Court Opinion

ID: 9776346
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 19:31:12.789802+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:37.648454
License: Public Domain

JOHNSON, J.,
filed concurring opinion in which MEYERS, J., joins.
I concur only in the judgment of the Court. I write separately to clarify that evidence was introduced at trial indicating that appellant was an inmate at the time of the offense.
The majority properly states that Article 42.08(b) does not specifically require “record evidence of the prior conviction and that [appellant] was the person convicted.” Ante, at 174. However, Article 42.08(b) does require that the offense be committed while appellant was an “inmate in the institutional division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.” As the majority acknowledges, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice — Institutional Division (TDCJ-ID) will be aware that the defendant was an inmate at the time he committed the offense and of the specifics regarding the sentence for which the defendant was serving at the time. Id. at 174-75. Nevertheless, it is not TDCJ-ID but the trial court who must be aware, at trial, of appellant’s status as an inmate. The trial court does not somehow inherently know that appellant was an inmate at the time of the offense. Thus, some evidence of the defendant’s status as an inmate must be adduced at trial.
Upon review of the record, there appears to be sufficient evidence introduced at trial to ascertain that appellant was an inmate at the TDCJ-ID at the time of the offense, thus invoking Article 42.08(b). At trial, Appellant was repeatedly referred to *176by witnesses and prosecution as “Inmate Bell” with no objection from defense counsel. Defense counsel himself referred to appellant as “Inmate Bell.” Officer Beasley, the alleged victim, testified that he was a correction officer at the Ellis Unit of the TDCJ-ID and that appellant was an inmate at the same unit at the time of the offense. No defense objections were made to this or other testimony that appellant was an inmate. In these circumstances, there is sufficient evidence to invoke Article 42.08(b). See Resanovich v. State, 906 S.W.2d 40, 42-43 (Tex.Crim.App.1995) (Defendant’s prior murder conviction was established by admission of defendant’s counsel that defendant was currently serving murder sentence and by defendant’s failure to object to state’s observations that defendant was serving sentence for murder and thus defendant’s subsequent sentence could be cumulated on to previously imposed sentence for murder conviction.).1
With these comments, I concur in the judgment of the Court.

. As noted in Resanovich, the "Court would note that this dispute could have been avoided had the prosecution simply introduced the pen pack containing the prior [burglary of a habitation] conviction into the record.” Resanovich, 906 S.W.2d at 42, n. 6.