Bustamante, Eddie v. State

• Court: Court of Appeals of Texas
• Decided: June 27, 2002
• Docket: 01-01-00304-CR
• Status: Published

Opinion

Opinion issued June 27, 2002

In The

Court of Appeals

For The

First District of Texas

NOS. 01-01-00304-CR

01-01-00305-CR

____________

EDDIE BUSTAMANTE, Appellant

V.

THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee

On Appeal from the 338th District Court

Harris County, Texas

Trial Court Cause Nos. 832125 and 832252

O P I N I O N

Appellant, Eddie Bustamante, without agreed punishment recommendations from the State, pleaded guilty to murder in cause number 832125 and aggravated assault in cause number 832252. The trial court found appellant guilty and made an affirmative finding that a deadly weapon was used in each offense. The trial court sentenced appellant to 45 years confinement for the murder and 20 years confinement for the aggravated assault, with the sentences to run concurrently.

In six points of error, appellant argues his guilty pleas were involuntary and he was denied due process and due course of law because he was not admonished as to the applicable range of punishment in each cause.

We affirm.

Facts

During the early morning hours of December 25, 1999, appellant and two co-defendants, Edmund Blair and Braulio Sepulveda, who were all riding in Blair's car, got into an altercation with the occupants of another car. They attempted to follow the occupants of the other car into a residential area, and then fired several gunshots into what the defendants believed, incorrectly, was the home of the other car's passengers. Appellant, Blair, and Sepulveda fired gunshots into the homes of several innocent persons, killing one man as he slept in his bed and seriously wounding another man in another house.

The trial court found all three men guilty as charged.

Admonishments

In six points of error, appellant asserts the trial court erred in failing to admonish him as to the appropriate range of punishment for each offense charged and that, consequently, his guilty pleas were involuntary and he was deprived of due process and due course of law.

A defendant must be admonished by the trial court as to the applicable range of punishment for the offense(s) to which he is pleading guilty. Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Ann. art. 26.13(a) (Vernon Supp. 2002). Here, the written admonishments signed by appellant and contained in the original clerk's records presented to this Court did not indicate that appellant was admonished as to the applicable range of punishment for either offense. However, the State requested, and we have received, supplemental clerk's records which contain complete copies of the written admonishments signed by appellant in each case. The complete copies of the admonishments clearly indicate that appellant was in fact informed of the applicable range of punishment for each offense charged.

We overrule appellant's points of error.

Conclusion

We affirm the judgment of the trial court.

Terry Jennings

Justice

Panel consists of Justices Hedges, Jennings, and Price. ⁽¹⁾

Do not publish. Tex. R. App. P. 47.

1. The Honorable Frank C. Price, former Justice, Court of Appeals, First District of Texas at Houston, participating by assignment.