Moss v. State

13 S.W.3d 877, 2000 Tex. App. LEXIS 1622, 2000 WL 257763
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedMarch 9, 2000
Docket2-97-500-CR, 2-97-501-CR
StatusPublished
Cited by18 cases

This text of 13 S.W.3d 877 (Moss 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
Moss v. State, 13 S.W.3d 877, 2000 Tex. App. LEXIS 1622, 2000 WL 257763 (Tex. Ct. App. 2000).

Opinion

OPINION

INTRODUCTION

LEE ANN DAUPHINOT, Justice.

Appellant Joyce Ann Moss entered open pleas of guilty to two charges of aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon. The trial court sentenced Appellant to twenty-five years’ confinement in each case, to be served concurrently. In four issues on appeal, Appellant argues that the trial court’s judgments and sentences are void for want of jurisdiction, that she did not knowingly and voluntarily enter her pleas of guilty, that trial counsel’s ineffective assistance renders her pleas involuntary, and that the trial court’s judgments should be reformed to remove the deadly weapon findings. Finding no reversible error, we affirm the trial court’s judgments.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Appellant was charged in separate indictments with two counts of aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon, alleged to have occurred on August 24, 1995 and on August 26, 1995. Because Appellant was sixteen years old at the time of these offenses, her cases were originally filed in the 323rd District Court of Tarrant County, which is a juvenile court (the juvenile court). The State filed a petition in each case requesting that the juvenile court waive its exclusive original jurisdiction and transfer Appellant to the appropriate criminal district court. The juvenile court entered an order waiving its jurisdiction in each case and transferring Appellant to the appropriate criminal district court (the transfer order). Appellant was first transferred to Criminal District Court No. 2 and then to the 371st District Court (the trial court), both of which are criminal district courts. Because Appellant’s complaints on appeal relate to the transfer from juvenile court to criminal district court, the transfer between the two criminal district courts is not relevant to the disposition of this appeal. The transfer order, however, was not filed with the papers of the trial court.

Appellant entered open pleas of guilty to both offenses. She testified that she, John Glaseo, and Chris Smith committed two robberies at ATM machines. Appellant, however, denied having a gun during the robberies and testified that only Glas- *880 co had a gun. The trial court found Appellant guilty of both offenses and entered an affirmative finding that Appellant used or exhibited a deadly weapon during the commission of the offenses or during the immediate flight therefrom. At the punishment hearing, one victim identified Appellant, but not with 100 percent certainty, as the get-away driver. The other victim testified that she had seen only Glaseo.

On May 4, 1998, Appellant filed her original appellate brief, arguing that the judgments and sentences are void for want of jurisdiction, that she did not knowingly and voluntarily enter her pleas of guilty, that her trial counsel’s ineffective assistance renders her pleas involuntary, and that the judgments should be reformed to remove the deadly weapon findings. Specifically, with regard to jurisdiction, Appellant contends that because the order transferring her from juvenile court to criminal district court was not filed with the district clerk’s office and was not among the trial court's papers, the record does not affirmatively show that the juvenile court waived its jurisdiction. On May 21, 1998, a deputy district clerk filed in this court the first supplemental clerk’s record, containing the transfer order, the State’s petition requesting that the juvenile court waive its jurisdiction, the juvenile court’s docket sheet, and a letter from the assistant district attorney on appeal. This letter states that the clerk of the juvenile court had located copies of the transfer order, the State’s petition, and the docket sheet and requests that the deputy district clerk prepare, certify, and file in this court a supplemental clerk’s record of the located items.

The State then filed a motion to abate the appeal. Appellant filed a motion to strike the first supplemental clerk’s record and, alternatively, a motion for leave to file an amended brief. This court granted the State’s motion to abate the appeal, ordered the cause abated, and remanded the case to the trial court. This court ordered the trial court to conduct a hearing with the attorneys of record present in order to: (1) determine if the certified copy of the transfer order is an accurate copy of the missing transfer order; (2) determine if any omissions in the transfer order can be reconstructed; and (3) make appropriate findings and recommendations.

The trial court conducted an abatement hearing on July 9,10, and 14,1998. At the beginning of the hearing, Appellant’s attorney conceded that the copy of the transfer order contained in the first supplemental clerk’s record is an accurate copy. Scheresa Hudson (Hudson), the deputy district clerk assigned to the juvenile court, testified that when the juvenile court signed and entered the transfer order, she prepared, three certified copies of the transfer order. She sent two copies to the investigator in the district attorney’s office and sent the third copy via interoffice mail to the district clerk’s office. She testified that the copies sent to the district attorney’s office were the copies designated for filing and that, at the time the transfer order in this case was entered, the investigator with the district attorney’s office usually filed a certified copy of the transfer order with the district clerk.

The felony intake clerk at the district clerk’s office and the deputy district clerks assigned to Criminal District Court No. 2 and the 371st District Court each testified that she did not receive the transfer order for filing. The parties stipulated that the district clerk’s office did not receive the transfer order for filing until May 1998 when Hudson filed a certified copy of the transfer order with the district clerk’s office for inclusion in a supplemental clerk’s record. After the abatement hearing, the trial court adopted and incorporated into its order the State’s proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law. The trial court’s findings of fact are summarized as follows:

(1) The contents of the first supplemental clerk’s record are accurate copies of the missing items, including the transfer order.

*881 (2) The deputy district clerks are responsible for the care, custody, and control of documents tendered for filing and for orders signed by their courts.

(3) In September 1995, the District Clerk of Tarrant County did not have any specific procedures to follow to ensure that orders from the juvenile court judge got forwarded to the “downtown” criminal courts. Procedures now exist where the intake clerk at the district clerk’s office receives two certified copies of transfer orders, one from the district attorney’s office and one from Hudson sent via interoffice mail. Prior to the institution of these procedures, the intake clerk at the district clerk’s office received transfer orders sometimes from the district attorney’s office, sometimes from Hudson, sometimes from both, and “sometimes, as the Court finds happened here, from neither.”

(4) The district clerk’s office did not receive for filing certified copies of the transfer order.

(5) Hudson prepared a certified copy of the transfer order and placed it into interoffice mail. The parties stipulated that this certified copy was never filed or found.

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Bluebook (online)
13 S.W.3d 877, 2000 Tex. App. LEXIS 1622, 2000 WL 257763, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/moss-v-state-texapp-2000.