Cartwright v. State

833 S.W.2d 134, 1992 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 151, 1992 WL 131915
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Texas
DecidedJune 17, 1992
Docket573-91
StatusPublished
Cited by53 cases

This text of 833 S.W.2d 134 (Cartwright v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Cartwright v. State, 833 S.W.2d 134, 1992 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 151, 1992 WL 131915 (Tex. 1992).

Opinion

OPINION ON APPELLANT’S PETITION FOR DISCRETIONARY REVIEW

WHITE, Judge.

On February 28, 1990, appellant, Donald Cartwright, was convicted of delivery of a controlled substance in Orange County. The jury assessed punishment at forty years’ confinement and a five thousand dollar fine. On appeal he complained that the trial court erred in permitting the jury to assess a fine which exceeded that authorized by law. The Ninth Court of Appeals at Beaumont affirmed his conviction after deciding, that although the trial court did indeed err, the error did not require reversal of the trial court’s judgment under traditional Almanza harm analysis. 1 Appellant is now before this Court on petition for discretionary review.

We granted review of two grounds presented by appellant in his petition. The first is whether “[T]he court of appeals erred in holding that the trial court did not fundamentally err in permitting the jury to assess a fine exceeding that authorized by law.” The second is whether “[T]he court of appeals erred in holding that Almanza v. State, 686 S.W.2d 157 (Tex.Cr.App.1985) *135 (opinion on rehearing) rather than Uribe v. State, 688 S.W.2d 534 (Tex.Cr.App.1985) is the standard for review of the error of the trial court in charging the jury on a penalty range more severe than that authorized by law.” In our review of this case, we will decide whether the court of appeals was correct in holding that Almanza rather than Uribe controls the disposition of this case, and further, we will determine whether the error complained of rose to the level of “fundamental” error requiring automatic reversal. We will affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.

Appellant was indicted for the offense of delivery of a controlled substance, namely cocaine, in an amount less than 28 grams, a first degree felony under the Texas Health and Safety Code. 2 Additionally, appellant’s indictment contained an enhancement paragraph which alleged that he had been previously convicted of the felony offense of burglary of a habitation. 3 After evidence had been submitted, the jury convicted appellant of the primary offense of delivery of a controlled substance and he pled true to the allegation in the enhancement paragraph. The punishment charge, out of which appellant’s complaint arises, was then submitted to the jury for consideration.

The punishment charge instructed the jury that appellant had pled true to the allegation in the enhancement paragraph nevertheless, it still required them to determine whether the allegation was true beyond a reasonable doubt. Upon a finding that it was, the charge authorized them to assess punishment at confinement for a term of not more than life or 99 years nor less than 15 years and a fine of up to $20,000.00. 4 However, it is now undisputed among the parties, and this Court agrees, that since the state chose to enhance appellant’s conviction under Tex. Penal Code Ann., Chapter 12, Subchapter D, the charge which was submitted to the jury authorized it to fine appellant more than the amount that was authorized by law. 5 The amount of the fine is the only error raised by the appellant.

Appellant contends that, like the error in Uribe v. State (supra), the error in this case was fundamental requiring reversal of the judgment. In Uribe we were faced with a similar situation. In that case the defendant alleged that the jury charge authorized a punishment range greater than that authorized by law. Another similarity between the two cases is that the punishments which were ultimately assessed by the juries were both within the range permitted by law. In Uribe, we held that “[T]he submission to the jury of a penalty range more severe than that authorized by law deprived appellants of a fair and impartial trial, even though the jury assessed punishment within the lawful range.” After reciting that language we reversed the judgment and remanded to the trial court. 6 Appellant believes the same should be done here.

On the other hand, the state contends that under traditional Almanza analysis the error was not egregious and the judgment should stand. In Almanza v. State (supra), we explained that unobjected to jury charge error requires reversal of a judgment only when it can be shown that the error caused “egregious harm” to the defendant. 7 Additionally, in Almanza we held that finding error in a jury charge *136 “begins — not ends the inquiry.” 8 However, although Uribe was decided subsequent to Almanza, 9 our broad holding in Uribe did not appear to have taken that into account.

The Court of Appeals, opting to affirm the judgment of the trial court in this case, noted that this Court has previously mentioned the potential conflict between Al-manza and Uribe. 10 The Court of Appeals went on to distinguish Uribe from this case by noting that in Uribe the charged penalty range was based on a statute which had been declared unconstitutional while the statute relied upon in this case was valid. The court relied upon the principle that appellant had a duty to object at trial or to show egregious harm on appeal. 11 Since appellant did not object at trial and since he did not show egregious harm on appeal, the court decided that his judgment did not merit reversal.

In Almanza we observed that when an “accused must claim that error was ‘fundamental’, he will only obtain a reversal if the error was so egregious and created such harm that he ‘has not had a fair and impartial trial’ — in short ‘egregious harm.’ ” Then, in Uribe, we observed that “the submission to the jury of a penalty range more severe than that authorized by law deprived the defendant of a fair and impartial trial.” However, we did not address the issue of harm analysis application in that case. Thus it might have been logical to assume that in Uribe we abdicated the need to conduct harm analysis in the future when Uribe type error was shown.

Nevertheless, we do not believe that Ur-ibe controls the disposition of this case. In Uribe the error complained of in the punishment charge was not limited to the fine which the jury was allowed to impose. The defendant, in that case, complained of the punishment charge as a whole.

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Bluebook (online)
833 S.W.2d 134, 1992 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 151, 1992 WL 131915, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/cartwright-v-state-texcrimapp-1992.