Roberson, Crystal Yvette

420 S.W.3d 832, 2013 WL 6081202, 2013 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 1690
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Texas
DecidedNovember 20, 2013
DocketPD-0917-12
StatusPublished
Cited by49 cases

This text of 420 S.W.3d 832 (Roberson, Crystal Yvette) 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
Roberson, Crystal Yvette, 420 S.W.3d 832, 2013 WL 6081202, 2013 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 1690 (Tex. 2013).

Opinion

OPINION

JOHNSON, J.,

delivered the opinion of the Court

in which KELLER, P.J., and MEYERS, PRICE, KEASLER, HERVEY, and ALCALÁ, JJ„ joined.

Appellant was charged by indictment with aggravated assault by using a deadly weapon, namely, a knife. The indictment also included allegations that appellant previously had been convicted of two felony offenses. After finding appellant “guilty of aggravated assault, as charged in the indictment,” the jury found the enhancement paragraphs true and assessed punishment of thirty years’ confinement in *834 the institutional division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. On direct appeal, the court of appeals affirmed the judgment of the trial court. We granted appellant’s petition for discretionary review. Roberson v. State, 371 S.W.3d 557 (Tex.App.-Houston [1st Dist.] 2012). We affirm the judgment of the court of appeals.

On direct appeal, appellant raised several claims, including a claim that the evidence was legally insufficient to support the jury’s finding that the second enhancement paragraph was true: that paragraph should not have been used to enhance her punishment range because the alleged offense did not occur in the sequence alleged in the indictment. The court of appeals held that the evidence supported the enhancement of appellant’s sentence under the habitual-offender statute and affirmed the judgment of the trial court. Id.

We granted appellant’s petition for discretionary review, which presented a single question for review: whether the opinion of the majority of the First Court of Appeals erroneously relied on an unpublished memorandum opinion as controlling precedent rather than on a published opinion from the Fourteenth Court of Appeals that involved the same issue regarding enhanced sentences and finality of the convictions in enhancement paragraphs. Appellant’s question for review also suggests that the majority opinion in the court of appeals appears to contradict this Court’s subsequent adoption of the rationale of the Fourteenth Court of Appeals. We affirm the judgment of the court of appeals.

I. Facts

The record reflects that, at the beginning of the punishment proceedings and outside of the presence of the jury, appellant’s attorney announced that she had “an objection to the enhancement paragraph as it’s stated on the indictment.” She stated that her objection was based upon the fact that the second enhancement paragraph’s conviction date “is actually before the conviction date on the first enhancement paragraph[.]” After hearing argument from the attorneys representing the parties, the trial court “duly noted and overruled” appellant’s objection. Thereafter, before the jury, appellant plead “true” to the two enhancement allegations as they were read from the indictment. In so reading, the prosecutor switched the order of the enhancement paragraphs, first reading the allegation in the second enhancement paragraph that appellant had committed aggravated assault and was finally convicted of that offense on August 28, 1989, and then reading the allegation in the first enhancement paragraph that appellant had committed possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance and was finally convicted of that offense on July 8, 1991. The prosecutor also stated that the conviction alleged in the first enhancement paragraph became final after the conviction alleged in the second enhancement paragraph. After the state presented evidence in support of the prior convictions — including penitentiary packets, all the testimony and evidence that was presented in the guilt phase, the reading of the jury charge, and argument to jurors — the jury found both enhancement allegations true and assessed punishment at thirty years’ imprisonment.

II. Court of Appeals Opinion

On direct appeal, appellant claimed that the evidence was legally insufficient to support the jury’s finding that the second enhancement paragraph was true because that paragraph should not have been used to enhance her punishment range because the alleged offense did not occur in the sequence alleged in the indictment. Ap *835 pellant stressed that the enhancements, as plead in the indictment, would have required her to be finally convicted of the felony of possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance on July 7, 1991, and after that conviction, to have committed and been convicted of the felony of aggravated assault on August 28,1989, some two years earlier. Brief for Appellant on direct appeal at 5. She further asserted, “This is an impossibility; the State’s chronology or sequence of convictions in the enhancement paragraphs is defective and incapable of being proved by any standard.” Id. Appellant claimed that the evidence was insufficient to support the jury’s finding of true to the second enhancement paragraph because the offense did not occur, and could not have occurred, in the sequence alleged in the indictment. Roberson v. State, 371 S.W.3d at 560.

The court of appeals affirmed the judgment of the trial court holding that the evidence was sufficient to support the enhancement of appellant’s sentence under the habitual-offender statute and that the trial court did not err in applying the habitual-offender statute to enhance appellant’s sentence. Roberson v. State, 371 S.W.3d at 560-61. It determined that the record affirmatively shows that appellant’s prior convictions met the statutory chronology requirements for habitual-offender punishment and were final and noted that “[t]he order in which the State alleges prior convictions in the indictment is not an element of the crime and does not determine finality.” Id. at 560. The court of appeals also noted that appellant’s objection at trial to the faulty enhancement allegations “obviates any contention that she was misled by the error.” Id. at 561.

III. Appellant’s Question for Review

Appellant’s sole question for review asks, “Whether the First Court of Appeals (Majority Opinion) erroneously relied on an unpublished memorandum opinion as controlling precedent rather than a published opinion 1 from the Fourteenth Court of Appeals involving the same issue regarding sequencing and finality of enhancement paragraphs, and[] which Majority Opinion appears to be contradictory to this Court’s adoption of the rationale of Mikel in Ex parte Rich[,] 194 S.W.3d 508 (Tex.Crim.App.2008).”

IV. Arguments

Appellant points to the wording of the two enhancement paragraphs. The first paragraph alleged that

[b]efore the commission of the offense alleged above, (hereafter styled the primary offense), on JULY 8, 1991, in Cause Number 0590710, in the 177TH DISTRICT COURT of HARRIS County, Texas, the Defendant was convicted of the felony of POSSESSION WITH INTENT TO DELIVER A CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE.

The second enhancement paragraph alleged that

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Bluebook (online)
420 S.W.3d 832, 2013 WL 6081202, 2013 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 1690, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/roberson-crystal-yvette-texcrimapp-2013.