Court Opinion

ID: 9779419
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 21:50:15.003573+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:33:26.264124
License: Public Domain

W.C. DAVIS, Judge,
dissenting.
Everyone would agree, notwithstanding the opinion by the Court of Appeals, that the trial court had jurisdiction to grant or deny the motions for new trial; the problem appears with the issues here resolved in favor of appellants after discussion of the “threshold” issue. From jurisdiction, we slide through the issue of authority, or lack thereof, of the trial court to rescind a patently mistaken order granting the motions for new trial. Finally, we are told that double jeopardy considerations demand acquittal for the two appellants convicted of injuring their step-child under Penal Code, § 22.04.
The trial judge in the present case filed findings that defense counsel acted in “bad faith” by failing to serve the State, thereby effectively foreclosing from the State its statutorily guaranteed opportunity to respond and controvert the motion. See Art. 40.06, V.A.C.C.P., now repealed and codified as Texas Rules of Appellate Procedure, Rule 31(b).
At the hearing held after the State filed a “Response” to the trial court’s action in granting the motion, defense and prosecuting attorneys were asked if appellants’ post-trial motion had been served upon the State. Defense counsel equivocated, but referenced his remarks with the statement that he could not swear under oath that he had served the State with a copy of the motion. The time frame we’re concerned with is not one we would normally associate with such a lack of memory, and the lack of a certificate of service with appellants’ motion no doubt bolstered the trial court’s findings. It was this failure to provide notice to the State that led to the trial and appellate court’s conclusions that the trial judge was “defrauded” into signing the order.
Without going into the logic behind such a finding, discussion of “bad faith” or “fraud” merely serves to distort the real issue at bar — whether the State is entitled to notice and if so, the effect of the trial court’s rescission of the order granting appellant’s motion.
As earlier stated, Art. 40.06, then in effect at appellant’s trial, provides the State with the statutory opportunity to controvert a criminal defendant’s motion for new trial. Implicit in that statute is the fact that, before the State may exercise the opportunity to controvert the particular pleading, it must first have notice of the motion so that matters alleged within may be contested. Here, the State did not become aware of the trial court’s action in granting appellant’s motion until after the order was signed.
Once signed, the majority now says there is no possibility of rescission since any er*60ror was not “clerical” in nature. Then, even if the error was clerical in nature, we find that granting of the motion on the grounds of insufficient evidence automatically acted to acquit the defendants, divest the trial court of jurisdiction in the case, and make any reason for rescission, however otherwise valid, moot. As authority for the rule that the Double Jeopardy clause bars retrial where a motion for new trial based upon sufficiency of the evidence is granted, we are referred to Hudson v. Louisiana, 450 U.S. 40, 101 S.Ct. 970, 67 L.Ed.2d 30 (1981). We are then directed to statutory and case authority from this state which “supports this holding."
In Hudson, supra, the Supreme Court held that Burks v. United States, 437 US. 1, 98 S.Ct. 2141, 57 L.Ed.2d 1 (1978) precluded retrial of the defendant for murder. The trial judge in Hudson, supra, had granted a motion for new trial, clearly stating for the record the sole ground that the evidence was legally insufficient. Burks, supra, applied because the new trial was granted “due to a failure of proof at trial.” Burks, 437 U.S. at 16, 98 S.Ct. 2141, 57 L.Ed.2d 1.
The reasoning of the Supreme Court, as this Court has noted,
... was based upon the simple proposition that if the evidence was insufficient the trial judge should not have submitted the cause to the jury for its consideration, and even if improperly submitted to the jury, the jury should have acquitted.
Chase v. State, 573 S.W.2d 247, 248 (Tex.Cr.App.1978) (panel op.). Compare with the instant cause where no such record statements were made.
In this state, the rule regarding the “finality” of a trial court’s action in granting a new trial was promulgated in Matthews v. State, 40 Tex.Cr.R. 316, 50 S.W. 368 (1899). Reading pertinent statutes and provisions together, that court believed “it was intended” such an action to be final. However, that Court left the door open for exceptions to this “rule” when it said:
We are not now holding (because that question is not before us) that it would not be competent for the court, after having overruled the motion for new trial at a former day of the term, to again call the case up, and grant such motion; and we concede that, if the court can do this, it affords a reason why it might do the other. 50 S.W. at 369.
It is worthy to note that neither constitutional, statutory nor common law prevented rescission of an order granting new trial at the time Matthews, supra, was written, except where the original verdict ended in acquittal. With some difference as to time tables, the provisions regarding new trials today remain distinctly similar to those summarized by the Matthews court, with the end result that the effect of granting such a motion is to “place the cause in the same position in which it was before any trial had taken place.” Id.
In English v. State, 592 S.W.2d 949 (Tex.Cr.App.1980) this Court upheld a rescission order where the trial judge “unknowingly” signed a new trial order. We distinguished the situation from that found in Matthews:
In Matthews it appears that the trial court granted the defendant’s motion for new trial, then attempted to set aside its order because it had been under a ‘misapprehension of the evidence complained of by defendant in his motion for new trial.’ The instant case is distinguishable. The court in this case did not knowingly grant the motion for new trial and then decide to retract its decision. The court was not even aware that it was granting a motion for new trial when it signed the order. No hearing was held in this case; no evidence was adduced from which the court could have knowingly granted a new trial. The signing of an order form is not all there is to granting a new trial.
