Roy Tyler Beauchamp v. State ( 2014 )

COURT OF APPEALS
SECOND DISTRICT OF TEXAS
FORT WORTH
NO. 02-13-00414-CR
ROY TYLER BEAUCHAMP APPELLANT
V.
THE STATE OF TEXAS STATE
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FROM THE 415TH DISTRICT COURT OF PARKER COUNTY
TRIAL COURT NO. CR12-0447
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MEMORANDUM OPINION1
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Appellant Roy Tyler Beauchamp pleaded guilty to a state jail felony offense
in exchange for two years’ confinement probated to five years’ community
supervision. Three months later, the State filed a motion to revoke his
community supervision. Beauchamp pleaded true to the State’s allegations, and
1
See Tex. R. App. P. 47.4.
the trial court accepted his plea, conducted a punishment hearing, revoked his
community supervision, and sentenced him to twenty-four months’ confinement.
In his sole issue on appeal, Beauchamp asks us to determine whether a
duty to sua sponte withdraw a plea in a bench trial extends to “true” pleas in
revocation hearings and, if so, whether the trial court’s failure to sua sponte
withdraw his plea here constituted an abuse of discretion when the record “raises
the question of whether [he] knew, at the time the plea was entered, precisely
what the allegations against him were.”
First, there is no duty to sua sponte withdraw a plea in a bench trial.
Mendez v. State, 138 S.W.3d 334, 350 (Tex. Crim. App. 2004) (holding that the
defendant has the burden to timely seek to withdraw his guilty plea and that he
may not complain for the first time on appeal that the trial court did not sua
sponte withdraw his guilty plea).
Further, a trial court has no duty to withdraw a plea of true in a revocation
proceeding, and a plea of true, standing alone, is sufficient to support revocation.
Moses v. State, 590 S.W.2d 469, 470 (Tex. Crim. App. [Panel Op.] 1979)
(“[T]here is no duty upon a trial court to withdraw a plea of true in a revocation of
probation proceeding even if a probationer presents a defensive issue.”); see
also Gutierrez v. State, 108 S.W.3d 304, 309 (Tex. Crim. App. 2003) (stating that
in the revocation context, the legislature has not authorized binding plea
agreements, has not required the court to inquire as to a plea agreement’s
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existence or admonish the defendant pursuant to article 26.13, and has not
provided for withdrawal of a plea after sentencing).
Finally, Beauchamp did not raise his complaint here in the trial court or in a
motion for new trial, see Tex. R. App. P. 33.1, but even if he had, the record as a
whole reflects that Beauchamp knew what the State’s allegations were when he
pleaded true,2 that he pleaded true in the hope of getting his community
supervision reinstated, and that the punishment evidence from his own witnesses
established the violations alleged by the State. Therefore, we overrule
Beauchamp’s sole issue and affirm the trial court’s judgment.
PER CURIAM
PANEL: MCCOY, GARDNER, and WALKER, JJ.
DO NOT PUBLISH
Tex. R. App. P. 47.2(b)
DELIVERED: July 17, 2014
2
Beauchamp does not argue that he did not receive the State’s motion to
revoke or that it failed to provide him fair notice of the alleged violations so that
he could prepare a defense. Cf. Labelle v. State, 692 S.W.2d 102, 105 & n.2
(Tex. Crim. App. 1985) (stating that a motion to revoke must simply give fair
notice of the violation involved in order to comport with minimum due process).
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