Luckett v. State

394 S.W.3d 577, 2012 WL 3025117, 2012 Tex. App. LEXIS 6017
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJuly 25, 2012
DocketNo. 05-11-00156-CR
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 394 S.W.3d 577 (Luckett 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
Luckett v. State, 394 S.W.3d 577, 2012 WL 3025117, 2012 Tex. App. LEXIS 6017 (Tex. Ct. App. 2012).

Opinion

OPINION

Opinion By

Justice FITZGERALD.

The State charged appellant Rodney Lee Luckett with possession of cocaine in an amount less than one gram. Appellant entered an open plea of guilty to the charge and subsequently pleaded not true to two enhancement allegations. The trial court assessed his punishment at ten years’ imprisonment. Appellant raised two issues in this Court, both challenging the enhancement of his punishment. We affirm the trial court’s judgment.

In his first issue, appellant contends the trial court’s sentence is void because the record shows the court found “the enhancement paragraph [singular] to be true,” but it assessed appellant’s punishment based on two enhancement allegations being found true. At the State’s request, the court reporter reviewed her notes. Those notes indicated the trial court had found “enhancement paragraphs [plural]” to be true, and that the record contained a typographical error when it indicated the singular “paragraph.” The State filed a motion in this Court to have the record corrected. We granted relief, and a corrected record — indicating that the trial court found “paragraphs” true— has been filed in this Court. Accordingly, appellant’s first issue is now moot.

In his second issue, appellant contends the trial court failed to admonish him that the range of punishment would be elevated if enhancement allegations based on prior convictions were proved true. The trial court did admonish appellant before his plea that the range of punishment for his possession offense would be 180 days to two years’ confinement in a state jail facility and an optional fine not to exceed $10,000. Appellant entered his guilty plea. The trial court then found him guilty and proceeded to address punishment. The prosecutor read the Notice of State’s Intention to Seek Enhancement of the Range of Punishment. That Notice, which had been served on appellant’s counsel prior to the trial date, described the two enhancement offenses, and then stated:

[S]hould the jury find from the evidence and say so by their verdict that the Defendant is the same person previously convicted of the offenses set forth in Paragraph 1 above, the range of punishment for the offense in this cause would be by imprisonment in the institutional division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice for no more than ten (10) years but not less than two (2) years and a fine of up to $10,000.

Appellant pleaded not true to the enhancement allegations, although when he testified he acknowledged committing both offenses. The trial court found both en[580]*580hancement paragraphs true and assessed appellant’s punishment at ten years’ imprisonment in the institutional division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

In this case, the trial court admonished appellant as to the correct range of punishment for his primary offense. The question before us is whether the trial court also had an obligation to admonish appellant concerning the range of punishment to which appellant would become subject if the enhancement allegations were proved true. Before a trial court can accept a plea of guilty, it must admonish the defendant of the range of punishment attached to the offense. Tex.Code Crim. Proc. Ann. art. 26.13(a)(1) (West Supp. 2011). The admonishments ensure that the defendant enters his plea with full knowledge of its consequences. Whitten v. State, 587 S.W.2d 156, 158 (Tex.Crim.App.1979), overruled in part on other grounds, Cain v. State, 947 S.W.2d 262, 264 (Tex.Crim.App.1997); Gonzales v. State, 746 S.W.2d 902, 904 (Tex.App.-Corpus Christi 1988, no pet.). Indeed, “an affirmative showing of such knowledge is constitutionally required.” Gonzales, 746 S.W.2d at 904 (citing Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238, 89 S.Ct. 1709, 23 L.Ed.2d 274 (1969)). The “consequences” of a plea means punishment provided by the law and which can be inflicted under the plea. Id. A defendant is not made aware of the full consequences of his plea if he is not admonished of the punishment he could receive if enhancement allegations are proved true. Taylor v. State, 591 S.W.2d 826, 828 (Tex.Crim.App.1979); see also Williams v. State, 770 S.W.2d 81, 83 (Tex.App.-Dallas 1989, no pet.). The trial court’s obligation in this case was to warn appellant of the full consequences of his guilty plea; those consequences necessarily included the range of punishment applicable if enhancement allegations were proved true. See Gonzales, 746 S.W.2d at 904 (“the accused should be admonished for the full range of punishment available through enhancement”). The State does not argue otherwise.

Instead, the State argues the trial court’s admonishment substantially complied with article 26.13. Substantial compliance by the court is sufficient to satisfy the statute, unless the defendant affirmatively shows he was not aware of the consequences of his plea and that he was misled or harmed by the admonishment the court gave. TexCode Crim. Proo. Ann. art. 26.13(c). The State relies on a series of three cases for the contention that “article 26.13 does not require admonition regarding the punishment range when enhancement convictions are proven.” However, the first two of those cases stand only for the proposition that article 26.13 does not apply to the punishment phase of a trial after a defendant has been tried and found guilty by a jury. See Sylvester v. State, 615 S.W.2d 734, 736-37 (Tex.Crim.App.1981); Harvey v. State, 611 S.W.2d 108, 112 (Tex.Crim.App.1981). Neither Sylvester nor Harvey involved a guilty plea by the defendant. And although the third case the State relies on did involve a guilty plea, the court acknowledges in its opinion: “The entire matter was treated as a bifurcated trial and the ‘punishment hearing1 was contested.” Seagraves v. State, 342 S.W.3d 176, 182 (Tex.App.-Texarkana 2011, no pet.). When a person enters a plea of guilty, the proceeding properly becomes a unitary pro ceeding. Washington v. State, 893 S.W.2d 107, 108 (Tex.App.-Dallas 1995, no pet.). Thus, regardless of the defendant’s plea to enhancement offenses, he must be admonished before entering his plea of the full range of punishment he could receive. The State’s reliance on cases involving bifurcated proceedings is not well-founded.

[581]*581A trial court’s incorrect admonishment substantially complies with article 26.13 when the record shows the sentence given lies within both the actual range of punishment and the misstated range of punishment. Martinez v. State, 981 S.W.2d 195, 197 (Tex.Crim.App.1998). An admonishment cannot substantially comply with article 26.13 when the sentence given is greater than the range admonished by the trial court.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
394 S.W.3d 577, 2012 WL 3025117, 2012 Tex. App. LEXIS 6017, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/luckett-v-state-texapp-2012.