Court Opinion

ID: 9684794
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 14:14:13.544596+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:59.654797
License: Public Domain

CLINTON, Judge,
dissenting.
In arguing that the Court grant a rehearing the affected District Attorney, one of whose assistants handled the guilty plea trial below, predicates one reason in part as follows:
“... Appellant plead guilty, stating that she was pleading guilty because she was guilty and for no other reason. The trial court then assessed punishment in compliance with the agreed plea recommendation between Appellant and the State."1
To pretend there is no plea bargain in this case illserves the criminal justice system and those working in it.2
Obviously the brief colloquy excerpted from the record by the majority does not reflect the usual inquiry as to a plea bargain that Article 26.13, V.A.C.C.P. requires for the simple reason that over at least one hundred years this Court has told the bench and the bar time and time again that the statutory admonishment “need not precede the acceptance of a plea of guilty to a *467misdemeanor,” Empy v. State, 571 S.W.2d 526, 529-530 (Tex.Cr.App.1978).3 Now, however, its functional equivalent is practically required by the Court.
Because the Court disposes of this cause by ruling on a non-issue rather than resolving the serious problems confronting the bench and the bar when an exception to the form of the charging instrument is presented by a motion to quash, I dissent.
MOTION FOR LEAVE TO FILE REHEARING IN NO. 65365
Motion for leave to file appellant’s motion for rehearing denied.

. All emphasis is mine unless otherwise indicated.

. In bond forfeiture cases this Court may and does “accept as true any statement made by appellant in his brief as to the facts or the record,” that is not challenged by the opposing party. Smith v. State, 561 S.W.2d 501 (Tex.Cr.App.1978); Smith v. State, 561 S.W.2d 501 (Tex.Cr.App.1978); Smith v. State, 561 S.W.2d 502 (Tex.Cr.App.1978). Here the statement is made in a Motion for Rehearing by the State, and is not challenged — except by the Court, itself. With the incipient Courts of Appeals about to undertake initial review of most criminal cases, the burden soon to be imposed on them will be eased somewhat by applying the salutary rule we have recognized in bond forfeiture cases at least to motions for rehearing where the matter stated is not questioned by any party in the cause.

. Of course the inquiry as to a plea bargain is an Article 26.13 requirement of much more recent vintage, but it became immediately inapplicable in a misdemeanor case because of the longstanding teachings of the Court.