DocketNumber: PD-1236-12
Citation Numbers: 405 S.W.3d 682, 2013 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 793
Judges: Price, Johnson
Filed Date: 5/22/2013
Status: Precedential
Modified Date: 10/19/2024
OPINION
delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.
In three grounds for review, the appellant contends that the court of appeals erred to hold that 1) error in the failure to administer one of the admonishments of Article 26.13 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure was harmful under Rule 44.2(b) of the Texas Rules of Appellate Procedure, 2) his claim that his guilty plea was therefore rendered involuntary for purposes of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment was subject to ordinary procedural default and was therefore forfeited because not raised by objection at trial, and 3) any constitutional error was, in any event, harmless under the same rule that governs the standard for harm analyses for claims of statutory error under Article 26.13.
FACTS AND PROCEDURAL POSTURE
On December 4, 2009, the appellant entered an open plea of guilty to the offense of burglary of a building, ordinarily a state jail felony.
On April 1, 2009, some four months after accepting the appellant’s guilty plea, the trial court conducted the punishment hearing. The community supervision officer who prepared the pre-sentence investigation report testified that, taking into account the enhancement paragraphs, the appellant was subject to punishment for “a second degree felony.” She did not specify a range of punishment for that level of offense. Later, however, just before the parties made their closing arguments at the punishment hearing, the trial court remarked that the enhancement provisions made the case “punishable by two to twenty.” He did not mention a fine or otherwise elaborate.
The appellant raised two complaints on direct appeal. First, he argued that the trial court failed to admonish him as to the applicable range of punishment, as required by Article 26.13(a)(1), since “the range of punishment attached to the offense” was that for a second degree felony rather than a state jail felony.
The Eleventh Court of Appeals rejected both contentions.
THE LEGAL BACKDROP
Due Process
Federal due process requires that “[wfeivers of constitutional rights not only must be voluntary but must be knowing, intelligent acts done with sufficient awareness of the relevant circumstances and likely consequences.”
has such an incomplete understanding of the charge that his plea cannot stand as an intelligent admission of guilt. Without adequate notice of the nature of the charge against him, or proof that he in fact understood the charge, the plea cannot be voluntary in this ... sense.16
For his guilty plea to be constitutionally valid, then, the defendant must have an actual awareness of the nature and gravity of the charges against him and of the constitutional rights and privileges that he necessarily relinquishes — in short, “a full understanding of what the plea connotes
What the United States Supreme Court’s 1969 opinion in Boykin v. Alabama contributed to this due process jurisprudence “was the requirement that the record must affirmatively disclose that a defendant who pleaded guilty entered his plea understandingly and voluntarily.”
Article 26.13
Article 26.13(a)(1) mandates that, “[p]rior to accepting a plea of guilty or plea of nolo contendere, the court shall admonish the defendant of ... the range of punishment attached to the offense[.]”
ANALYSIS
Rule 44.2(b) Harm Analysis
The appellant does not take issue with the court of appeals for looking to the entire record to determine whether violation . of the admonishment statute was harmless — and with good reason, since that has been this Court’s consistent holding.
Although its opinion is not as clear as we might wish, we do not believe the court of appeals meant to hold that the failure to timely admonish the appellant as to the correct range of punishment was harmless simply because he later learned the correct range, though he had not been so aware at the time he entered his plea. Nor do we believe the court of appeals meant to impose a rule of forfeiture, holding that the appellant’s failure to object at some point after he entered his guilty plea prevents him from complaining on appeal of the lack of admonishment “at the time he entered his plea.”
We employed similar reasoning in our own opinion in Burnett v. State, focusing—at least in part—upon comparable post-entry-of-the-plea circumstances.
[t]he jury charge, which detailed the range of punishment, was read aloud in open court. Defense counsel did not object to the charge. There was no on-the-record reaction or protest from appellant when the charge was read, when the jury returned its verdict on punishment, or at appellant’s sentencing. Nor did defense counsel attempt to develop a record to support a motion for new trial on the grounds that the plea was not knowing and voluntary.37
These were not the only circumstances that led us to infer that Burnett was actually aware of the range of punishment when he entered his guilty plea despite the absence of an admonishment, but we certainly regarded them as relevant. While the inference of actual awareness is less compelling on the more limited facts of this case, it is nonetheless available, and the court of appeals did not err to follow our lead in concluding that the appellant’s substantial rights were not affected by the trial court’s faulty admonishment.
Boykin and Procedural Default
The first reason the court of appeals gave for rejecting the appellant’s constitutional claim is that the appellant did not preserve it with a trial objection or motion for new trial.
Boykin operates like a rule of default: Unless the appellate record discloses that a defendant entered his guilty plea “voluntarily and understanding^,]” a reviewing court must presume that he did not, and rule accordingly.
Boykin and Harmless Error
The second reason the court of appeals rejected the appellant’s constitu
We have taken care in our case law to differentiate appellate claims based upon a violation of the statutory admonishment requirement of Article 26.13 from appellate claims based upon due process — that a guilty plea was involuntary because inadequately informed.
