Brandon Symons v. the State of Texas

Opinion

In The

Court of Appeals

Seventh District of Texas at Amarillo

No. 07-26-00186-CR

BRANDON SYMONS, APPELLANT V.

THE STATE OF TEXAS, APPELLEE

On Appeal from the 372nd District Court Tarrant County, Texas1

Trial Court No. 1815450, Honorable Julie Lugo, Presiding

August 31, 2026

MEMORANDUM OPINION

Before DOSS and YARBROUGH and PRATT, JJ.

Appellant, Brandon Symons, appeals from a judgment adjudicating him guilty of possession of a controlled substance.2 He pleaded guilty to that offense in July 2024.

1 Originally appealed to the Second Court of Appeals, this case was transferred to this Court by the

Supreme Court of Texas. See TEX. GOV’T CODE § 73.001. Should a conflict exist between the precedent of the Second Court of Appeals and this Court on any relevant issue, we apply the precedent of the Second Court of Appeals. TEX. R. APP. P. 41.3.

2 TEX. HEALTH & SAFETY CODE § 481.115(b).

The trial court deferred a finding of guilt and placed Appellant on community supervision for three years. The State later petitioned to proceed to adjudication. Appellant pleaded true to the allegations in the State’s second amended petition. The trial court adjudicated him guilty and orally pronounced a sentence of twenty months of confinement in a state jail facility. The written judgment also orders Appellant’s driver’s license suspended for six months.

In two issues, Appellant asks us to reform the judgment to remove the suspension.3 Appellee, the State of Texas, agrees that the suspension should not have been ordered in the judgment. So do we. We modify the judgment to delete the license suspension and affirm the judgment as modified. Because no issue is contested, we expedite our decision.4

ANALYSIS

Two principles govern this appeal. The first concerns what a written judgment may contain when it departs from the sentence the trial court orally pronounced in open court. The second concerns the nature of a driver’s license suspension under the Transportation Code. Each independently establishes that the suspension has no place in this criminal judgment.

3 Appellant argues that the suspension was not orally pronounced. He argues in the alternative that the period of suspension should be ninety days rather than six months. See TEX. TRANSP. CODE § 521.372(c) (“Except as provided by Section 521.374(b), the period of suspension or license denial under this section is 90 days after the date of a final conviction.”).

4 See TEX. R. APP. P. 2.

3

Texas law requires a sentence to be pronounced in the defendant’s presence. TEX.

CODE CRIM. PROC. art. 42.03 § 1(a). The sentence pronounced here did not include a driver’s license suspension. When a discrepancy exists between the oral pronouncement and the written judgment, the oral pronouncement controls. Burt v. State, 445 S.W.3d 752, 757 (Tex. Crim. App. 2014). The remedy is to reform the written judgment to conform to the trial court’s oral pronouncement. Anderson v. State, No. 07-17-00421-CR, 2019 Tex. App. LEXIS 2261, at *5 (Tex. App.—Amarillo Mar. 22, 2019, pet. ref’d).

Additionally, the Texas Transportation Code provides that a person’s driver’s license is automatically suspended on final conviction of a felony drug offense. TEX. TRANSP. CODE § 521.372(a)(2). The suspension is “self-operative,” and is automatic upon final conviction. Id. at § 521.372(a); Pointer v. State, No. 02-25-00154-CR, 2026 Tex. App. LEXIS 394, at *9 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth Jan. 15, 2026, pet. ref’d) (mem. op. not designated for publication). The Second Court of Appeals, whose precedent binds us in this transferred case,5 has held that license suspension is a civil penalty and is not authorized in a criminal judgment. Pointer, No. 02-25-00154-CR, 2026 Tex. App. LEXIS 394, at *9. Thus, including the suspension in the judgment was error. We sustain Appellant’s first issue. Because that ruling affords Appellant all the relief he requests, we do not reach his second issue.

5 See Mitschke v. Borromeo, 645 S.W.3d 251, 256–58 (Tex. 2022).

4

CONCLUSION

Having sustained Appellant’s first issue, we modify the Judgment Adjudicating Guilt to delete the order suspending Appellant’s driver’s license for six months. As modified, the trial court’s judgment is affirmed.

Lawrence M. Doss

Justice

Do not publish.