Clifton Fransaw v. James A. Lynaugh, Interim Director, Texas Department of Corrections

810 F.2d 518, 1987 U.S. App. LEXIS 2451
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
DecidedFebruary 23, 1987
Docket85-2635
StatusPublished
Cited by94 cases

This text of 810 F.2d 518 (Clifton Fransaw v. James A. Lynaugh, Interim Director, Texas Department of Corrections) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Clifton Fransaw v. James A. Lynaugh, Interim Director, Texas Department of Corrections, 810 F.2d 518, 1987 U.S. App. LEXIS 2451 (5th Cir. 1987).

Opinion

*520 GARWOOD, Circuit Judge:

Petitioner Clifton Fransaw is serving a life sentence in a Texas prison for the offense of voluntary manslaughter. After his conviction was affirmed, Fransaw unsuccessfully sought a writ of habeas corpus from the state courts. He then instituted the present federal habeas proceedings. The district court denied Fransaw’s petition, and we affirm.

Facts and Proceedings Below

In September 1980, a Texas grand jury indicted Fransaw for the August 81, 1980 murder of Tyrone Boyd. The first paragraph of the indictment charged Fransaw with having “intentionally and knowingly” caused Boyd’s death by shooting him with a gun. This constituted murder as defined by Tex.Penal Code Ann. § 19.02(a)(1). The second paragraph accused Fransaw of intending to cause Boyd “serious bodily injury” and causing his death by committing an act clearly dangerous to human life, namely, shooting Boyd with a gun. This constituted murder as defined by Tex.Penal Code Ann. § 19.02(a)(2). For enhancement purposes, the third and final paragraph of the indictment alleged that Fransaw had been previously convicted of robbery.

Fransaw pleaded not guilty to both murder counts, and trial before a jury commenced on September 14, 1981. After the testimony of the state’s first two witnesses, Fransaw decided to seek a plea bargain with the prosecution. In exchange for Fransaw’s guilty plea to the indictment’s first paragraph, the state dismissed the second paragraph predicated on section 19.-02(a)(2). The trial judge accepted this plea arrangement. However, at the sentencing hearing two months later, in November 1981, a misunderstanding surfaced. The trial judge imposed a fifty-year sentence, which Fransaw’s counsel believed was ten years longer than what the judge had originally promised. When this disagreement could not be resolved, the judge gave Fran-saw the option of withdrawing his guilty plea, and Fransaw did so.

On December 14, 1981, about a month later, Fransaw was tried before a second jury on the original indictment, including both the first and second paragraphs. In his instructions, the judge charged the jury on murder under both the first and second paragraphs of the indictment, thus authorizing conviction of murder either under section 19.02(a)(1) or under section 19.-02(a)(2). The judge also included a charge on the offense of voluntary manslaughter. It is evident (and not disputed) that the precise same shooting was the basis for the charge under section 19.02(a)(1) as well as for the charge under section 19.02(a)(2) and the conviction of voluntary manslaughter. Under Texas law, voluntary manslaughter is committed “under circumstances that would constitute murder under Section 19.-02 of this Code, except that he caused the death under the immediate influence of sudden passion arising from an adequate cause.” Tex.Penal Code Ann. § 19.04(a). At the time of trial, Texas law held that voluntary manslaughter was in all cases a lesser offense included in the charge of murder. See Paige v. State, 573 S.W.2d 16, 18 (Tex.Crim.App.1978) (“Since the evidence here was sufficient to prove murder, the greater offense, it was necessarily sufficient to prove voluntary manslaughter, the lesser included offense.”); Brooks v. State, 548 S.W.2d 680, 682 (Tex.Crim.App. 1977) (referring to voluntary manslaughter as a lesser included offense of murder); Selman v. State, 627 S.W.2d 543, 544 (Tex. App. — Amarillo 1982), aff'd, 663 S.W.2d 838 (Tex.Crim.App.1984) (en banc); Ethridge v. State, 634 S.W.2d 382, 384 (Tex. App. — Austin 1982), aff'd, 648 S.W.2d 306 (Tex.Crim.App.1983) (en banc). 1

On December 15,1981, the jury convicted *521 Fransaw of voluntary manslaughter 2 and two days later, upon proof of his prior felony conviction, the jury sentenced him to life imprisonment. The Texas Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction in a published opinion, Fransaw v. State, 671 S.W.2d 539 (Tex.App. — Houston [14th Dist.] 1982), and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals refused Fransaw’s petition for discretionary review.

Fransaw then petitioned the state courts for a writ of habeas corpus. On July 25, 1984, the state trial court recommended denial of the writ and on January 9, 1985, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals accepted this recommendation.

Having exhausted his state avenues of relief, Fransaw turned to the federal courts. On February 19, 1985, he petitioned the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas for a writ of habeas corpus. The district court denied this petition and also denied Fransaw's request for a Certificate of Probable Cause. On March 10, 1986, this Court granted Fransaw’s motion for a Certificate of Probable Cause and this appeal followed.

Discussion

Reading Fransaw’s pro se brief in this Court liberally, we believe it arguably raises four related issues. First, Fransaw objects that the jury charge may have confused the jurors into convicting him of voluntary manslaughter under section 19.-02(a)(2) — alleged in the previously dismissed paragraph — rather than section 19.-02(a)(1). 3 Fransaw’s underlying assumption in this connection is that the double jeopardy clause barred reinstatement of the section 19.02(a)(2) count after the state dismissed it as part of the plea bargain. As will be shown, this assumption is incorrect, so we need not parse the charge to determine whether a reasonable juror could have been misled into convicting Fransaw of voluntary manslaughter as a lesser included offense of section 19.02(a)(2) murder. 4 See Sandstrom v. Montana, 442 *522 U.S. 510, 99 S.Ct. 2450, 2454, 61 L.Ed.2d 39 (1979) (stating that whether a jury instruction accords the defendant his constitutional rights “depends upon the way in which a reasonable jury could have interpreted the instructions”); Tarpley v. Estelle, 703 F.2d 157, 160 (5th Cir.) (same), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 1002, 104 S.Ct. 508, 78 L.Ed.2d 697 (1983).

The second issue Fransaw raises is based on the same assumption as the first. He appears to argue that we must view the indictment as if it did not contain the section 19.02(a)(2) paragraph. He then asserts that the allegedly confusing jury charge, in creating the possibility of conviction of voluntary manslaughter as a lesser offense under section 19.02(a)(2), violated the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments by permitting his conviction of a crime not charged in the indictment. See Tarpley, 703 F.2d at 160 (granting habeas relief under these amendments because “a reasonable juror could have understood the charge to allow conviction of an offense other than the one for which Tarpley was indicted”).

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
810 F.2d 518, 1987 U.S. App. LEXIS 2451, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/clifton-fransaw-v-james-a-lynaugh-interim-director-texas-department-of-ca5-1987.