Sylvia Ann LEDESMA, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee. Christine MENDEZ, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee.
Nos. 682-83, 683-83
Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, En Banc.
Sept. 26, 1984.
677 S.W.2d 529
At the time of appellant‘s trial, when a defendant chose to have the jury make the determination whether he was an habitual criminal, a question of fact existed as to the truth or untruth of the allegations pertaining to the prior felony convictions alleged in a habitual offender charging instrument. Tinney v. State, 578 S.W.2d 137, 138-39 (Tex.Cr.App.1979). Thus, in this instance, even though appellant admitted when he testified to the alleged prior felony convictions, nevertheless, a question of fact still existed that, because of his election, was to be answered by the jury, and not the trial judge. We agree with the court of appeals’ analogy that a defendant who admits the enhancement allegations when he testifies is in a position similar to one who pleads not guilty to an alleged offense but nevertheless testifies and admits his guilt. In the latter situation, the admission by the defendant does not warrant the trial judge taking the case from the jury, because the jury is still charged with the responsibility of determining guilt. In the former, the jury is charged with the responsibility of making the determination whether the defendant is an habitual criminal. The court of appeals was correct in holding that “In dismissing the jury prematurely, the trial court deprived appellant of a valuable statutory right.” To the extent that Roper v. State, supra, Ballard v. State, supra, Salinas v. State, supra, and any other cases of this Court which have subscribed to the holdings in those cases, conflicts with what we state today, they are expressly overruled.
The judgment of the court of appeals is affirmed.
McCORMICK and CAMPBELL, JJ., concur.
James L. McMurtry, Former County Atty., Joseph A. Turner, Former Asst. County Atty., Margaret Moore, County Atty., Claire S. Dawson-Brown, Asst. County Atty., Robert Huttash, State‘s Atty., and Alfred Walker, First Asst. State‘s Atty., Austin, for the State.
OPINION ON STATE‘S PETITION FOR DISCRETIONARY REVIEW
McCORMICK, Judge.
After trial before the court, appellants’ were convicted of failing to identify themselves to a peace officer and assessed punishment by fine of one hundred twenty-five dollars each. In a published opinion, the Austin Court of Appeals reversed the convictions on the basis of insufficient evidence. Ledesma v. State, 652 S.W.2d 579 (Tex.App.—Austin 1983). We granted the State‘s petition for discretionary review to review the Court of Appeals’ construction of these cases as “agreed” cases governed by
“(a) A person commits an offense if he intentionally refuses to report or gives a false report of his name and residence address to a peace officer who has lawfully stopped him and requested the information.”
Appellants’ cases were tried under a stipulation of evidence, which is as follows:
“MR. GREENSTEIN: (Appellants’ Counsel) We would enter the following stipulation to the record that on or about April 22, 1978, the Defendants, Sylvia Ledesma and Christine Mendez were protesting the boat races on Town Lake, Austin, Travis County, Texas. During that protest both Defendants were arrested for failure to obey a lawful order to get off the street by Officer Lasley. Both were asked their names and address by Officer Lasley and both people refused to report their names and address to Officer Lasley, who lawfully stopped them and requested the information.
In regard to Ms. Mendez, prior to the time she had been requested to give her name and address to Officer Lasley, she had given her name and address to another officer who was not the officer who arrested her. And that‘s it.”
Finding “no rules governing stipulated facts in misdemeanor cases” to govern ap-
“In the civil practice there are two types of stipulations. First there are stipulations in which the parties agree to some, but not all, facts in a case ... [i]n such situations, reasonable deductions or inferences may be drawn from the facts set out in the stipulation. [citations omitted.] Second, there are those stipulations governed by
Tex.R.Civ.P.Ann. 263 (1976) by which the parties submit an agreed case.... No deductions or inferences may be drawn from the facts set out in an agreed case....“At the beginning of the proceedings under review, the court stated that, ‘(t)his case apparently will be tried on a stipulation of facts.’ Furthermore, no other evidence was introduced. It seems, therefore, that these cases were submitted as agreed cases thereby prohibiting any deductions or inferences to be drawn from the stipulated facts.
