Mayo v. State

314 S.W.2d 834, 166 Tex. Crim. 470, 1957 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 2425
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Texas
DecidedDecember 18, 1957
Docket29086
StatusPublished
Cited by24 cases

This text of 314 S.W.2d 834 (Mayo v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Mayo v. State, 314 S.W.2d 834, 166 Tex. Crim. 470, 1957 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 2425 (Tex. 1957).

Opinions

DAVIDSON, Judge.

On October 30, 1957, we ordered a reversal of this case.

The state and the appellant have each filed a motion for rehearing :

The state contends that the judgment should have been affirmed.

The appellant agrees that the judgment was properly reversed, but insists that we should have gone further and ordered the prosecution dismissed.

Upon further consideration, we have decided that the state’s motion for rehearing should be granted and that of the appellant overruled.

Therefore, the opinion heretofore rendered is withdrawn, the reversal is set aside, and the judgment of the trial court is now affirmed in accordance with the following opinion:

This is a conviction for the unlawful practice of dentistry, with punishment assessed at a fine of $2,000 and six month’s confinement in jail, enhanced by reason of prior convictions.

The primary offense alleged was that appellant did unlawfully practice dentistry without a license, on or about the 30th day of May, 1956, in Harris County.

[472]*472It was also alleged that on June 3, 1946, thé appellant was convicted in the County Court at Law of Jefferson County, in Cause No. 23125, of the offense of unlawfully practicing dentistry. This will hereafter in this opinion be referred to as the first prior conviction.

It was further alleged that on June 23, 1948, appellant was convicted of the unlawful practice of dentistry, in Cause No. 23948, in the County Court at Law of Jefferson County, Texas. This will be hereafter in this opinion referred to as the second prior conviction.

It was also further alleged that on June 16, 1952, appellant was convicted of the unlawful practice of dentistry, in Cause No. 18579, in the Criminal District Court of Jefferson County, Texas. This will be hereinafter referred to in this opinion as the third prior conviction. The Criminal District Court of Jefferson County has misdemeanor jurisdiction. Art. 52-160, Vernon’s C.C.P.

Art. 61, P.C., provides as follows:

“Second and subsequent conviction for misdemeanor. — If it be shown on the trial of a misdemeanor that the defendant has been once before convicted of the same offense, he shall on a second conviction receive double the punishment prescribed for such offense in ordinary cases, and upon a third or any subsequent conviction for the same offense, the punishment shall be increased so as not to exceed four times the penalty in the ordinary cases.”

Under the allegations of the information, that statute was invoked and its provisions made applicable when the proof showed that appellant was guilty of the primary offense charged and that he had been convicted of any two of the three prior convictions alleged.

In keeping therewith, the trial court, in his charge, instructed the jury to the effect that if appellant was guilty of the primary offense and had been convicted of any two or all three of the prior offenses alleged his punishment would be not less than $400 nor more than $4,000, or by confinement in jail for any period from four months to forty-eight months, or by both such fine and imprisonment.

The jury was also instructed that in the event it found [473]*473appellant guilty of the primary offense charged but failed to find that he had been theretofore convicted of as many as two of the prior offenses alleged, then his punishment would be by fine of not less than $100 nor more than $1,000, or by confinement in jail from one month to twelve months, or by both such fine and imprisonment.

Under such charge, the jury returned a general verdict finding- appellant guilty, as charged, and assessed his punishment at a fine of $2,000 and confinement in jail for a term of six months.

By various motions and objections, appellant challenged the right of the state to use the first prior conviction alleged in the information for the purpose of enhancing the punishment, because the state had used the first prior conviction to enhance the punishment as a second offender when he was convicted of the third conviction.

In other words, if appellant’s contention be tenable, the state, having used the prior conviction one time to enhance punishment as a second offender, was forever barred from thereafter using that conviction for enhaneement-of-punishment purposes as a third or subsequent offender.

This court has held that when the state uses a prior conviction to enhance the punishment as a second offender it cannot again use that same prior conviction for that purpose. Kinney v. State, 45 Texas Cr. Rep. 500, 79 S.W. 570; Miller v. State, 139 Texas Cr. Rep. 406, 140 S.W. 2d 859; Cothren v. State, 139 Texas Cr. Rep. 339, 140 S.W. 2d 860; McGill v. State, 269 S.W. 2d 398, 160 Texas Cr. Rep. 324.

Evans v. State, 160 Texas Cr. Rep. 517, 272 S.W. 2d 732, sustains appellant’s contention in that we refused to permit a prior conviction which had been used to enhance the punishment as a second offender to be used to enhance the punishment as a third offender or any subsequent offender. As sustaining that conclusion, the cases above listed were cited.

However, note is taken of the fact that none of those cases carried, as did the Evans case and this case, a conviction as a third offender. So then the holding in the Evans case was not bottomed upon any case directly in point.

Prior to the holding in the Evans case, this court, in Ex [474]*474parte Calloway, 151 Texas Cr. Rep. 90, 205 S.W. 2d 583, held in unmistakable terms that under Art. 63, P.C., “the use of a prior conviction to enhance the punishment as a second offender does not preclude the State from again using that conviction to fix the status of an habitual criminal.”

Art. 63, P.C., fixes the punishment authorized to be assessed for one three times convicted of an ordinary felony, while Art. 61, P.C., fixes the punishment authorized to be assessed for one three times convicted of a misdemeanor offense of like character.

In so far as enhancement of punishment by reason of prior convictions is concerned, the legal effect of the two statutes is the same.

The legal question involved in the Evans case and that in the Calloway case is the same. The holding in the two cases is, however, directly contradictory.

The question for our determination, here, then, is: Which case is to stand and which is to fall?

The Evans case, the junior in point of time of pronouncement, did not discuss or directly overrule the holding in the Calloway case. It cannot be said, therefore, that the Evans case constituted an express repudiation of the Calloway case.

In the Calloway case this court — at some length — discussed the cases heretofore mentioned, and therein pointed out that those two cases were not determinative of the question of using a prior conviction that had been used to enhance the punishment as a second offender, for the purpose of enhancing the punishment as a third offender. As a basis for the conclusion reached, it was pointed out that under Art. 63, P.C., the statute fixing punishment for three-time convictions, two prior convictions were necessary. In that connection it was said:

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Mayo v. State
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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
314 S.W.2d 834, 166 Tex. Crim. 470, 1957 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 2425, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mayo-v-state-texcrimapp-1957.