Bell v. State

814 S.W.2d 229, 1991 WL 141417
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedNovember 20, 1991
Docket01-90-00559-CR
StatusPublished
Cited by32 cases

This text of 814 S.W.2d 229 (Bell v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Bell v. State, 814 S.W.2d 229, 1991 WL 141417 (Tex. Ct. App. 1991).

Opinion

OPINION

WILSON, Justice.

A jury found appellant guilty of felony driving while intoxicated, found three enhancement paragraphs true, and assessed punishment at confinement for life.

On June 1, 1976, appellant was adjudged to be incompetent to stand trial for the charge of rape in cause number 9957 in the district court of Brazoria County. He was also charged with burglary of a habitation, cause number 9956, apparently arising out of the same criminal episode.

Following a jury’s finding of incompetency, appellant was committed to Rusk State Hospital, where he remained until September 3, 1978, at which time he was discharged and returned to the district court. Appellant subsequently pled guilty to the burglary, and the rape charge was dismissed. We find no judicial determination in the record that appellant had regained his competence to stand trial.

In his sole point of error, appellant contends the trial court erred in failing to quash the enhancement paragraphs of his indictment. For the reasons set forth below, we sustain appellant’s point of error, reverse his conviction, and remand to the trial court for a new trial on punishment.

On April 3, 1990, appellant was indicted for the primary offense. On May 14, 1990, appellant moved to quash his indictment 1 and to quash the enhancement paragraphs, 2 contending that, at the time of his prior convictions, he previously had been found incompetent and there had never been a judicial determination of his competency after his hospitalization.

The trial court conducted a hearing on appellant’s motions, at which time defense counsel made the following statement:

We have presently pending before the Court [a] motion to quash. And we would like for a ruling on those motions for the record, Your Honor. We have a motion to quash based upon three prior convictions, also, Cause No. 9956 and 13,-380 and 1771. We believe that those convictions are void as a matter of law in that the accused was incompetent at the *231 time of those convictions. And therefore, we would ask the Court to quash the indictments in this case.

Because appellant did not introduce any evidence to support his motions to quash, the trial court properly denied appellant’s motions. The court then proceeded to conduct a competency hearing to determine appellant’s present competency, and a jury found appellant competent to stand trial.

At the competency hearing, appellant introduced as Defendant’s exhibit number 1, an order that previously had adjudicated him incompetent. Before the start of trial, appellant once again urged his motions to quash, and re-offered the adjudication of incompetency:

COUNSEL: Your Honor, at this time, in Cause No. 20,840, which is the cause before this Court today, I would like to reurge my motion to quash the indictment and reurge my motion to quash [the] enhancement counts. And I would like that, what has been previously marked as Defendant’s Exhibit No. 1, I’d like to re-offer that, which is an adjudication of incompetency of Jimmy Miles Bell. And our motion alleges that all of those prior convictions are void because of [sic] Jimmy Miles Bell was incompetent at the time.
THE COURT: All right. Your offer for Defendant’s Exhibit No. 1 has been previously admitted, is offered for the limited purpose of your motion presently?
COUNSEL: That’s correct, your Honor.
THE COURT: That will be admitted, and your reurged motions are denied. The Court notes that on the 11th day of June, 1990, in this case, a jury was selected, heard evidence, argument of counsel and the Charge of the Court, retired to deliberate on the issue of competency to stand trial. And the jury by its unanimous verdict found that Mr. Bell was competent to stand trial. 3

When asked by the trial court if the State “had anything” in response to appellant’s motions to quash, the prosecutor replied he did not.

The State correctly responds that an accused has the burden of proof on a motion to quash an indictment, Wheat v. State, 537 S.W.2d 20, 21 (Tex.Crim.App.1976), and that a motion to quash is properly denied where a defendant offers no proof with respect to the allegations contained in his motion. Worton v. State, 492 S.W.2d 519, 520 (Tex.Crim.App.1973). This statement would certainly be true if the trial court had conducted only one hearing on appellant’s motions. We find the discussion set out above, however, constituted a second hearing on appellant’s motions to quash. The State claims that because no evidence, other than Defendant’s exhibit number 1 was offered at this “second” hearing on appellant’s motions, appellant did not carry his burden of proof. We disagree. With Defendant’s exhibit number 1 now before it, the trial court had sufficient evidence of appellant’s incompetency at the time of the previous convictions. See Manning v. State, 730 S.W.2d 744, 749 (Tex.Crim.App.1987) (the introduction of the prior, unvacated judgment of incompetency is the preferred means of showing such a fact). The State’s contention is overruled.

The record in this case is very similar to that which the court had before it in Schaffer v. State, 583 S.W.2d 627 (Tex.Crim.App. [Panel Op.] 1979) (op. on reh’g). Schaffer was originally indicted for aggravated sexual abuse of a child and was later found by the verdict of a jury to be incompetent to stand trial. The trial court ordered Schaf-fer confined to the Rusk State Hospital on May 28, 1976. On February 1, 1977, Dr. Robert B. Sheldon, superintendent of the hospital, certified in a letter and final report to the trial court that Schaffer was then mentally competent to stand trial. No judicial action was taken on the certification. Schaffer was ultimately convicted and sentenced to 50 years confinement.

*232 Like appellant, Schaffer argued that, once a jury determines a defendant is incompetent to stand trial, there must be some form of judicial restoration of competency. After reviewing Tex.Code CRim. P.Ann. art. 46.02, § 5, 4 the court agreed, holding:

The general rule would seem to be that a person is presumed competent to stand trial until he is found incompetent to stand trial, and once found to be so incompetent, he is presumed to be incompetent until such time as it has been determined in accordance with the law that he is competent to stand trial.
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Bluebook (online)
814 S.W.2d 229, 1991 WL 141417, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/bell-v-state-texapp-1991.