Williams v. State, No. 14-03-01214-CR (TX 4/12/2005)
| Decision Date | 12 April 2005 |
| Docket Number | No. 14-03-01214-CR,14-03-01214-CR |
| Parties | JONATHAN BRADFORD WILLIAMS, Appellant v. THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee. |
| Court | Texas Supreme Court |
On Appeal from the 183rd District Court, Harris County, Texas, Trial Court Cause No. 952,421.
Affirmed.
Panel consists of Justices ANDERSON, HUDSON, and FROST. (ANDERSON, J., concurs in the result only.)
J. HARVEY HUDSON, Justice.
Appellant, Jonathan Bradford Williams, was charged by indictment with criminally negligent homicide, a state jail felony. See Tex. Pen. Code Ann. § 19.05 (Vernon 2003). Appellant entered a plea of "guilty" without an agreed recommendation on punishment. The court made an affirmative finding that appellant used a deadly weapon, namely, his vehicle, to commit the offense. After finding two felony enhancement paragraphs true, the court sentenced appellant to twenty-five (25) years' confinement in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Institutional Division. In eight points of error, appellant contends his counsel was ineffective, his plea was involuntary, the trial court lacked jurisdiction, his due process rights and right to speedy trial were violated, his sentence exceeds the legal punishment range, and there was no affirmative finding that he used a deadly weapon in the commission of the alleged offense.
On September 30, 2002, at approximately 7:20 p.m., appellant was driving a rented Ryder truck southbound on South Post Oak Road. As he drove through the intersection at the South Sam Houston Parkway frontage road, he struck the complainant's vehicle broadside. Ms. Helen Otis, who was traveling westbound at the time of the collision, was killed.1
Initially, appellant was charged with the offenses of criminally negligent homicide in trial court cause number 925,970, escape in cause number 925,971, and failure to stop and render aid in cause number 934,869. On June 26, 2003, the trial court dismissed cause number 925,970, the criminally negligent homicide charge, and re-filed the case under cause number 952,421—the only cause now pending before this court.2 Appellant subsequently pled guilty to the charge, and the court convicted and sentenced him accordingly.
In his first two points of error, appellant contends he was provided ineffective assistance of counsel and argues that, as a result, his guilty plea was entered involuntarily. Specifically, appellant complains that his appointed counsel failed to perform the necessary investigation of the offense and refused to file motions that he had requested she file. Appellant also alleges that he wanted to proceed to trial and that only after realizing how inept his appointed counsel was did he agree to plead guilty.
A counsel's ineffectiveness may render a plea of guilty involuntary. See Hayes v. State, 790 S.W.2d 824, 828 (Tex. App.-Austin 1983, no pet.). Claims of ineffective assistance of counsel are evaluated under the two-step analysis articulated in Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984). First, appellant must demonstrate counsel's performance was deficient and not reasonably effective. Id. at 688-92. To satisfy this step, appellant must identify the acts or omissions of counsel alleged as ineffective assistance and affirmatively prove they fell below the professional norm of reasonableness. See id.; McFarland v. State, 928 S.W.2d 482, 500 (Tex. Crim. App. 1996).
Second, appellant must demonstrate the deficient performance prejudiced the defense. Strickland, 466 U.S. at 693. To establish prejudice, an appellant must prove that but for counsel's deficient performance, the result of the proceeding would have been different. See id. at 694; Lemke v. State, 13 S.W.3d 791, 796 (Tex. Crim. App. 2000). In this case, that means appellant must prove that, but for counsel's errors, he would not have pled guilty. See Ex parte Morrow, 952 S.W.2d 530, 536 (Tex. Crim. App. 1997); Tabora v. State, 14 S.W.3d 332, 336 (Tex. App.-Houston [14th Dist.] 2000, no pet.).
