Ex Parte: Howard Holland

Court of Appeals of Texas·Decided August 17, 2018·No. 05-17-01422-CR·Published

Opinion

AFFIRMED and Opinion Filed August 17, 2018

S In The

Court of Appeals

Fifth District of Texas at Dallas No. 05-17-01422-CR

EX PARTE HOWARD HOLLAND

On Appeal from the 422nd Judicial District Court Kaufman County, Texas

Trial Court Cause No. 29317A-422

MEMORANDUM OPINION

Before Justices Bridges, Evans, and Whitehill Opinion by Justice Whitehill Howard Holland appeals the trial court’s order denying relief on his post-conviction

application for writ of habeas corpus related to his burglary of a habitation conviction. In three issues, he urges that the trial court erred in (i) concluding that defects in his indictment were not cognizable in this habeas proceeding, (ii) rejecting his argument that the State failed to introduce sufficient evidence of his guilt, and (iii) not finding that he established ongoing collateral consequences from his conviction. We address his third issue first, and we affirm because appellant did not establish any ongoing collateral consequences of his conviction as would be needed to support trial court jurisdiction over his writ application.

We also hold that (i) the trial court did not err in concluding the alleged defects in appellant’s indictment were not cognizable in the habeas proceeding; and (ii) we need not address appellant’s second issue.

Accordingly, we affirm the trial court’s judgment.

I. BACKGROUND

On December 16, 2010, appellant was indicted for the offense of burglary of a habitation.

The indictment was captioned “Burglary of a Habitation,” and it stated the offense was a second- degree felony, referencing “TPC § 30.02(c)(2).” Penal code § 30.02(c)(2) provides that a burglary is a second-degree felony if committed in a habitation. TEX. PENAL CODE § 30.02(c)(2). The body of the indictment, however, did not mention a habitation. Instead, it charged appellant did “intentionally or knowingly enter a building or a portion of a building without the effective consent of [the complainant], the owner thereof, and attempted to commit or committed theft of property, to-wit: a computer, owned by [the complainant].” The burglary statute provides that, subject to a couple of immaterial exceptions, the burglary of a building that is not a habitation is a state jail felony. See id. § 30.02(c)(1).

Appellant negotiated a plea bargain with the State under which the State recommended he receive a punishment of five years imprisonment, probated for five years, and pay restitution. The plea agreement contained a written punishment admonition from the trial court advising appellant that he was charged with burglary of a habitation, his offense was a second-degree felony, and setting forth the punishment range for a second-degree felony. The plea agreement also contained a section titled “Defendant’s Statements and Waivers” in which appellant represented that he understood “the nature of the accusation made against” him; waived his right to be tried on an indictment; and waived “any and all defects, errors, or irregularities, whether of form or substance, in the charging instrument. . . .” Appellant further agreed to the oral or written stipulation of testimony and to “waive any and all objections to the admission of the Stipulation of Evidence submitted as evidence submitted to the Court.” Appellant waived his right to appeal in writing. The Stipulation of Evidence appellant signed represented that appellant did “Commit the offense(s) as alleged in the above-referenced cause number.”

On January 24, 2011, appellant was convicted, on his negotiated guilty plea, of burglary of a habitation. Pursuant to the plea agreement, the trial court assessed punishment at five years’ imprisonment, probated for five years, and ordered appellant to pay restitution. Appellant did not appeal his conviction. Appellant’s community supervision was not revoked, and he has been discharged from community supervision.

During the period of his community supervision, however, appellant was required to provide a DNA sample for his community supervision officer. The DNA sample was entered into the CODIS database which matches the DNA of convicted offenders against DNA samples obtained from unsolved crimes. See TEX. GOV’T CODE § 411.141(1) (“CODIS” is acronym for Combined DNA Index System sponsored by Federal Bureau of Investigation).

Appellant’s DNA sample also matched a DNA sample from an unsolved 1997 aggravated sexual assault case. According to the trial court’s’ findings in the burglary case, the Terrell Police Department then obtained a search warrant and took an additional DNA sample from appellant. Based on the DNA matches, appellant was charged with aggravated sexual assault.

Appellant entered a plea bargain agreement in the 1997 case under which he pled guilty to the offense and admitted committing two other unadjudicated aggravated sexual assaults for the trial court to consider in sentencing him in that case. See TEX. PENAL CODE § 12.45 (allowing defendant, with State’s permission, to admit unadjudicated offenses to be considered in assessing punishment). The trial court in that case assessed punishment at forty years’ imprisonment.

In 2017, appellant filed an application for writ of habeas corpus concerning this burglary case, contending that his conviction was void and violated his right to due process of law because the indictment, lacking any accusation that he had entered a habitation, failed to charge him with burglary of a habitation. Because the State failed to indict him for the correct burglary offense, appellant contended, his sentence exceeded the maximum punishment available for burglary of a

building, and the State’s evidence, consisting solely of his stipulation and judicial confession acknowledging he committed the offense as alleged, was both legally insufficient and constituted no evidence satisfying the requirement that the State introduce evidence supporting his guilty plea to burglary of a habitation. See TEX. CODE CRIM. PROC. art. 1.15.

Although he had completed his ensuing community supervision, appellant contended that the trial court retained jurisdiction to consider his habeas writ application because the conviction exposed him to ongoing collateral consequences in that it (i) affected his prison job classification and parole considerations in the aggravated sexual assault case, (ii) forced him to self-incriminate himself with the taking of the DNA sample that led to his current confinement, and (iii) his burglary of a habitation conviction was used as punishment evidence to assess punishment for the aggravated sexual assault.

The State responded and argued that (i) appellant failed to invoke the trial court’s jurisdiction by establishing any ongoing collateral consequences, (ii) he waived any defects in the indictment, (iii) his claim was not cognizable, (iv) the evidence was sufficient to support the conviction, and (v) the sentence was proper.

The trial court made findings of fact and conclusions of law that appellant was not subject to any confinement or restraint and had not established any collateral consequences to his burglary conviction and dismissed the writ for want of jurisdiction.

The trial court also made alternative findings of fact and conclusions of law on which it dismissed appellant’s claims regarding the defects in the indictment and the insufficiency of the evidence to support the guilty plea, in the event “an appellate court determines that [the trial court] has jurisdiction to consider the Writ”. It additionally denied as meritless appellant’s claims that there was no evidence to support the guilty plea and that his sentence was void as outside the punishment range. This appeal ensued.

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

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