Opinion

Gary Allan Seals v. State

Court
Texas Court of Appeals, 11th District (Eastland)
Filed
Nov 16, 2006
Status
Published
Cited by
0 cases
Authority
More cited than 37.5%

The opinion

Order filed November 16, 2006

Order filed November 16, 2006

In The

Eleventh Court of Appeals

____________

No. 11-05-00009-CR

__________

GARY ALLAN SEALS, Appellant

V.

STATE

OF TEXAS,

Appellee

On

Appeal from the 42nd District Court

Taylor County,

Texas

Trial

Court Cause No. 21,277-A

O

R D E R

This court originally affirmed the conviction in

an unpublished opinion on November 17, 2005.

Gary Allan Seals = s

petition for writ of habeas corpus seeking to file an out-of-time petition for

discretionary review was granted, and Seals has now filed a petition for

discretionary review in this court.

Pursuant to T ex. R. App. P. 50,

our opinion and judgment dated November 17, 2005, are withdrawn, and our

opinion and judgment dated November 16, 2006, are substituted therefor. Seals = s

petition for discretionary review filed in this court on October 25, 2006, is

dismissed by operation of law. Rule 50.

November

16, 2006 PER

CURIAM

Do not

publish. See Tex. R. App. P . 47.2(b).

Panel consists of: Wright, C.J.,

McCall, J., and Strange,

J.

Opinion filed November 16, 2006

In The

Eleventh Court of Appeals

____________

No. 11-05-00009-CR

__________

GARY ALLAN SEALS, Appellant

V.

STATE

OF TEXAS,

Appellee

On

Appeal from the 42nd District Court

Taylor

County, Texas

Trial

Court Cause No. 21,277-A

O

P I N I O N P U R S U A N T T O

T ex. R. App. P. 50

The jury convicted Gary Allan Seals of burglary of

a building. The trial court found both

enhancement allegations to be true and sentenced appellant to confinement for

fifteen years. We affirm.

In both his petition for discretionary review and

his brief on appeal, appellant raises challenges concerning only the punishment

phase of the trial. Appellant argues

that the trial court erred by admitting evidence concerning one of his prior

convictions and by improperly enhancing the range of punishment. There is no challenge to the sufficiency of

the evidence or to the conviction itself.

The record reflects that appellant entered one of

the Texas Health and Human Services Commission = s

warehouses and removed a mobile air compressor unit without permission. The door to the warehouse was locked at the

time. The air compressor was later

retrieved from a pawn shop. According to

the pawn ticket, appellant had taken the air compressor to the pawn shop less

than an hour after he was seen removing it from the locked warehouse.

The indictment alleged that appellant had two

prior felony convictions: a 1989 Harris County

conviction for burglary of a building and a 1986 Garza County

conviction for burglary. Appellant

entered a plea of true to the Harris County conviction and a plea of not true to the Garza County

conviction. The State introduced pen

packets for both offenses and testimony identifying appellant = s fingerprints as those of the person

convicted in each of the pen packets.

In his first issue in both his petition and his

brief, appellant contends that State = s

Exhibit No. 14 (the pen packet for the Garza County

conviction) does not reflect that appellant had waived the ten days for his

counsel to file pleadings provided by T ex.

Code Crim. Proc. Ann. art. 27.11 (Vernon

1989). Appellant bases his argument on

the fact that the Garza

County judgment states

that the offense was committed on February 3, 1986, and the sentence was

imposed on February 11, 1986. Relying on

the case of Oliver v. State , 646 S.W.2d 242 (Tex. Crim. App. 1983),

appellant contends that the pen packet was inadmissible without evidence that

he waived the ten-day preparation time for the trial.

In Oliver , the defendant appealed from his

conviction of practicing dentistry without a license. On the day of trial, the State abandoned the

original information and refiled. Over

the defendant = s

objection that he was being denied his ten days to prepare for trial, the trial

court proceeded with the trial that same day. Appellant correctly notes the

court in Oliver held that, once invoked either formally or informally,

the right to ten days for preparation for trial is mandatory. 646 S.W.2d at 245 . However, we disagree with appellant = s contentions that the holding in Oliver

is applicable in this case.

Oliver involved a direct appeal challenging

the conviction. Here, appellant is

attempting to collaterally attack his 1986 Garza

County conviction in the direct appeal

of his 2004 Taylor

County conviction.

