have it, Opinion, n. 2, for n. 10 in that opinion is nothing more than a quote from V.T.C.A. Business and Commerce Code, § 2.401(a), and it and the other two sections are seen only to support the notion expressed textually that nonpos-sessory interests may exist in goods.
Therefore, the indictment in this cause, when examined from the perspective of the accused, does not negate a § 31.01(5)(A) method of appropriate by adding “without any consent of any kind.” Rather, that gratuitously added phrase might well lead an accused to conclude that the pleader precisely had in mind a “purported transfer of title to other nonpossessory interest in [the alleged] property” — here a television and three telephones.
The motion to quash was erroneously overruled. Because the Court does not so hold, I respectfully dissent.
ODOM, TEAGUE and MILLER, JJ., join.

.V.T.C.A. Penal Code, § 31.01(5)(A) provides: “(5) ‘Appropriate’ means:
(A) to bring about a transfer or purported transfer of title to or other nonpossessory interest in property, whether to the actor or another; ...”
(All emphasis is added by the writer of this opinion unless otherwise indicated.)

. Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam Co., 1979 (Springfield, Mass.).

. As in Gorman the shorthand rendition “transfer of title” includes “bring about a transfer or purported transfer of title or other nonposses-sory interest” in goods.