Boykin Error
The court of appeals did not determine in its opinion whether Boykin error actually occurred in this case, pre-termiting that analysis with its faulty conclusions that any such error was forfeited and, in any event, harmless under Rule 44.2(b).
In the “Guilty Plea Memorandum,” which the appellant signed, he was admonished with respect to each of the particular constitutional rights mentioned in Boykin that a defendant pleading guilty necessarily waives — trial by jury, confrontation, and the privilege against self-incrimination. Thus, the record is not altogether silent with respect to whether the appellant understood the consequences of his plea. In Aguirre-Mata II, “[w]e have found no Supreme Court case ... holding that a trial court’s failure to admonish a guilty-pleading defendant on the range of punishment renders the guilty plea invalid.”
At the plea proceeding in Boykin, “[s]o far as the record showfed], the judge asked no questions of [Boykin] concerning his plea, and [Boykin] did not address the court.”
In short, for essentially the same reasons that the court of appeals found that any constitutional violation was harmless (albeit under the wrong subsection of Rule 44.2), and therefore declined to reach the merits of his due process claim, we now conclude that the appellant has failed to establish the merits of his due process claim.
CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, although we reject certain aspects of the court of ap-
. Tex.Code Crim. Proc. art. 26.13; TexR.App. P. 44.2(b).
. Tex. Penal Code § 30.02(a)(1) & (c)(1).
. See Tex.Code Crim. Proc. art. 26.13(d) (permitting written admonishments so long as they are signed by the defendant and his attorney).
. Tex. Penal Code § 12.35(a) & (b).
. Tex. Penal Code § 12.425(b) (formerly, and as of the date the appellant committed his offense, § 12.42(a)(2), see Acts 2011, 82nd Leg., ch. 834, p. 2104-05, §§ 2 & 5, eff. Sept. 1, 2011). The indictment contains three "Enhancement Paragraphs” alleging previous sequential burglary convictions, and in the "Guilty Plea Memorandum” the appellant "agree[d] and confessed] that all the acts and allegations in said pleading are true and correct.” We cannot find any other place in the record in which the appellant actually pled true to the enhancement counts, either during the plea proceeding or later during the sentencing hearing, although the judgment also reflects that he pled true to the enhancement paragraphs. Because the appellant was ultimately punished as a second degree felon, and there was no complaint on appeal that the appellant did not validly plead true to the enhancement paragraphs, we will accept for purposes of discretionary review that he did.
. At the December 4th hearing, the trial court did admonish the appellant that he would be susceptible to a $10,000 fine — the maximum fine available for either a state jail felony or a second degree felony. Tex. Penal Code §§ 12.33(b) & 12.35(b).
. Tex. Penal Code § 26.13(a)(1).
. Davison v. State, 377 S.W.3d 897 (Tex.App.-Eastland 2012).
. Id. at 900-01.
. Id. at 901.
. Id. (citing Aguirre-Mata v. State, 992 S.W.2d 495 (Tex.Crim.App.1999) (hereinafter, "Aguirre-Mata I"), and Aguirre-Mata v. State, 125 S.W.3d 473 (Tex.Crim.App.2003) (hereinafter, "Aguirre-Mata II")).
. Brady v. United States, 397 U.S. 742, 748, 90 S.Ct. 1463, 25 L.Ed.2d 747 (1970); Mendez v. State, 138 S.W.3d 334, 344 (Tex.Crim.App.2004).
. McCarthy v. United States, 394 U.S. 459, 466, 89 S.Ct. 1166, 22 L.Ed.2d 418 (1969).
. Id. (quoting Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458, 464, 58 S.Ct. 1019, 82 L.Ed. 1461 (1938)).
. Smith v. O'Grady, 312 U.S. 329, 61 S.Ct. 572, 85 L.Ed. 859 (1941).
. Henderson v. Morgan, 426 U.S. 637, 645 n. 13, 96 S.Ct. 2253, 49 L.Ed.2d 108 (1976).
. Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238, 244, 89 S.Ct. 1709, 23 L.Ed.2d 274 (1969); Aguirre-Mata II, supra, at 475. We observed in passing in Aguirre-Mata II that it "literally satisfies” the language we quote from Boykin above to admonish a defendant pleading guilty of "the factual elements of the charged crime” and the "various constitutional rights” that are necessarily waived, "without [also] admonishing [him] on the range of punishment[J” Id. at 475 n. 4.
. Brady, supra, at 747 n. 4, 90 S.Ct. 1463.
. United States v. Benitez, 542 U.S. 74, 84 n. 10, 124 S.Ct. 2333, 159 L.Ed.2d 157 (2004). See also Gardner v. State, 164 S.W.3d 393, 399 (Tex.Crim.App.2005) (citing Benitez for this proposition).
. Gardner, supra, at 399 (quoting Aguirre-Mata II, supra, at 475).
. Aguirre-Mata II, supra, at 475-76. See also VanNortrick v. State, 227 S.W.3d 706, 708 (Tex.Crim.App.2007) ("The Article 26.13 admonishments ... are not themselves constitutionally required.”).
. Tex Code Crim. Proc. art. 26.13(a)(1).