It is well settled that, after the State makes a

prima facie showing of a valid prior conviction, the burden shifts to the

defendant to affirmatively establish a defect that renders the prior conviction

void. Allridge v. State , 762

S.W.2d 146, 156 (Tex. Crim. App. 1988); Johnson v. State , 725 S.W.2d

245, 247 (Tex. Crim. App. 1987); Smith v. State , 683 S.W.2d 393, 407

(Tex. Crim. App. 1984); Hankins v. State , 646 S.W.2d 191, 200 (Tex.

Crim. App. 1981); Tinney v. State , 578 S.W.2d 137, 139 (Tex. Crim. App.

1979). There is a presumption of

regularity where the procedural defect does not appear in the record unless the

defendant sustains his burden. Jones

v. State , 646 S.W.2d 449, 449 (Tex. Crim. App. 1983). Here, appellant made no affirmative showing

that he did not waive the ten days to prepare for trial. See Tate v. State , 120 S.W.3d 886, 890

(Tex. App. C Fort Worth 2003, no pet.) (defendant did not produce evidence

that right to jury trial was not waived); Battle v. State , 989 S.W.2d

840 (Tex. App. C Texarkana

1999, no pet.); Bruce v. State , 744 S.W.2d 618, 619 (Tex. App. C Houston [1st Dist.] 1987, pet. ref = d).

The trial court did not err in admitting State = s

Exhibit No. 14 into evidence. The first issue is overruled.

T ex. Pen.

Code Ann. '

12.42(a)(2) (Vernon Supp. 2006) provides that, when a person convicted of a

state jail felony is shown to have two prior felony convictions, the punishment

for the state jail felony is enhanced to that for the punishment for a second

degree felony: confinement for a term of

not more than twenty years and not less than two years with an authorization

for an optional fine not to exceed $10,000.

The original judgment in this case contains a notation: A Enhanced

with two priors (5-99 or life). @ Appellant argued in his original brief that

this notation established that the trial court erred by enhancing his

punishment to a first degree felony.

After appellant filed his brief, the trial court entered a judgment nunc

pro tunc stating that the judgment should read A enhanced

with two prior felonies to a Second Degree Felony. @

Appellant now contends that not only did the trial

court err by enhancing the punishment to that for a first degree felony but

also that the trial court erred by entering the judgment nunc pro tunc. We disagree.

T ex. R. App.

P. 23 provides that the failure to render sentence or judgment may be

corrected at any time by the trial court unless a motion for new trial or a

motion to arrest judgment has been granted.

The trial court retains this power to correct clerical mistakes in the

judgment or sentence even if the conviction is on appeal. State v. Bates , 889 S.W.2d 306, 309

(Tex. Crim. App. 1994). The trial court

cannot use a judgment nunc pro tunc to correct a judicial error. Id . To the extent that there is a variance, a

trial court = s oral

pronouncement of the sentence controls over the written pronouncement. Ex parte Madding, 70 S.W.3d 131, 135

(Tex. Crim. App. 2002); Coffey v. State, 979 S.W.2d 326, 328 (Tex. Crim.

App. 1998).

Other than the entry on the original written

judgment, the record from the trial does not reflect that at any time the trial

court referenced the appropriate punishment to be that for a first degree

felony as opposed to a second degree. In

open court, the trial court sentenced appellant as follows:

You pled true to the first enhancement

paragraph. The Court finds that

paragraph true. Pled untrue to the

second enhancement paragraph. The Court

finds that enhancement paragraph true after hearing the evidence in the case

and assesses your punishment at 15 years confinement in the State penitentiary

and you are sentenced to serve 15 years confinement in the State penitentiary.

Appellant has not established that the judgment nunc pro tunc

corrected anything other than a clerical error or that the trial court abused

its discretion by entering the judgment nunc pro tunc. The second issue is overruled.

The judgment of the trial court is affirmed.

PER CURIAM

November 16, 2006

Do not publish. See

T ex. R. App. P. 47.2(b).

Panel

consists of: Wright, C.J.,

McCall,

J., and Strange, J.

This is a copy of a public record, reproduced as it was published. It is not legal advice, and it may not be the version a court would rely on. Check the official source before you cite it.

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