Orlando Huelches Lopez v. State ( 2002 )

                                   NUMBER 13-01-486-CR

                             COURT OF APPEALS

                   THIRTEENTH DISTRICT OF TEXAS

                                CORPUS CHRISTI

ORLANDO HUELCHES LOPEZ,                                               Appellant,

                                                   v.

THE STATE OF TEXAS,                                                          Appellee.

                        On appeal from the 252nd District Court

                                of Jefferson County, Texas.

                                   O P I N I O N

         Before Chief Justice Valdez and Justices Rodriguez and Baird^[1]

                                   Opinion by Justice Baird

Appellant was charged by indictment with the offense of murder.  The State later reduced the charge to manslaughter.  Appellant entered a plea of no contest to the lesser offense.  The trial court accepted appellant=s plea and, following a pre-sentence investigation, assessed punishment at fifteen years confinement in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice B Institutional Division.  We affirm.

The sole point of error contends appellant=s plea was not voluntary because he neither spoke nor understood the English language.  Appellant correctly argues that he had a right to an interpreter under both the United States and Texas Constitutions.  Baltierra v. State, 586 S.W.2d 553, 559 (Tex. Crim. App. 1979); Villarreal v. State, 853 S.W.2d 170, 171 (Tex. App.BCorpus Christi 1993, no pet.).

After appellant=s brief was filed, we granted the State=s motion to supplement the record.  We now have the supplement before us which reflects that appellant did, in fact, have an interpreter in the person of Marilyn Hearner present at the time of his plea.  Therefore, this point of error is not supported by the record. Accordingly, it is overruled.

The judgment of the trial court is affirmed.

CHARLES F. BAIRD

Justice

Do not publish.

Tex. R. App. P. 47.3(b).

Opinion delivered and filed

this 16th day of May, 2002.     

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^[1]Former Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Charles F. Baird assigned to this Court by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Texas pursuant to Tex. Gov=t Code Ann. ' 74.003 (Vernon 1998).