Griffith v. State

• Decision Date: 29 June 2005
• Docket Number: No. PD-1121-04.,PD-1121-04.
• Citation: 166 S.W.3d 261
• Parties: Darrell GRIFFITH, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas.
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

166 S.W.3d 261

Darrell GRIFFITH, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas.

No. PD-1121-04.

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.

June 29, 2005.

Randall J. Ayers, Houston, for Appellant.

Amanda Peters, Asst. District Attorney, Houston, Matthew Paul, State's Attorney, Austin, for State.

OPINION

PRICE J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which KELLER, P.J., MEYERS, WOMACK, JOHNSON, KEASLER, HERVEY, and COCHRAN, JJ., joined.

The appellant pled guilty without a plea bargain to unlawfully carrying a weapon on a premise that is licensed to sell alcohol a third-degree felony. The appellant expressly waived his right to the preparation of a presentence investigation (PSI) report. The trial court deferred adjudication of guilt and placed the appellant on community supervision. Later, the State filed a motion to adjudicate guilt. The trial court found one of the allegations in the motion true. After the trial court decided to proceed with adjudication and before sentencing, the appellant requested the preparation of a PSI report. The trial court denied the request and, after hearing evidence, sentenced the appellant to four years' imprisonment.

On direct appeal, the appellant complained that Code of Criminal Procedure Article 42.12, Section 9 required that the trial court have a PSI report prepared upon request. The Court of Appeals disagreed and affirmed the appellant's sentence.¹ It held that (1) the appellant may waive the preparation of a PSI report and (2) the waiver was effective for the sentencing proceedings.² We granted review to determine whether the Court of Appeals was correct in holding that the trial court did not err under these circumstances. We affirm the Court of Appeals because, based on the plain meaning of the language in Article 42.12, the appellant could waive his right to the PSI report during the initial plea proceedings and the waiver was effective for the sentencing proceedings.

II. Analysis

To address the appellant's grounds for review, we will first review Article 42.12, Section 9. In interpreting a statute, we adhere to our cardinal rule of statutory construction: We interpret a statute in accordance with the plain meaning of its language, unless the language is ambiguous or the plain meaning leads to absurd results that the legislature could not possibly have intended.³ In statutory interpretation, we try to give effect to the whole statute, which includes each word and phrase, if possible.⁴

A. A Defendant May Waive the Preparation of a PSI Report

Section 9 directs the trial court to have a community-supervision officer prepare a PSI report before sentencing unless one of the enumerated exceptions apply.⁵ The section provides that, unless requested by the defendant in a felony case, the trial court is not required to order the report prepared if

(1) punishment is to be assessed by a jury;

(2) the defendant is convicted of or enters a plea of guilty or nolo contendere to capital murder;

(3) the only available punishment is imprisonment; or

(4) the judge is informed that a plea bargain agreement exists, under which the defendant agrees to a punishment of imprisonment, and the judge intends to follow the agreement.⁶

In Whitelaw v. State, we interpreted this provision to mean that, in a felony case, the trial court should have a PSI report prepared (1) if the defendant or his attorney request it and (2) if the defendant is eligible for court-ordered community supervision, even if the defendant does not request it.⁷

The section provides two exceptions in a misdemeanor case (1) if the defendant requests that a report not be made and the judge agrees to the request and (2) if the judge finds that there is sufficient information in the record to permit the meaningful exercise of sentencing discretion and the judge explains this finding on the record.⁸ In a misdemeanor case, the trial court have a report prepared unless one of the two exceptions is met.

The appellant argues that these two subsections, when read together, mean that the preparation of a PSI report in a felony case may not be waived if the defendant is eligible for court-ordered community supervision. The Court of Appeals disagreed and cited Code of Criminal Procedure Article 1.14 for the proposition that "the defendant in a criminal prosecution for any offense may waive any right secured to him by law ..."⁹ We will address the appellant's argument.

Section 9 requires a PSI report more often in a felony case than in a misdemeanor case. But, there is nothing in Section 9 that prevents the defendant in a felony case from waiving the preparation of the report. Because the legislature did not address this in Section 9, Article 1.14 controls and allows a defendant to waive the preparation of the report. We hold that a defendant in a felony case may waive his right to the preparation of a PSI report, even when he is eligible for community supervision.

