Phillips v. State

804 S.W.2d 319, 1991 Tex. App. LEXIS 654, 1991 WL 34775
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedFebruary 13, 1991
DocketNo. 09-90-080 CR
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 804 S.W.2d 319 (Phillips 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
Phillips v. State, 804 S.W.2d 319, 1991 Tex. App. LEXIS 654, 1991 WL 34775 (Tex. Ct. App. 1991).

Opinion

OPINION

WALKER, Chief Justice.

This is an out-of-time appeal based on the granting of a Writ of Habeas Corpus by the Court of Criminal Appeals on April 25, 1990. Appellant had entered a plea of guilty on April 24, 1989 to the felony offense of Aggravated Sexual Assault. There was no plea bargain recommendation as to punishment other than the State agreeing to make no recommendation. Pri- or to his guilty plea in April, appellant had filed a sworn “Application For Probated Sentence” on December 5, 1988 evidencing the fact that appellant was eligible for probation. Appellant’s sentencing hearing took place on September 6, 1989 prior to which a Pre-Sentence Investigation was prepared. The trial court then assessed punishment at fifteen (15) years confinement in the Texas Department of Corrections (now the Institutional Division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice).

On September 11, 1989, appellant’s trial counsel filed a Motion for New Trial. After all deadlines in the appeal process had expired, appellant had new counsel appointed (trial counsel had been retained), and filed an Application for Writ of Habeas Corpus in the trial court. A hearing was held upon said application on March 13, 1990 resulting in written findings of fact by the trial court. The basis of appellant’s habeas corpus complaint was that his trial counsel failed to properly follow through on the Motion for New Trial based on “newly discovered evidence available for Defendant,” and that trial counsel failed to adequately and properly prosecute an appeal on appellant’s behalf. The trial court essentially agreed with these contentions and recommended that appellant be granted an out-of-time appeal. Appellant now presents three points of error to us as follows:

Point 1. The district court erred in accepting a plea of guilty and entering a judgment thereon because appellant was denied effective assistance of counsel and his right to due process and a fair trial.
Point 2. The district court erred in overruling the motion for new trial because appellant was denied effective assistance of counsel and his right to due process and a fair trial.
[321]*321Point 3. Appellant was denied effective assistance of counsel and his right to due process and a fair trial under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution in not being advised of the unavailability of probation and counsel’s failure to proceed with the motion for new trial.

We will first address Point of Error 2 and the portion of Point of Error 3 which deals with trial counsel’s failure to proceed with the motion for new trial as they involve alleged procedural omissions by trial counsel. We are of the opinion that any such procedural omissions made by trial counsel in failing to properly prosecute any appellate matters on behalf of appellant were rendered moot by the Court of Criminal Appeals granting appellant his right to an out-of-time appeal. The Court stated:

Relief is hereby granted.... The proper remedy in a case such as this is to return the applicant to the point at which he can give notice of appeal. He may then, with the aid of counsel, follow the proper procedures in order that a meaningful appeal from his conviction may be taken.

In order for a “meaningful appeal” to be undertaken on appellant’s behalf, we take the Court’s language to mean that appellant is to be placed back at the same position he was the moment he filed his Motion for New Trial. This is in keeping with a line of cases from the Court of Criminal Appeals involving appellants whose trial attorneys file timely notices of appeal and then virtually disappear without formally withdrawing from the cases. In those situations, the Court has stated that the only remedy is to place the appellant in the same position after he gave notice of appeal as he would have been had an attorney never been retained or appointed to represent appellant on his direct appeal. See, Ex parte Goodall, 632 S.W.2d 750 (Tex.Crim.App.1982); Ex parte Raley, 528 S.W.2d 257 (Tex.Crim.App.1975, overruled on other grounds)] Ex parte Hill, 528 S.W.2d 259 (Tex.Crim.App.1975). In the instant case, since trial counsel’s only post-conviction action was to file the Motion for New Trial, we feel that the proper position for appellant in order for him to effectuate his right to a “meaningful appeal” is to place him in the position he was in at the point his Motion for New Trial was filed. In so doing, all procedural rights belonging to appellant that may have been waived by the actions or inactions of trial counsel have been restored by the Court of Criminal Appeals’ grant of relief. Appellant’s newly appointed counsel on appeal had every opportunity to proceed with the Motion for New Trial and request a hearing in order to develop whatever evidence he needed in support of the contentions contained in the motion. As the appellant was provided with this opportunity, we certainly find no denial of due process. Point of Error 2 and the procedural complaint in Point of Error 3 are overruled.

We now consider the remaining two points of error which have as their common complaint ineffective assistance of counsel by appellant’s trial counsel involving substantive errors with regard to appellant’s plea of guilty and sentencing hearings. In support of these remaining points of error, appellant has provided us with the statement of facts from three separate hearings; the plea before the trial court on April 24, 1989, the sentencing hearing on September 6, 1989, and the hearing on appellant’s Application for Writ of Habeas Corpus on March 13, 1990. All three volumes are quite brief.

We interpret appellant’s rather broad and generalized complaints in Points of Error 1 and 3 as contending that his plea of guilty was involuntary because of the ineffectiveness of trial counsel in several areas. From appellant’s brief we are able to extract five specific allegations directed against appellant’s trial counsel: that appellant’s trial counsel failed to “follow through” on potential witnesses and evidence; that trial counsel recommended that appellant plead guilty to aggravated sexual assault without any “instruction, investigation or consultation”; that trial counsel failed to advise or instruct appellant on the effect of the plea or the potential penalties resulting from the plea; that trial counsel “indicated he would obtain probation, yet [322]*322instructed Appellant to plead guilty when the attorney knew or should have known Appellant would not be entitled to probation”; and that trial counsel presented no evidence or testimony at the sentencing hearing although trial counsel had been provided with information on potential witnesses.

Appellant is correct in citing Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984), as the leading case on the question of ineffective assistance. In Strickland, the Supreme Court set out a two-prong test to determine whether counsel was ineffective in assistance at trial. The burden is on the appellant to first demonstrate that counsel’s performance was deficient; that is, counsel’s assistance was not reasonably effective.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
804 S.W.2d 319, 1991 Tex. App. LEXIS 654, 1991 WL 34775, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/phillips-v-state-texapp-1991.