Lewis v. State

686 S.W.2d 243, 1985 Tex. App. LEXIS 6030
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJanuary 10, 1985
DocketB14-83-140-CR
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 686 S.W.2d 243 (Lewis v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Lewis v. State, 686 S.W.2d 243, 1985 Tex. App. LEXIS 6030 (Tex. Ct. App. 1985).

Opinions

OPINION

ROBERTSON, Justice.

The jury rejected appellant’s plea of not guilty, found him guilty and assessed punishment at confinement for eight years and a fine of $974.64. Issues on this appeal are (1) whether there was compliance with the Speedy Trial Act and (2) whether appellant received ineffective representation by trial counsel.

Since the sufficiency of the evidence is not challenged, there is no reason to summarize the facts of the offense.

In his second ground of error, appellant contends the trial court erred in denying his motion to dismiss “for want of a speedy trial ... when the state’s attempted post 120 day announcement of ready did not aver readiness within 120 days.” We disagree.

The record discloses that on the day appellant’s case was called for trial, February 21, 1983, he filed a short “Motion to Dismiss” alleging that the date of the commencement of the cause of action was March 26, 1982 and that “more than 120 days have passed since the commencement of this action.” Appellant’s trial counsel submitted no evidence in support of the motion, but merely stated to the court:

Mr. Smith: Your Honor, if I may attempt to state the facts as I understand them and what the court’s file would reflect, Mr. Lewis had been arrested and made bond back in March, 1982. There was an appearance date set I believe for April 12, 1982, at which time Mr. Lewis did not appear. Any calculations for my motion is based upon the time after the re-arrest as opposed to counting any time which he was not appearing before the court. He was re-arrested on October 20th, I believe.
On or about December 1st I believe the docket sheet is going to reflect an announcement of ready by the prosecution. Although that is reflected there was no one present, no witnesses present. I quite frankly would not consider that actually ready for trial, because no one was there for trial except for the defendant.
There have expired over 120 days since October 20th until today, the date that Mr. Lewis is brought to trial; and on that basis under the Speedy Trial Act I would ask the court to dismiss this action.

These statements of counsel, of course, are not evidence, but in light of Canada v. State, 660 S.W.2d 528, 530 (Tex.Crim.App.1983), it appears appellant is entitled to rely upon them since the recitation “had properly placed the event in the record.”

Considering the record as a whole, we are able to discern the following events. The charge against appellant was filed on March 24, 1982, and he was arrested. After making bond, appellant failed to appear for his arraignment on April 15, 1982. Appellant’s bond was forfeited and he was rearrested on October 20, 1982, according to appellant’s counsel. The docket sheet reflects that appellant appeared in court and was arraigned on November 1, 1982. At the arraignment hearing, the case was reset for December 1, 1982 for hearing motions. On December 1, 1982, the docket sheet reflects that appellant’s case was reset for February 21, 1983 for jury trial. Although the docket sheet does not disclose that the state announced ready for trial on December 1, 1982, appellant’s trial counsel stated that, in fact, the state did announce ready on that date. The first actual announcement of ready, as reflected by the record, is when the state responded to ap[245]*245pellant’s Motion to Dismiss on February 21, 1983:

MR. BUCHANAN: The State would respond in that the State has been in contact with several of the witnesses including the witness who would be necessary witnesses at the original trial setting who would include Mr. Bancroft, Mr. Victor, Detectives Mueller, Mavis, Hightower, Sherrie Hale as well as Ed Perkins from the bank who would also if present at this time testify that he was ready and in fact had searched his records to determine that the checking account that the check was drawn on had indeed been closed prior to the date that the check was written.
The State would maintain it has been ready for trial at all times. Any delay has not been intentional delay by the prosecutor. My understanding is also that the defendant in this case, Irvin Lewis, also bond forfeited at one time.

Thus it appears that, without regard to what we accept as “the facts”, the trial court correctly denied the motion to dismiss. First, if the announcement of the prosecutor on February 21 that “it has been ready for trial at all times” is to be given effect, this announcement must stand absent some contrary showing by appellant. Secondly, even if it becomes necessary to actually compute the number of days during which the state had not announced ready, appellant is in no better position to assert this ground of error. The period from April 15 through October 20 (while appellant was at large on a bond forfeiture) is to be excluded. Likewise, the period between November 1 and December 1 (the resetting agreed to by both sides for appellant to file motions) is to be excluded. On December 1, the trial court set the case for a jury trial on February 21, 1983. This period, likewise, is to be excluded because it matters not whether this resetting was agreed to by the attorneys or it was the first available date the court could set the ease for trial. In the first instance, the time would be excluded because it was agreed to by appellant, .and in the second instance, the act does not apply to delays caused by congested court dockets. So, no matter how the computation is made, appellant’s rights guaranteed by the Speedy Trial Act were not violated. Appellant’s second ground is overruled.

In his first ground, appellant contends he was denied effective assistance at trial “when his counsel failed to investigate and, then, cause to be set aside a prior forgery probation, which was premised upon a fundamentally defective information, thereby causing the application for probation to be withdrawn which adversely affected the sentencing proceeding.” As a predicate for discussion of appellant’s contention, we refer to the record where the following is found.

Present counsel was appointed on March 3, 1983 to represent appellant on appeal following his conviction and notice of appeal on February 25,1983. No motion for new trial was filed and the record was approved without objection on June 14, 1983. Faced with this approved record, appellant’s present and well experienced counsel must have realized he was faced with the problem of a “totally inadequate record,” as we pointed out in Dunn v. State, 650 S.W.2d 139, 140 (Tex.App.— Houston [14th Dist.] 1983) to sustain a charge of ineffective assistance of counsel. The record only revealed that appellant filed a written election to have the jury assess punishment and a written motion for probation. After appellant testified at the punishment phase of the trial and admitted he had previously been convicted of forgery and had been granted probation, his trial counsel withdrew the motion for probation. This, obviously, would not provide any basis for sustaining a charge of ineffective assistance of counsel.

His energetic and innovative appellate attorney, however, deciding to get additional facts made a part of the appellate record, took the following steps:

1.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Brandy Taylor A/K/A Brandy Anderson v. the State of Texas
Tex. App. Ct., 11th Dist. (Eastland), 2026
The State of Texas v. Justin Tyler Beck
Court of Appeals of Texas, 2024
Augustin Gabriel Cabrera v. State
513 S.W.3d 35 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 2016)
Jason Alexander Smith v. State
436 S.W.3d 353 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 2014)
Resanovich v. State
906 S.W.2d 40 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 1995)
State v. Kuri
846 S.W.2d 459 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1993)
Emerson v. State
820 S.W.2d 802 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 1991)
Lewis v. State
711 S.W.2d 41 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 1986)
Lewis v. State
686 S.W.2d 243 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1985)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
686 S.W.2d 243, 1985 Tex. App. LEXIS 6030, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/lewis-v-state-texapp-1985.