. Carranza v. State, 980 S.W.2d 653, 656 (Tex.Crim.App.1998); Aguirre-Mata I, supra, at 499; Aguirre-Mata II, supra, at 476; VanNortrick, supra, at 708.
. Anderson v. State, 182 S.W.3d 914, 918 (Tex.Crim.App.2006); Gardner, supra, at 398; Burnett v. State, 88 S.W.3d 633, 637 (Tex.Crim.App.2002); Fakeye v. State, 227 S.W.3d 714, 716 (Tex.Crim.App.2007).
. 239 S.W.3d 809, 812 (Tex.Crim.App.2007).
. Id.
. Cain v. State, 947 S.W.2d 262, 265 (Tex.Crim.App.1997).
. Carranza, supra, at 658; Aguirre-Mata I, supra, at 499; Burnett, supra, at 637-38; Anderson, supra, at 918; VanNortrick, supra, at 708.
. Burnett, supra, at 638; Anderson, supra, at 919; VanNortrick, supra, at 709; Fakeye, supra, at 716.
. Burnett, supra, at 638; VanNortrick, supra, at 710-11; Fakeye, supra, at 717 & n. 4.
. See note 29, ante.
. Appellant's Brief at 11 (citing VanNortrick, supra, at 712).
. Bessey, supra, 812.
. VanNortrick, supra, at 712.
. Burnett, supra, at 640-41.
. Id. at 636, 640.
. Id. at 640-41.
. Tex.R.App. P. 44.2(b).
. Davison, supra, at 901.
. 138 S.W.3d 334 (Tex.Crim.App.2004).
.The issue in Mendez was whether a trial court has an obligation, sua sponte, to withdraw a defendant’s guilty plea when evidence subsequently arises "that is inconsistent with guilt.” Id. at 336. We held that the trial court has no such obligation, and that the defendant must seek to withdraw his plea before error may be predicated upon the trial court’s failure to do so. Id. at 350. This holding was predicated in large measure on
. Boykin, supra, at 244, 89 S.Ct. 1709.
. Marin v. State, 851 S.W.2d 275, 279 (Tex.Crim.App.1993). The Supreme Court observed in Boykin that "[wjhat is at stake for an accused facing death or imprisonment demands the utmost solicitude of which courts are capable in canvassing the matter with the accused to make sure he has a full understanding of what the plea connotes and its consequence.” 395 U.S. at 243-44, 89 S.Ct. 1709.
. Boykin, supra, at 244, 89 S.Ct. 1709.
. Marin, supra, at 280; Mendez, supra, at 340.
. This is not to say that every appellate claim of purported Boykin error is actually predicated upon a record that is totally silent with respect to the informed nature of the guilty plea, so as to trigger the appellate default. Far from it. Indeed, as our analysis of the merits of the appellant’s due process claim demonstrates, see post, at 16-19, he fails to make out a case for pure Boykin error in this case, and must therefore lose on the merits. Many (if not most) claims of Boykin error will similarly prove to be without merit — just as many claims of, e.g., a lack of jurisdiction in the convicting court (the quintessential systemic requirement, see Marin, supra, at 279) will ultimately lack merit. Appellate courts must nevertheless entertain the merits of such claims, however frivolous, rather than declare them to be procedurally defaulted.
. Davison, supra, at 901.
. Id.
. See notes 23 & 24, ante.
. See note 11, ante. In Aguirre-Mata I, we declined to apply the constitutional harm standard expressly because "Appellant did not claim on direct appeal that the trial court's failure to admonish him of the range of punishment caused his plea to be obtained in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment made applicable to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment.” 992 S.W.2d at 499. And a careful reading of Aguirre-Mata II reveals that we did not purport to evaluate a constitutional claim for harm there either, instead holding that a claim that the trial court erred in failing to admonish as required by Article 26.13 does not, without more, make out a constitutional claim, much less call for a constitutional harm analysis. 125 S.W.3d at 474.
. Tex.R.App. P. 44.2(a).
. Davison, supra, at 901.
. Tex.R.App. P. 47.1.
. E.g., Benavidez v. State, 323 S.W.3d 179, 183 & n. 20 (Tex.Crim.App.2010); Zuliani v. State, 353 S.W.3d 872 (Tex.Crim.App.2011); Fuller v. State, 363 S.W.3d 583, 589 n. 30 (Tex.Crim.App.2012).
. E.g., Johnston v. State, 145 S.W.3d 215, 224 (Tex.Crim.App.2004).
. 125 S.W.3d at 475 n. 7.
. Boykin, supra, at 243, 89 S.Ct. 1709.
. Id. at 239, 89 S.Ct. 1709.
. Id. at 240, 89 S.Ct. 1709.
. Our holding today would not foreclose the appellant from obtaining relief in a post-conviction habeas corpus proceeding in the event that he may be able to allege and prove facts beyond what is revealed in the appellate record that are sufficient to establish to our satisfaction that he was in fact unaware of the accurate range of punishment at the time he entered his guilty plea in this cause. We merely hold today that the appellate record does not trigger the Boykin presumption or otherwise demonstrate a violation of due process.