Judicial scrutiny of counsel's performance must be highly deferential, and we are to indulge the strong presumption that counsel was effective. See Bone v. State, 77 S.W.3d 828, 833 (Tex. Crim. App. 2002); Mallett v. State, 65 S.W.3d 59, 63 (Tex. Crim. App. 2001). Appellant has the burden of rebutting this presumption by presenting evidence illustrating why trial counsel did what she did. See Jackson v. State, 877 S.W.2d 768, 771 (Tex. Crim. App. 1994) (en banc). Therefore, any allegation of ineffectiveness must be firmly founded in the record and the record must affirmatively demonstrate the alleged ineffectiveness. Thompson v. State, 9 S.W.3d 808, 813-14 (Tex. Crim. App. 1999). "[R]arely will the trial court record contain sufficient information to permit a reviewing court to fairly evaluate the merits of such a serious allegation: `[i]n the majority of cases, the record on direct appeal is simply underdeveloped and cannot adequately reflect the failings of trial counsel.'" Bone, 77 S.W.3d at 833 (quoting Thompson, 9 S.W.3d at 813-14)). When the record contains no evidence of the reasoning behind trial counsel's actions, we cannot conclude counsel's performance was deficient. Thompson, 9 S.W.3d at 813; see also Jackson, 877 S.W.2d at 771.
Here, appellant does not direct us to any evidence in the record which indicates the rationale, strategy, or defensive scheme considered and pursued by counsel. Counsel's effectiveness is not to be judged solely by the results of his or her representation, but rather is to be assessed against the backdrop of counsel's tactical motivations for his or her actions. While appellant makes numerous assertions in his brief that his counsel's performance was deficient, such unfounded assertions alone cannot provide sufficient evidence to sustain an ineffective assistance claim. See Thompson, 9 S.W.3d at 813-14 (). Moreover, appellant did not file a motion for new trial and therefore, the record is silent as to the reasoning behind counsel's actions. See Safari v. State, 961 S.W.2d 437, 445 () ( that in the absence of a motion for new trial, it would be speculative to find ineffective assistance of counsel). An appellate court is not required to speculate on the reasons behind trial counsel's actions when confronted with a silent record. Jackson, 877 S.W.2d at 771; see also Thompson, 9 S.W.3d at 814; Safari, 961 S.W.2d at 445. Because appellant fails to provide any evidence in the record to affirmatively demonstrate the ineffectiveness of his trial counsel, he has not satisfied his burden to rebut the presumption that he received reasonably effective assistance.
Furthermore, the record does not support appellant's contention that his plea was involuntary. In his brief, appellant argues that his counsel's ineffectiveness led him to believe he could not receive a fair trial and that this belief was his motivation for pleading guilty. As we already have determined, the record before us is insufficient to find appellant's counsel was ineffective. More importantly, the record reflects that appellant received written admonishments from the trial court prior to pleading guilty.3 These admonishments, which were signed by appellant, plainly state that appellant's plea was voluntary and that he received effective assistance of counsel. Therefore, even if the record rebutted the presumption of sound trial strategy, appellant has not provided sufficient evidence in the record to indicate he disagreed with pleading guilty and preferred to proceed with trial. See Powers v. State, 727 S.W.2d 313, 315-16 (Tex. App.-Houston [1st Dist.] 1987, pet. ref'd) (); see also Dusenberry v. State, 915 S.W.2d 947, 949-52 (Tex. App.-Houston [1st Dist.] 1996, pet. ref'd) (). Therefore, appellant has not demonstrated that trial counsel's performance prejudiced his defense; thus he also has failed to meet the second prong of the Strickland test. Accordingly, we overrule appellant's first two points of error.
In his third point of error, appellant contends the trial court lacked jurisdiction because the charging instrument failed to properly allege an offense. However, he proceeds in his brief to argue that the facts of the case, as described in the offense report, are contrary to the allegations. Thus, he appears to aver that he was not fully apprised of the actual charges against him.
Generally, an indictment must contain every element that must be proven at trial. Dinkins v. State, 894 S.W.2d 330, 338 (Tex. Crim. App. 1995). However, an indictment is sufficient to vest the trial court with jurisdiction if it accuses someone of a crime with sufficient clarity and specificity to identify the penal statute under which the State intends to prosecute, even if the indictment is otherwise defective. See Duron v. State, 956 S.W.2d 547, 550-51 (Tex. Crim. App. 1997); see also TEX. CODE CRIM. PROC. ANN. art. 15.05 (Vernon 1977) ().
Section 19.05 of the Texas Penal Code outlines the elements of criminally negligent homicide. The section states "[a] person commits an offense if he causes the death of an individual by criminal negligence." The indictment in this case stated, in pertinent part, that appellant, "did then and there unlawfully, cause the death of Helen Otis . . . by criminal negligence, namely by...
To continue reading
Request your trial