Court Opinion

ID: 9662727
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 23:16:21.32151+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:41.833905
License: Public Domain

OPINION
ROBERTS, Judge.
These appeals are from convictions for obtaining a controlled substance by fraud. All eleven of these cases were tried before the same jury. The jury assessed punishment in each case at confinement for twenty years.
Eight of these cases (Nos. 63,149; 63,150; 63,152; 63,153; 63,154; 63,155; 63,-156; and 63,157) involved the obtaining of dilaudid. The indictment in each of these eight cases alleges that the appellant did “knowingly and intentionally acquire and obtain possession of a controlled substance, namely, DILAUDID by misrepresentation, fraud, forgery, deception and subterfuge .... ” In, one ground of error common to all eight of these cases, the appellant contends that these indictments are fundamentally defective because dilaudid was not specifically listed in any of the various schedules or penalty groups of controlled substances contained in V.A.C.S., Article 4476-15. We agree.
In Ex parte Everett, 635 S.W.2d 554, (Tex.Cr.App.1982), we held that a virtually identical indictment was fundamentally defective for failure to allege why dilaudid is a controlled substance. Accordingly, we hold that the indictments in Cause Nos. 63,149; 63,150; 63,152; 63,153; 63,154; 63,-155; 63,156; and 63,157 are fundamentally defective.
In Cause No. 63,151, the indictment alleged that the appellant obtained desox-yn. Like dilaudid, desoxyn was not specifically named in any of the schedules or penalty groups of controlled substances. Accordingly, we hold that the indictment in Cause No. 63,151 is also fundamentally defective.
In two grounds of error, the appellant also claims that the evidence is insufficient in these cases. First, she contends *689that the evidence is insufficient because the prescriptions set out in the indictments show that they had been cancelled. The pharmacists who filled these prescriptions testified that they would not have filled a prescription which had been cancelled. The appellant argues that the proof, therefore, fails to support all the allegations of the indictments. We overrule this contention.
In Graham v. State, 546 S.W.2d 605 (Tex.Cr.App.1977), this court held that an indictment which alleged in the statutory language that a defendant committed the offense and alleged the means used to commit the offense, such as the passing of a forged prescription, was sufficient to allege an offense under V.A.C.S., Article 4476-15, Section 4.09(a)(3). In Ex parte Holbrook, 609 S.W.2d 541 (Tex.Cr.App.1980), this court held that when an indictment sets out the offense in the above manner “neither the purport nor the tenor of that prescription is of any consequence in alleging the offense.” Id. at 545.
Since the tenor of the prescription is of no consequence in alleging the offense, we may regard it as surplusage which the State was not bound to prove. Therefore, the fact that the pharmacists testified that they would not have filled the prescriptions set out in the indictments (with the cancellations present upon them) does not render the evidence insufficient.
Second, the appellant contends in seven of the cases that the evidence is insufficient because the testimony showed that the prescriptions were handed to drug clerks, rather than to the pharmacists named in the indictments. For two reasons, we overrule this contention. First, for the same reasons as set out above, the allegation of the person to whom the prescription was passed was surplusage which the State was not bound to prove. Second, in every case, the pharmacists testified that they were present at the time the appellant gave the clerks the prescriptions, that the clerks then handed the prescriptions to the pharmacists, that the pharmacists then filled the prescriptions, that the pharmacists then handed the drugs to the clerks, and that the clerks in turn handed the drugs to the appellant. This testimony is sufficient to show that the appellant “passed” the prescriptions to the named pharmacists. The fact that the drug clerks acted as intermediaries in the physical acts of delivering the paper to the pharmacists is of no legal significance.
The remaining grounds of error in Cause Nos. 63,149; 63,150; 63,151; 63,152; 63,154; 63,155; 63,156; and 63,157 do not question the sufficiency of the evidence. In light of our holding that the indictments in these causes are fundamentally defective, we need not address the remaining grounds of error.
We turn now to the remaining grounds of error in Cause Nos. 63,158 and 63,159. She first contends, in both cases, that the trial court erred in denying her motion to quash the informations. The motion alleged that the informations, which pleaded, conjunctively, the five ways of committing the offense, failed to give her adequate notice. This contention has no merit, for this court has consistently held that it is permissible to plead, conjunctively, that the defendant violated a statute by all the means set forth in the statute.
Next, the appellant contends that the informations are fundamentally defective for failure to allege that she knew the prescriptions were forged, that the named doctors did not authorize the making of the prescriptions, that the appellant knew that the doctors did not authorize the prescriptions. In Graham v. State, supra, we held that an indictment for this offense need not set out the elements of passing a forged writing. For this reason, the State need not set out any of the allegations urged by the appellant.
