Edgar A. Scheets v. the State of Texas

Opinion

Court of Appeals

Tenth Appellate District of Texas

10-25-00024-CR

Edgar A. Scheets,

Appellant

v.

The State of Texas,

Appellee

On appeal from the

66th District Court of Hill County, Texas Judge John T. Gauntt, presiding Trial Court Cause No. F485-22

JUSTICE SMITH delivered the opinion of the Court.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

A jury convicted Edgar A. Scheets of continuous sexual abuse of a young child, and the trial court sentenced him to thirty years in prison. See TEX. PENAL CODE ANN. § 21.02. On appeal, Sheets requests that we modify the written judgment by deleting a $100 fine that the trial court did not orally pronounce at sentencing. The State does not oppose the requested modification. We modify the written judgment to delete the $100 fine and affirm the judgment as modified. DISCUSSION A fine is a part of the defendant’s sentence and generally must be orally pronounced in the defendant’s presence. See TEX. CODE CRIM. PROC. ANN. art. 42.03 § 1(a); Armstrong v. State, 340 S.W.3d 759, 767 (Tex. Crim. App. 2011). When a conflict between the written judgment and the oral pronouncement of the sentence exists, the oral pronouncement controls. Ex parte Madding, 70 S.W.3d 131, 135 (Tex. Crim. App. 2002). “The solution in those cases in which the oral pronouncement and the written judgment conflict is to reform the written judgment to conform to the sentence that was orally pronounced.” Thompson v. State, 108 S.W.3d 287, 290 (Tex. Crim. App. 2003).

Here, the trial court orally pronounced Scheets’s sentence at thirty years in prison with no mention of a fine. However, the written judgment includes a $100 Child Abuse Prevention Fine. See TEX. CODE CRIM. PROC. ANN. art. 102.0186. Because the $100 fine was not orally pronounced at sentencing, it was improperly included in the trial court’s written judgment. See Rhodes v. State, 712 S.W.3d 226, 234-35 (Tex. App.—Eastland 2025, no pet. h.); Espinoza v. State, No. 10-24-00014-CR, 2025 WL 2081437, at *8-9 (Tex. App.—Waco July 24, 2025, no pet.) (mem. op., not designated for publication).

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We sustain Scheets’s sole issue on appeal, and we modify the written judgment to delete the assessed $100 fine.

Conclusion

Having sustained Scheets’s sole issue on appeal, we modify the judgment to delete the $100 fine and affirm the judgment as modified.1

STEVE SMITH

Justice

OPINION DELIVERED and FILED: December 30, 2025 Before Chief Justice Johnson, Justice Smith, and Justice Davis2 Affirmed as modified Do not publish CRPM

1 All pending motions are dismissed as moot.

2 The Honorable Rex Davis, Senior Justice (Retired) of the Tenth Court of Appeals, sitting by assignment of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Texas.

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