Thorn v. State

961 S.W.2d 12, 1996 Tex. App. LEXIS 5666, 1996 WL 729800
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedNovember 27, 1996
DocketNo. 05-95-00865-CR
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 961 S.W.2d 12 (Thorn 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
Thorn v. State, 961 S.W.2d 12, 1996 Tex. App. LEXIS 5666, 1996 WL 729800 (Tex. Ct. App. 1996).

Opinion

OPINION

WOLFE, Justice.

Robert Thomas Thom appeals his conviction for perjury. The trial court assessed punishment at a fine of $1000 and restitution of $1200. In four points of error, appellant (1) challenges the sufficiency of the evidence to support his conviction; (2) asserts that the statute under which he was convicted is void for vagueness; (3) argues that documents not produced in response to a discovery request were erroneously admitted into evidence; and

(4) complains that the trial court erroneously admitted evidence of appellant’s thirteen prior felony convictions. We affirm the trial court’s judgment.

FACTUAL BACKGROUND

Shortly before 5:00 p.m. on March 23, 1994, appellant went to the office of the City Clerk of the City of Denison, Texas, carrying with him an application for a place on the ballot for the City of Denison’s general election to be held on May 7,1994. The deadline for filing applications was 5:00 p.m. on March 23. In his application, appellant stated that he was seeking the office of mayor of Denison. The application included an affidavit required to be signed by the applicant in the presence of an officer authorized to administer an oath. When appellant arrived at the City Clerk’s office, he had already signed [14]*14the affidavit but had not done so in the presence of an officer authorized to administer an oath, and he had not taken any oath verifying the information set forth in the affidavit. At the City Clerk’s office, appellant gave his application to Nina Jones, a deputy clerk, who saw that the affidavit had not been properly signed and sworn to. Jones testified that it is not unusual for incomplete applications to be presented by persons wishing to apply for a place on a ballot. She advised appellant that the affidavit had to be signed and sworn to in the presence of a notary.

Jones testified that before administering the oath to appellant, she read the affidavit to him. The affidavit contained the following language:

[N]or have I been finally convicted of a felony for which I have not been pardoned or had my full rights of citizenship restored by other official action.

When Jones read that part of the affidavit to appellant, he stopped her and, according to Jones’s testimony, said “I cannot swear to that.” The City Clerk and chief elections officer for the city, Barbara Forrest, testified that she overheard Jones reading the affidavit to appellant who stopped her and said “that he had been convicted of a felony, but that he had contacted the secretary of state of Texas and the attorney general and that they had assured him that he could run for office in the State of Texas.” (Emphasis added.)

It is undisputed that appellant was convicted of thirteen felony offenses in Texas in 1959 and that he had not been pardoned. Appellant testified that he was confused as to whether or not his full rights of citizenship might somehow have been restored, but there was no evidence verifying that any such restoration had ever occurred, whether by some “official action” other than a pardon, or otherwise.

Forrest testified that following the truncated conversation between Jones and appellant, appellant came into Forrest’s office and told her that he had spoken with the secretary of state and Dan Morales, “who is the attorney general,” and they had told him he could run for office. Forrest testified that even though appellant stated that he had been convicted of a felony, he also stated that he had been told by authorities that he could run for office. She testified that she “felt confident that he knew what he was saying, that this was his affidavit that he wished to make, and on that basis, [I] had no authority but to accept the affidavit as he gave it.” She also testified that she could not refuse to accept his application until receipt of an official document confirming his ineligibility. Forrest told Jones to go ahead and notarize the affidavit as requested by appellant.

Forrest agreed that appellant might have said the name “Dan Lee” rather than “Dan Morales,” but she positively testified that appellant invoked the authority of the “secretary of state” during his visit to the clerk’s office. She stated that appellant never said anything to her or questioned her about having his rights restored by some means other than a pardon.

Appellant testified that he knew that he had never been pardoned and expected this to become a “campaign issue” during his mayoral candidacy. Various persons had encouraged him to run for mayor, but he did not consider himself to be a serious candidate: he was planning to withdraw his candidacy after bringing up some issues and was planning to throw his support behind another candidate.

He further testified that upon first entering Jones’s office on March 23, 1994, he read the affidavit, noted the language in question, and told Jones that he could not sign the affidavit because he had “not been pardoned in the State of Texas.” Appellant told Jones that even though he “had been approved by tbe Board of Pardons and Paroles on three different occasions, ... no governor had signed a pardon though he did have a pardon from the State of Arkansas.” Appellant testified that no one had ever told him that he could run for office in the State of Texas or that there was some means other than a pardon by which he could have his rights restored; he told the jury he “thought perhaps that there could have been some laws that after a period of time, your right to hold office was restored.” When appellant gave [15]*15Jones the information that he had not been pardoned in the State of Texas even though a pardon had been approved by the Board and that he had been pardoned in Arkansas, Jones “seemed to be confused.” At this point, Forrest intervened and asked to see the application.

Appellant testified that he informed Forrest that he had talked to his friend, Dan Lee, a presiding justice on the Supreme Court of Mississippi, who had told him that “some states allowed you to run for public office after so many years.” He assumed that if he was not eligible to run for office, Forrest would stop him. When Forrest “approved [his] filing of the application” this meant to him “that there was some other official action that a state can take, because Marion Berry [sic] just got out of prison for a felony conviction,” and “there’s been many felons file [sic] for public office in the State of Texas even.”

Appellant denied ever saying anything to Jones or Forrest about the secretary of state of Texas or Dan Morales; he claimed to have told them only that he had talked with Dan Lee. Appellant testified that after he made his affidavit he “later called Dan Lee and he [Lee] said you should have had them strike that part up at the top. I said, well, I done signed it.”

Justice Lee testified that many years ago he had represented appellant in a criminal case in Mississippi, that he had taken a personal interest in appellant, and that they had become and remained good friends. Prior to March 23,1994, appellant asked him what he thought about appellant’s running for mayor, and the justice reminded him that “you’ve got to realize now you’ve been convicted.” Appellant responded that his convictions occurred “twenty-odd years ago.” Justice Lee commented that the convictions were “in the past,” “behind” appellant, and encouraged him to run for mayor. The justice told appellant that in Mississippi a convicted felon does not lose his right to vote

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
961 S.W.2d 12, 1996 Tex. App. LEXIS 5666, 1996 WL 729800, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/thorn-v-state-texapp-1996.