Smith v. State

223 S.W.3d 690, 2007 Tex. App. LEXIS 2895, 2007 WL 1119912
Court of Appeals of Texas·Decided April 17, 2007·No. 06-06-00188-CR·Published·Cited by 33 cases

Opinions

OPINION

Opinion by

Justice MOSELEY.

Effrin Jermon Smith pled guilty in this case to a charge of delivery of a controlled substance, less than one gram, in a drug-free zone, with a deadly-weapon finding aud was tried simultaneously with and in the same hearings with a charge of possessing more than four, but less than 200 grams of a controlled substance.1 The case was tried to the trial court on punishment, and the court sentenced Smith to ten years’ imprisonment.

On appeal, Smith contends that we should reverse for a new punishment hearing because he did not adequately waive his right to a jury trial on punishment. Counsel points out that the Federal Constitution as interpreted by the United States Supreme Court requires an affirmative intentional relinquishment of the right to a jury trial and that Texas statutory law also requires the right to a jury trial to be waived in writing — and the section of the written admonishments that would have provided such waiver was struck through. Counsel also argues that no adequate verbal waiver of the right to a jury on punishment was made.

Constitutional Underpinning

The initial problem with this position is that the federal constitutional right of trial by jury does not encompass the right to have a jury assess the punishment. Martin v. State, 452 S.W.2d 481, 482 (Tex. Crim.App.1970); Baylor v. State, 195 S.W.3d 157, 159 (Tex.App.-San Antonio 2006, no pet.).2 Accordingly, Smith’s suggestion that constitutional rights are implicated in this instance is without merit.3 In [693]*693Texas, the right of the accused for a jury to assess punishment is purely statutory in nature.

Factual Basis for the Claim

The factual basis for the argument is this: in the omnibus admonishment and waiver and approval document filed with and approved by the court, the specific portion of the document containing the waiver of the right to have a jury determine punishment has been stricken. The pertinent portion of the document reads as follows:

15. I give up and waive my right to a jury, both as to my guilt and assessment of my punishment. — I-give up and-waive the right to appearance, confrontation, and--cross-examination of witnesses. — I consent-to oral and-written stipulation of evidence.

In this appeal, under the document mentioned, Smith signed an instrument by which he expressly waived his right to a jury trial as to the issue of guilt, but did not make a similar waiver of his right to have a jury assess his punishment.4 Article 26.14 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure states that,

[Wjhere a defendant in a case of felony persists in pleading guilty or in entering a plea of nolo contendere, if the punishment is not absolutely fixed by law, a jury shall be impaneled to assess the punishment and evidence may be heard to enable them to decide thereupon, unless the defendant in accordance with Articles 1.13 or 37.07 shall have waived his right to trial by jury.

Tex.Code CRiM. PROG. Ann. art. 26.14 (Vernon 1989); see Scott v. State, 173 S.W.3d 856, 869 (Tex.App.-Texarkana 2005, no pet.).

Article 37.07 provides that, if a finding of guilty is returned, the defendant may, with the consent of the attorney for the State, change his or her election of whether the judge or jury assesses the punishment. Tex.Code Ceim. Proc. Ann. art. 37.07, § 2(b). That section is inapplicable.

Article 1.13 provides that a defendant may, upon entering a plea, waive the right of trial by jury but specifies that the waiver must be in writing, be in open court, and be made with the consent and approval of the court and the attorney representing the State. Tex.Code CRiM. PROC. Ann. art 1.13.

Is waiver of jury trial at guilt/innocence phase enough to waive at punishment phase as well?

The State has directed us to the case of Johnson v. State, 72 S.W.3d 346 (Tex.Crim.App.2002), as its primary authority to support the court’s action. In Johnson, the court held that the lack of a written jury waiver is not harmful when the record reflects that the defendant was aware of his right to a jury trial and waived that right. Id. at 348-49. Based on the recital in the judgment stating that Johnson “waived trial by jury,” the court determined that Johnson knew about his right to a jury trial and that he waived that right. Id. at 349. The court noted that a recital in a judgment is presumptively correct unless there is direct proof to its falsity. Id. n. 10 (citing Breazeale v. State, 683 S.W.2d 446, 450 (Tex.Crim.App.1984) (op. on reh’g)). Because the court found nothing in the record directly proving the recital was false, the court held that Johnson had not been harmed because he consciously waived his right to a [694]*694jury trial — even though the record also did not support the recital. Id.

That case is informative, but does not directly control this situation. It is clear from the authorities cited above that the right to a jury trial on guilt/innocence and the right to have a jury assess punishment are two entirely different creatures. There is no authority suggesting that to waive one is to waive both, and the forms typically used (as in this case) directly reflect that fact. There was no written waiver of the statutory right to have a jury assess punishment in this case and, more importantly, the part of the form waiver which would have effected that result was stricken through. Likewise, there was no explicit oral waiver at the guilt/innocence phase hearing.

The judgment in this case does state that Smith waived “the right of trial by jury.” It does not state that he waived the right to have punishment decided by a jury; even more to the point, the document shows an effort to specifically strike out the preprinted waiver concerning the waiver of a right to have a jury assess punishment. Again, though the punishment proceeding is part of the overall trial, the cases uniformly hold that the right is not based on the right to a jury trial on guilt/innocence, but instead is based on statutory fiat.

There was only one brief exchange at the guilt/innocence phase hearing that mentioned jury trial: the court asked Smith, “Do you want a jury trial?” to which Smith answered, “No, sir.” The plea of guilty was entered some eight days before the trial before the court on the issue of punishment.

We conclude that this is insufficient to act as a waiver, either oral or written, sufficient to meet the requirements of the Code.

Preservation of Error

The next question is whether the issue now raised was adequately preserved for our review. As previously stated, the right to a jury trial on punishment is not constitutionally based. There are three different types of waiver analyses.

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Smith v. State, 223 S.W.3d 690, 2007 Tex. App. LEXIS 2895, 2007 WL 1119912 (Tex. Ct. App. 2007).

223 S.W.3d 690 (Smith v. State) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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