Further, the court’s error in this case does not strike us as a judicial error, as certainly was the case in Matthews. The error here is more akin to clerical error, which can be corrected. Compare the trial court’s authority to correct an improper entry of its judgment. White v. State, 543 S.W.2d 130 (Tex.Cr.App.1976); Savant v. State, 535 S.W.2d 190 (Tex.Cr.App.1976).
Id. at 955, 56.
*61We distinguished the situation in English from that in Matthews, both supra, because in English, supra, the trial judge “never knowingly granted a new trial, but only signed the order form by mistake.” Thus, the possible flexibility of the rule, recognized in Matthews, supra, to allow rescission under certain circumstances, came full circle in English, supra, and has been since cited as the “clerical” exception to the general rule disallowing rescission of an order granting a defendant’s motion for new trial. See Ex Parte Drewery, 677 S.W.2d 533 (Tex.Cr.App.1984).
In the instant case, we are dealing with error of a related sort. Unlike the situation in English, supra, ostensibly we are faced with the situation where the trial judge knowingly signed the order granting a new trial. However, it is also clear from the record that the trial court signed said order “by mistake,” because he was under the mistaken belief that service had been rendered and the parties joined in the proceeding, the State to all outward appearances having chosen not to controvert the motion before him. Thus, how can we now say that the motion was granted “knowingly” if the act was performed without full knowledge and with false consciousness as to the surrounding circumstances. We are not, after all, faced with a case where the judge attempted to set aside his order because it was made under a “misapprehension of the evidence”; the instant case presents a case where the trial judge was under a misapprehension that the State had notice of the motion and apparently just failed to take issue with the arguments contained therein. It is this important issue of notice, implicating fundamental concerns of due process and due course of law, that distinguishes the record facts in the present cause from those in other cases drawing the “clerical” versus “judicial” error distinction.
This Court has recognized the necessity for the State to be served with a motion for new trial in the context of Art. 40.03(7) and (8), V.A.C.C.P., now rule 30(b)(7) and (8), supra. In Harvey v. State, 201 S.W.2d 42 (Tex.Cr.App.1947), the Court stated:
An essential element of such a (new trial) motion is that the matter or error relied upon for a new trial must be specifically set forth therein.... The wisdom of that rule lies in the fact that reasonable notice should be given not only to the trial court but the State, as well, as to the misconduct relied upon and to prevent a purely fishing expedition on the part of the accused. 201 S.W.2d at 45 (citations omitted) (emphasis supplied).
More recently, we decided Trout v. State, 702 S.W.2d 618 (Tex.Cr.App.1985) on State’s Motion for Rehearing. Factually similar to Harvey, supra, the appellant there raised and was allowed to argue at the hearing on his motion for new trial an additional instance of jury misconduct un-pled in his motion but included in the supporting affidavits. The State objected, arguing that “there was insufficient notice given to prepare a rebuttal.” Id at 619. The Dallas Court of Appeals, in an unpublished opinion, held the affidavits gave the State and the trial court adequate notice of the facts relied upon as grounds for new trial. We disagreed and reversed that court’s judgment:
We hold to the principles announced in Harvey v. State, 150 Tex.Cr.R. 332, 20 S.W.2d 42, 45 (1947). In Harvey, the court, discussing a motion for new trial alleging jury misconduct, included that ‘reasonable notice should be given not only the trial court but the State as well, as to the misconduct relied upon....’ An instance of jury misconduct included in a supporting affidavit but not in the motion for new trial is not ‘reasonable notice.’ 702 S.W.2d at 620.
“Proper notice” in Harvey and Trout, both supra, required the defendant to apprise the trial court and the State, within the four comers of the motion, the arguments and evidence to be relied upon by the defense. Absent such notice, the improper evidence was not “properly presented by the motion for new trial, should not have been entertained by the trial court at the hearing on the motion for new trial and was not properly preserved for appeal.” Id.
*62While notice of additional evidence or argument has been deemed essential by this Court, the Harvey and Trout, both supra, opinions presume that initial notice was provided the State. I do not see a different result in either cited case if either of those appellants had failed to initially give notice of their original motions; the notice problem would merely be exacerbated.
The error in the instant case is plainly one of the defendant’s failure to prove any notice to the State of any portion of the motion for new trial. When such is the case, the better rule is to follow the authority of Harvey and Trout, both supra, by finding the motion to have not been properly presented, entertained or presented on appeal. Any other result, such as the majority’s narrow analysis of the trial court’s jurisdiction without review of that court’s exercise of authority under mistake or error directly caused by appellant, inexcusably allows manipulation of the judicial process and an inequitable solution to a problem which, if occurring to a criminal defendant, would be amenable to correction or dismissal. Here, there is no question as to the trial court’s jurisdiction of the matter; issue is taken in the authority by which a post-trial motion should be entertained. Just as in the case where an appellant alleges grounds of jury misconduct, so should we apply the same notice requirements to the ground for new trial where it is claimed the evidence “is contrary to law and evidence.”1
For the foregoing reasons, I respectfully dissent.
ONION, P.J., joins.

. The State’s right to appeal from an order granting a new trial is now embodied in Art. 44.01(a)(3), V.A.C.C.P. Although the cited statute does not expressly require notice to the State under a situation similar to that before us, the State is entitled to appeal a ruling on a "question of law” where a defendant is convicted and appeals. The provisions of Art. 40.06, supra, now Rule 31(b), would appear to present such a cognizable claim. But before the State may exercise its right to appeal, logic dictates the State must be apprised of new trial pleadings, else the statute is meaningless.