The appellant in this case waived his right to the report during his initial plea. We must determine whether that waiver was effective for the sentencing proceedings.

B. The Appellant's Waiver Was Effective During the Sentencing Proceedings

The Court of Appeals held that the appellant's waiver continued and was effective during the sentencing proceedings. It relied on its holding in McClendon v. State.¹⁰ In that case, the Court of Appeals held that, because adjudication proceedings are a continuation of the initial plea proceedings in which the trial court deferred adjudication, a valid waiver of the PSI report at that time continues throughout the later proceedings.¹¹ McClendon predated legislative changes that we addressed in Whitelaw. The Court of Appeals concluded that, because we did not address deferred adjudication cases in Whitelaw, there was no reason to retreat from its prior holding in McClendon.¹²

The appellant acknowledges the Court of Appeals's holding in McClendon, but argues that the legislative changes and Whitelaw call McClendon into question. He also attempts to distinguish McClendon on the basis that the trial court in that case had a great deal of information to consider during punishment.¹³

The appellant argues that Section 9 requires that the trial court have the report prepared because he requested it. He cites Buchanan v. State,¹⁴ in which the Texarkana Court of Appeals held that the trial court should have had a PSI report prepared prior to sentencing and after adjudication because none of the exceptions in Section 9 applied in the case.¹⁵

We note that the appellant's reliance on Buchanan is misplaced because there is no indication that the defendant in that case waived his right to a PSI report during the initial plea proceedings.¹⁶ The issue in the appellant's case is what effect, if any, the appellant's waiver had on the appellant's later request for the report. Buchanan is not persuasive authority that applies to the facts in the appellant's case.

The State argues that Whitelaw does not apply to the appellant's case because it does not address or purport to overrule the line of cases dealing with deferred adjudication proceedings. The State cites cases from four of the Courts of Appeals that have explicitly addressed the issue and have held that a request for a PSI in the context of a felony adjudication hearing is different than in traditional felony proceedings.¹⁷ According to the State, the reasoning in those cases follows the reasoning of the Court of Appeals in this case. These cases predate our opinion in Whitelaw.

Once again, our inquiry begins with a review of Section 9. The relevant portion of Section 9 says that:

Except as provided by Subsection (g) of this section, before the imposition of sentence by a judge in a felony case, ... the judge shall direct a supervision officer to report to the judge in writing on the circumstances of the offense with which the defendant is charged, the amount of restitution necessary to adequately compensate a victim of the offense, the criminal and social history of the defendant, and any other information relating to the defendant or the offense requested by the judge. It is not necessary that the report contain a sentencing recommendation, but the report must contain a proposed client supervision plan describing programs and sanctions that the community supervision and corrections department would provide the defendant if the judge suspended the imposition of the sentence or granted deferred adjudication.¹⁸

The statute directs the trial judge to have the report prepared before the imposition of the sentence. It also dictates that the report must contain a proposed plan for community supervision in the event that the trial court suspends the defendant's sentence and places him on community supervision. We must interpret this section in the context of all of Article 42.12.

Strictly speaking, when the trial court defers adjudication and places the defendant on community supervision, it has not imposed a sentence, even though the defendant is placed on community supervision. According to Article 42.12, Section 5(b), the case stops just before the trial court finds the defendant guilty.¹⁹ "After an adjudication of guilt, all proceedings, including assessment of punishment, pronouncement of sentence, granting of community supervision and defendant's appeal continue as if the adjudication of guilt had not been deferred."²⁰ The sentence is imposed only after the trial court revokes deferred-adjudication community supervision and adjudicates the defendant guilty.²¹ Functionally, it is all one proceeding, and if the trial court decides to adjudicate guilt, the proceedings continue as if no time had elapsed between the plea and the sentencing.

In Whitelaw, we held that the legislature's changes to Article 42.12, Section 9 indicated that the trial courts were required in felony cases to have a PSI prepared unless one of the statutory exceptions applied.²² These changes did not affect the nature of...