Manning v. State

704 S.W.2d 825, 1985 Tex. App. LEXIS 8975
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedNovember 5, 1985
Docket05-84-00816-20-CR
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 704 S.W.2d 825 (Manning 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
Manning v. State, 704 S.W.2d 825, 1985 Tex. App. LEXIS 8975 (Tex. Ct. App. 1985).

Opinions

AKIN1, Justice.

Keith Dwight Manning appeals his convictions for murder, attempted murder, and three counts of aggravated robbery, all arising from the hold-up of a convenience store. Manning received two life sentences for murder and attempted murder and three fifty-year sentences for the aggravated robbery convictions. Appellant asserts three grounds of error, none of which were preserved by proper objection at trial. All concern claimed errors in the trial court’s charge, and all are asserted to be fundamental error. Because none of the alleged errors are fundamental, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.

In each instance, we must apply the tests for fundamental error set forth in Almanza v. State, 686 S.W.2d 157 (Tex.Crim.App.1984). Appellant’s first ground of error is common to all five cases. In each case, he asserts that the charge given to the jury at Manning’s pretrial competency hearing was fundamentally defective because it both “misstated the burden of proof” and “fail[ed] to apply the law to the very facts of the case.”

The charge now objected to states in pertinent part:

Under our law no person can be tried for a criminal offense while in a state of present incompetency. The burden of proof of competency in this case is upon the State to prove the defendant’s competency by ■preponderance of the evidence; that is, by the greater weight of the credible testimony.
⅜ * * * ⅜ *
Our law provides that a person is deemed incompetent to stand trial if he does not have sufficient present ability to consult with his lawyer with a reasonable degree of rational understanding; or, a rational as well as a factual understanding of the proceedings against him [emphasis added].

Appellant’s contention that the charge failed to apply the law to the facts of the case is without merit. The charge set forth the elements of incompetency to stand trial in language tracking the statutory definition. TEX.CODE CRIM.PROC. ANN. art. 46.02(l)(a) (Vernon 1979). This language clearly sets forth those facts which the jury must find. As so stated, the charge was not fundamentally erroneous since error, if any, did not deny appellant a fair and impartial trial.

Appellant further contends that the charge failed to properly place the burden of proof. In the ordinary case, the burden of proof is on the defendant to show incompetence by a preponderance of the evidence. TEX. CODE CRIM.PROC.ANN. art. 46.02(l)(b) (Vernon 1979). That section of the statute states:

(b). A defendant is presumed competent to stand trial and shall be found competent to stand trial unless proved incompetent by a preponderance of the evidence [emphasis added].

Appellant in his brief apparently complains that the trial court erroneously presumed incompetence and placed the burden of proof upon the State rather than upon the defendant as provided in the statute. Appellant cannot be harmed by erroneously receiving the benefit of a presumption. Needless to say, any such error cannot be fundamentally erroneous.

Nevertheless, the dissent raises a different argument on behalf of appellant from that presented in his brief. The dissent first notes that appellant’s previous commitment to Rusk State Hospital, the year prior to this trial, was based on a finding of incompetency to stand trial. The dissent asserts that due to this presumed unvacat-ed adjudication of incompetency, the burden of proof on the issue of competency shifts to the State. The dissent then further would hold that the burden of persuasion is now shifted to the State and that the burden was the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard of insanity cases rather than the “by a preponderance of the evidence” standard given in the jury charge here. Because an incorrect standard was [827]*827given in the charge to the jury, the dissent asserts on appellant’s behalf that fundamental error has been shown and that the jury finding of competency must be overturned. We cannot agree.

Initially we note that there is no clear evidence in the record before us of the nature of appellant’s prior commitment to Rusk. The evidence at the competency hearing consisted exclusively of the statements of the State’s witness, a medical doctor specializing in psychiatry. No record of any adjudication of incompetency is in the record. The testimony of the witness fails to establish clearly the reason for appellant’s incarceration at Rusk. In this respect, the doctor testified that the appellant, in the year prior to the competency hearing in this case, was “sent to Rusk State Hospital for the criminally insane from Fort Worth. He stayed there about 18 days when he broke out of the building ... and he has not been back in the hospital since that period of time.” Later, this witness testified that “[tjhere is no indication at all that this man has ever been mentally ill.” During cross-examination of this witness, the defense attorney stated that “there was a judgment out of a Fort Worth court that sent him to Rusk State Hospital that said he was incompetent; is that correct?” The witness replied that it was. The defense attorney, later in the cross-examination, asked the witness to explain “why there is that unvacated judgment of incompetency.” The witness replied that the doctor in Fort Worth tended to “call everybody a schizophrenic,” and that appellant was sent to Rusk with that diagnosis.

If the basis for incarceration in Rusk was “mental illness,” as the witness’s initial testimony quoted above and later statements regarding schizophrenia indicate, this would not be a determination of mental incompetency to stand trial. See Leyva v. State, 552 S.W.2d 158, 160 (Tex.Crim.App.1977); Ainsworth v. State, 493 S.W.2d 517, 522 (Tex.Crim.App.1973).

If the basis was a finding of incompetency to stand trial, as the dissent assumes and as the responses to the defense attorney’s questions would indicate, there may be a question as to the effect of such a prior adjudication on the burden of proof. Prior Texas cases would lend support to the proposition that such a prior adjudication of incompetency creates the presumption of continuing incompetency. In such a situation, the State would then be required to prove the defendant competent at the time of trial. Schaffer v. State, 583 S.W.2d 627, 630 (Tex.Crim.App.1979). However, as stated by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, sitting en banc, in Ex parte Yarborough, 607 S.W.2d 565 (Tex.Crim.App.1980) this change of presumption does not change the standard of proof. The State need only “establish the sanity of the accused by a preponderance of the evidence.” Yarborough, 607 S.W.2d at 566.

Admittedly, Yarborough is somewhat different from our case. The court in Yar-borough was construing a previous provision of the Mental Health Code which removed the continuing presumption of incompetency upon the patient’s discharge from the mental hospital, so that the issue there did not concern the proper standard of proof once the burden shifts.

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Related

Manning v. State
773 S.W.2d 568 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 1989)
Manning v. State
766 S.W.2d 551 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1989)

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Bluebook (online)
704 S.W.2d 825, 1985 Tex. App. LEXIS 8975, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/manning-v-state-texapp-1985.