The appellant also contends that the trial court fundamentally erred in failing to set out or define the elements of forgery in the charge to the jury. For the same reasons, we hold that it was not fundamental error to fail to include a definition of forgery in the charge.
*690The appellant also contends that these informations are fundamentally defective because the substances named in the tenor clauses vary from the substances named in the “purport” clauses of the infor-mations. This contention has been rejected in Ex parte Holbrook, supra. The ground of error is overruled.
Next, the appellant contends that the penitentiary packet admitted into evidence during the punishment phase of the trial was inadmissible because the judgment and sentence were not signed by the trial judge. In Gutierrez v. State, 456 S.W.2d 84 (Tex.Cr.App.1970), we held that the validity of a conviction is not affected by the failure of a judge to sign the judgment and sentence. The ground of error is overruled.
Finally, the appellant contends that the prosecutor improperly directed the jury to consider the possibility of parole in setting the appropriate punishment for the appellant. During his closing argument, the defense attorney had argued:
“... I think that one conclusion that I can draw and I think you would draw is that the people who violate the law if they have done it while they are younger and get to an age where it is no longer worthwhile for them to do that. You come to a point where you say the use of drugs, the writing of prescriptions, T don’t want to do it anymore' for what it’s cost me’. She went to the penitentiary one time and she didn’t feel that way when she got out or if she felt that way as Mr. Harrell told you for a while the feeling left her and somehow she got back into drugs again, but I submit to you she will, you can look at her birth date, it’s in these penitentiary records, I think she’s 32 years old now, she’ll be older than that when she is released from the penitentiary and I think you can rightfully take into consideration the fact that she is going to change her ways probably if you gave her the minimum sentence, probably, and the reason I say probably is because of Harrel’s [sic] testimony, that’s what is important to me in that regard, they think there’s hope for her when they no reason to have to testify [sic] in this case, they say there is hope for her and these are the people that know her best and I think the reason is that they, rather I’m saying it the right way about getting to a certain age or rather it’s your maturity or whether it’s just that you get to a point where you are not going to break the law any more because it’s not worth it, it’s too expensive, it’s hard on your health, bad on your kids, whatever it is, it’s going to happen and they realize that in their way....”
The prosecutor’s argument to the jury included the following:
“... You know, Mr. Finstrom pointed out that at some point in a person’s life he reaches that point where it’s no longer to his best interest to violate the law, he reaches an age or for whatever reason Mr. Finstrom pointed out, but I don’t think that you can count on everybody ever reaching that particular time. You can’t say that someone at some point in life that everyone is going to reach the point in time when they are no longer going to violate the law, you can’t say that, if that were true, we would have a cut-off on age for people who are in the penitentiary and we don’t. If it were true, she should have reached that point a long time ago. How about the first time that she went to the penitentiary for the same kind of offense. And what kind of drug was it? It was a form of speed, only it was a weaker form of speed than she is now writing prescriptions for, so her addiction, if indeed she has one, I want to say a little bit more about that, was not cured the first time she went to the penitentiary, apparently. You know that she went to the penitentiary in 1975 on a 4 year sentence, which began in June of 1975 and her father-in-law tells you to the best of his recollection she was paroled in 1976 on a 4 year sentence, so you know it’s going to take a substantial longer period of time, I submit to you—
“MR. FINSTROM: (interposing) We are going to object to that argument, the way it’s phrased, it is encouraging the *691jury to consider the parole status and violation of the Courts charged.
“THE COURT: Overruled. The jury has been instructed regarding the parole status. Go ahead.”
The prosecutor should not have referred to the fact that the appellant had been paroled after serving one year of the earlier four year sentence (a fact which was in evidence). However, the remark does not appear to have been intended to persuade the jury to consider the state’s parole laws in assessing punishment. Rather, the prosecutor’s remark appears to have been a plea that the jury assess a substantially longer period of confinement than was previously assessed because the appellant had not been rehabilitated by her earlier period of confinement. In other words, she has not yet reached the age when it was “no longer worthwhile” for her to commit crimes. The ground of error is overruled.
The judgments in Cause Nos. 63,158 and 63,159 are affirmed.
The judgments in Cause Nos. 63,149; 63,-150; 63,151; 63,152; 63,153; 63,154; 63,155; 63,156; and 63,157 are reversed and the indictments are ordered dismissed.