“Upon examination of the stipulation, it is apparent that there is no evidence that appellants knew the arresting officer was, in fact, a peace officer.” 652 S.W.2d at 580, 581. (Emphasis supplied)
We find that the Court of Appeals was in error in applying the “agreed” case analysis to the instant cases. Although the “agreed” case procedure has been used in criminal jurisprudence in other jurisdictions, the agreed case procedure is most often used in “misdemeanor prosecutions arising from violations of regulatory statutes....” 3 Am.Jur.2d, Agreed Case, Section 7 (1962), and cases cited therein. Unlike the civil cases in which the agreed case procedure is commonly used, and unlike misdemeanor prosecutions involving regulatory statutes which usually impose “strict” liability, most penal statutes require proof of scienter or mens rea in order to convict. Absent a judicial confession, the requisite culpable mental state must ordinarily be inferred from the acts of the accused or the surrounding circumstances. See generally LaFave and Scott, Criminal Law, Section 28 (1972). It would be inconceivable that a trier of fact could not make inferences from stipulated facts.2
Under traditional analysis, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the judgment to determine whether any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt, Wilson v. State, 654 S.W.2d 465 (Tex.Cr.App.1983), we find the stipulated evidence sufficient to show that appellants knew that the person who had lawfully stopped them and requested information was a peace officer. A rational trier of fact would surely be warranted in inferring as much from the stipulation acknowledging a “lawful arrest” (which is most often effected by a peace officer) and specifically referring to “another officer.”
In its petition for discretionary review, the State argues that our determination of evidence sufficiency herein is unnecessary because the statute does not require knowledge by the accused that the person requesting the information is a peace officer. We disagree. The State‘s construction of
In order to require definiteness and certainty in the statute we hold that in
- A person,
- intentionally refuses to report or gives a false report of his name and residence address,
- to a peace officer,
- who has lawfully stopped him and requested the information,
- knowing that the person requesting the information is a peace officer.
The opinion of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the causes remanded for consideration of appellants’ first ground of error in a manner consistent with this opinion.
TOM G. DAVIS, Judge, concurring and dissenting.
I concur in the majority‘s holding that the “agreed case” analysis relied upon by the Court of Appeals is improper. I also agree to that portion of the majority opinion which holds that the State must prove that a defendant knew the person requesting information was a peace officer in order to sustain a conviction under
I dissent to the majority opinion because the evidence is insufficient to show that appellants knew that the person who had stopped them and requested information was a peace officer. I cannot agree that such knowledge can be inferred from the portions of the stipulation relied on by the majority in determining sufficiency. The majority‘s entire analysis of the sufficiency of the evidence on this point is as follows:
“A rational trier of fact would surely be warranted in inferring [that appellants knew the person who had stopped them was a peace officer] from the stipulation acknowledging a ‘lawful arrest’ (which is most often effected by a peace officer) and specifically referring to ‘another officer.‘”
The lawfulness of the stop is a different element of the offense, which appellants chose not to dispute. Furthermore, the lawfulness of a stop is determined objectively, after the fact, and a concession by appellants at trial that the stop was lawful is no evidence that they knew the person stopping them was a peace officer. The lawfulness of a stop does not depend on whether the person stopped knew he was being stopped by a peace officer. The stop in the instant case was lawful because appellants were committing an offense in the officer‘s presence by blocking a public street during a protest. See
The reference to “another officer” in the stipulation, when read in context, also does not supply the necessary inference. Appellants conceded at trial that the person who stopped them was “Officer Lasley” and that prior to the time one of the appellants “had been requested to give her name and address to Officer Lasley, she had given her name and address to another officer who was not the officer who arrested her.” The term “officer” used throughout the stipulation merely reflects identification after the fact, i.e., the person who stopped them is identified as “Officer Lasley” and “another officer” (a different person) had previously requested information.1 Thus it does not follow from the stipulation that “Officer Lasley” stopped appellants and that “another officer” had previously stopped one appellant, that appellants knew at the time they were stopped that the person stopping them was an officer. The stipulation merely reflects that appellants knew at trial that the person was “Officer Lasley” and identified him as such.
ODOM and TEAGUE, JJ., join in this opinion.
CLINTON, Judge, dissenting.
In my judgment, the “agreed case” problem is knottier than any contemporaneous opinion has thus far indicated, and it needs to be addressed.
Article V, Sec. 25 is an obscure provision in our Texas Constitution that is often overlooked. It grants to the Supreme Court “power to make and establish rules of procedure not inconsistent with the laws of this State for the government of said court and the other courts of this State ...” Equally little regarded is an opinion of the Court respecting that provision: Sessions v. State, 81 Tex.Cr.R. 424, 197 S.W. 718 (1917). It has not been overruled, according to Shepard‘s Texas Citations.
The Sessions Court read Section 25 to include the Court of Criminal Appeals within a governance of rules of procedure made by the Supreme Court of Texas, and it acknowledged that indeed the Supreme Court had done so on at least one prior occasion. It also noted that the Supreme Court had made rules for the district court “for the purpose of directing the manner of preparing transcripts for appeal to this court.” See, e.g., Ratcliff v. State, 29 Tex.App. 248, 15 S.W. 596 (1890): “The rules above cited are applicable to criminal as well as civil cases, and are for the government of appeals to this as well as to the supreme court.” Id., 597.
Accordingly, the considered application of
All that aside, however,
Therefore, I respectfully dissent.
MCCORMICK
JUDGE