Vidaurri v. State

49 S.W.3d 880, 2001 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 50, 2001 WL 687375
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Texas
DecidedJune 20, 2001
Docket151-99
StatusPublished
Cited by540 cases

This text of 49 S.W.3d 880 (Vidaurri v. State) 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
Vidaurri v. State, 49 S.W.3d 880, 2001 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 50, 2001 WL 687375 (Tex. 2001).

Opinions

OPINION

MEYERS, J.,

delivered the opinion of the Court,

joined by HOLLAND, PRICE, HOLCOMB, and HERVEY, JJ.

Appellant entered a plea of guilty to a felony charge of indecency with a child and, pursuant to a plea bargain, was placed on ten years deferred adjudication. The State subsequently filed a Motion to Proceed with Adjudication of Guilt, alleging appellant had violated three of his deferred adjudication conditions. Appellant pled not true to all three alleged violations, was tried in the District Court and adjudicated guilty of the original charge. Appellant was immediately sentenced to twelve years in the Texas Department of Corrections.

On appeal, appellant argued the trial court erred in failing to afford him a punishment hearing prior to sentencing. The Seventh Court of Appeals, noting that appellant filed a general notice of appeal, held that Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 25.2(b)(3) prevented the court from exercising jurisdiction over appellant’s claim and dismissed that portion of the appeal.1 The appellate court reasoned that, when appellant pled guilty and was placed on deferred adjudication pursuant to a plea bargain, his appeal became subject to the Rule 25.2(b)(3) restrictions, relying on Watson v. State, 924 S.W.2d 711 (Tex.Crim.App.1996). Because appellant had not met any of the Rule 25.2(b)(3) requirements, the appellate court held that it “could only address points of error concerning jurisdictional defects or the volun-tariness of his plea.2 Because appellant’s claim that the trial court improperly denied him a punishment hearing was not a jurisdictional defect, the Court of Appeals held it could not be considered. The appellate court went on to add that, even if it had jurisdiction to consider appellant’s claim, appellant waived any potential complaint by failing to object to the error when it occurred or afterwards. Vidaurri v. State, 981 S.W.2d 478 (Tex.App.—Amarillo 1998).

We granted appellant’s petition for discretionary review to determine whether [882]*882the Court of Appeals erred in holding that Rule 25.2(b)(3) limits appellant’s right to appeal even though appellant pled not true to the alleged violations of the deferred adjudication conditions and, if the appellate court was in error, whether it was also error to hold appellant waived any potential complaint by failing to object to the lack of a separate punishment hearing.3

II.

Appellant first claims that Rule 25.2(b)(3) is not applicable to his case because he pled not true to the alleged violations of the deferred adjudication conditions. Appellant refers to the lower court’s reliance on Watson v. State, supra, as “misplaced”, arguing that Watson is not controlling here because the defendant “in Watson pled true to the alleged violations of the deferred adjudication conditions. Appellant argues that because he pled not true to the alleged violations there was no “plea of guilty” and his appeal is not limited by Rule 25.2(b)(3).

We explained in Watson that, “when a prosecutor recommends deferred adjudication in exchange for a defendant’s plea of guilty or nolo contendere, the trial judge does not exceed that recommendation if, upon proceeding to an adjudication of guilt, he later assesses any punishment within the range allowed by law.” Watson, 924 S.W.2d at 714. Therefore, when a defendant pleads guilty in exchange for deferred adjudication, that initial plea triggers the application of Rule 40(b)(1), now Rule 25.2(b)(3), limitations to his appeal. Id. at 715.

Although the defendant in Watson pled true to the alleged violations of the deferred adjudication conditions, our opinion did not rely on that fact when we held that the appeal was limited by Rule 40(b)(1), now Rule 25.2(b)(3). With the exception of a brief reference to the defendant’s plea of true in the facts, the plea entered regarding the alleged violations of the deferred adjudication conditions was not referred to at all in our opinion. Rather, our analysis focused on the nature of the plea made in exchange for the State’s recommendation of deferred adjudication:

a defendant who trades a plea of guilty or nolo contendere for a recommendation by the prosecutor that a judgment of guilt be delayed while he serves a period of community supervision necessarily accepts, at least in the absence of some express agreement to the contrary, that the prosecutor is making no recommendation at all concerning the term of years he may be required to serve if his probation is later revoked and the trial court proceeds to adjudicate him guilty of the charged offense.

Id. at 714. The defendant’s knowledge, at the time of his original plea, that he might receive any sentence within the range allowed by law means that “the punishment assessed did not exceed the punishment [883]*883recommended by the prosecutor and agreed to by the defendant” and Rule 25.2(b)(3) applies. There is nothing in Watson to suggest that this reasoning is affected by whether the defendant pled true or not true to the alleged violations of deferred adjudication conditions. It is the defendant’s initial plea of guilty or nolo contendere to the charged offense which warrants application of Rule 25.2(b)(3), not the later plea of true or not true to the alleged violations.

In Ex Parte Howard, 685 S.W.2d 672 (Tex.Crim.App.1985), this Court held the defendant’s right to appeal was limited by Code of Criminal Procedure Article 44.02, now Rule 25.2(b)(3). Although we noted that “[i]t should be kept in mind that [appellant’s] plea of ‘true’ to the allegations of the motion to proceed to adjudication was also made pursuant to a plea bargain,” there was no indication by the Court that this fact played any part in the decision to apply the appeal limitations to the defendant’s case. Id. at 673 n. 2. Later, in Brown v. State, 943 S.W.2d 35 (Tex.Crim.App.1997), we reaffirmed the holding in Watson with no mention of any distinction between defendants who plead true to the alleged violations of deferred adjudication conditions and defendants who plead not true. The Court stated that “a plea-bargaining defendant has no avenue for relief. Under Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 40(b)(1) [now Rule 25.2(b)(3) ], a plea-bargaining defendant is barred from appealing nonjurisdictional errors occurring before and after entry of his plea unless: (1) the trial court gives permission to appeal; or (2) the matter to be appealed was raised by written motion and ruled on before trial.” Id, at 41 (citing- Rule 40(b)(1) and Lyon v. State, 872 S.W.2d 732 (Tex.Crim.App.), cert. denied, 512 U.S. 1209, 114 S.Ct. 2684, 129 L.Ed.2d 816 (1994)).

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
49 S.W.3d 880, 2001 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 50, 2001 WL 687375, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/vidaurri-v-state-texcrimapp-2001.