Court Opinion

ID: 9778935
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 21:26:39.276101+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:33:16.105376
License: Public Domain

TEAGUE, Justice,
dissenting and concurring.
On direct appeal, notwithstanding the fact that neither a formal nor informal attorney-client relationship ever existed between Danny Lee Strong, henceforth appellant, and Hon. Charles F. Baldwin, who with Hon. Leon Haley was then representing Deana Sweeney; and notwithstanding the fact that Baldwin was never appointed to represent appellant, but was appointed with Haley solely to represent Sweeney, appellant having been appointed two other attorneys to represent him; notwithstanding the fact that no “joint defense” or “pooled information” scenario ever existed; notwithstanding the fact that Baldwin did not solicit the complained about letter from appellant; notwithstanding the fact that Baldwin never even visited appellant when appellant was incarcerated in the Tarrant County Jail; and notwithstanding the fact that there was no common interest in Bald*553win preparing a defense on behalf of Sweeney that might implicate appellant, appellant argued on appeal that the admission of the complained about letter into evidence was barred by the attorney-client privilege that he claimed existed between him and Baldwin. It is clear from this record that, except in appellant’s imaginary belief, no kind of attorney-client relationship ever existed between Baldwin and appellant.
The Fort Worth Court of Appeals, in a well written and reasoned opinion by Justice Hill, correctly rejected the contention urged on behalf of appellant, that the trial judge erred in admitting into evidence an unsolicited letter which he, appellant, had written to Baldwin while he was incarcerated in the Tarrant County Jail. See Strong v. State, 739 S.W.2d 506 (Tex.App.-2nd 1987).
The record reflects that when appellant wrote Baldwin the unsolicited letter when he was incarcerated in the Tarrant County Jail, Baldwin and Haley had been appointed to represent Sweeney, who was then appellant’s girlfriend and his co-defendant. Two other attorneys were appointed to represent appellant. Later, Sweeney retained Hon. Jim Shaw who thereafter represented her at all times. After Shaw commenced representing Sweeney, Baldwin gave the letter to Shaw who turned it over to a prosecuting attorney. In exchange for agreeing to testify against appellant, Sweeney was permitted to plead guilty to committing the offense of robbery. She was assessed a two year prison sentence.
The record is clear that Baldwin never acted, either unilaterally or in concert, as appellant’s attorney when he represented Sweeney. The complained about letter that appellant sent Baldwin was unsolicited by either Baldwin or Haley.
I find that the court of appeals’ holding comports with what a majority of this Court implicitly held in Montelongo v. State, 681 S.W.2d 47 (Tex.Cr.App.1984), that even where a licensed attorney of this State unilaterally, but lawfully, goes and visits with an incarcerated inmate, no kind of attorney-relationship is established as a result of that visit. Under Montelongo, if all that an attorney’s lawful visit with an incarcerated inmate amounts to is the receipt of “unsolicited advice”, clearly, under the circumstances of this case, the giving of “unsolicited advice” by an incarcerated inmate to his co-defendant’s attorney does not create or establish any kind of attorney-client relationship. Cf. Dunn v. State, 696 S.W.2d 561 (Tex.Cr.App.1985).
Therefore, given the correctness of the court of appeals’ holding, my vote is to put this Court’s improvidently granted stamp to appellant’s petition for discretionary review. I dissent to the failure of this Court to take such action. However, I concur in the majority opinion’s holding that Baldwin and appellant never had any kind of attorney-client relationship, and that “Unilaterally asserting a joint defense based on a common interest does not give rise to the lawyer-client privilege.”