Antonine D. Henderson v. State, 04-15-00652-CR

Antonine Henderson pled no contest to unauthorized use of a vehicle under a written plea agreement recommending a $1,500 fine and six months in a state jail, with sentences to run concurrently and five causes taken into consideration.
The written plea document included a separately-labeled “non-binding recommendation” that Henderson would be subject to the full range of punishment if he failed to report to sentencing.
At the plea hearing, the prosecutor, Henderson, and defense counsel stated on the record that the term making Henderson subject to the full statutory range for failing to appear was part of the plea agreement; the court admonished Henderson about the range and accepted the plea.
Henderson failed to appear for the initial sentencing date; a capias issued and he was brought before the court at a later date for sentencing.
The trial court sentenced Henderson to two years’ confinement (within the statutory range), ran it concurrently with other cases, and certified that this was a plea-bargain case and Henderson had no right of appeal.
Henderson appealed, arguing the court exceeded the plea agreement and thus the certification denying appeal rights was defective; the Court of Appeals issued a show-cause order and reviewed the record.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether the trial-court certification is defective because the sentence exceeded the plea agreement	Henderson: sentence exceeded the recommended six months so certification denying appeal is defective	State: the enforceable plea included a term releasing the State and allowing full-range punishment if Henderson failed to appear; sentence followed that term	Certification was accurate; sentence was imposed pursuant to the orally announced, enforceable plea term releasing the State when Henderson failed to appear, so no right to appeal
Whether the orally pronounced plea terms (including the penalty-for-failure-to-appear clause) are enforceable over the written plea document	Henderson: written plea limited punishment to six months	State: the plea announced in open court (accepted by court and agreed by parties) controls and is enforceable	Court applied rule that the plea pronounced and accepted in open court is enforceable; written variance was implicitly rejected

Marsh v. State, 444 S.W.3d 654 (Tex. Crim. App. 2014) (court of appeals may order trial court to reconsider a seemingly defective certification)
Dears v. State, 154 S.W.3d 610 (Tex. Crim. App. 2005) (court of appeals should review clerk’s record to determine certification accuracy)
State v. Moore, 240 S.W.3d 248 (Tex. Crim. App. 2007) (terms making full-range punishment available after breach of plea conditions are proper and enforceable)
Brumley v. State, 359 S.W.3d 884 (Tex. App.—Beaumont 2011) (oral plea terms pronounced in open court, accepted by the court, control over conflicting written plea agreement)