Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

21 S.W.3d 922

Chandler v. State

Court of Appeals of Texas

Decided July 6, 2000

Court of Appeals of Texas · decided 2000-07-06

Cited by 1 later decisions — most recently April 2005

1 state decisions

Relies on Harvey v. State · Urbano v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 2000-07-06

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

¶1OPINION

PAUL C. MURPHY, Chief Justice.

¶2A jury convicted appellant, Anwar Iquill Chandler, of aggravated kidnapping. With one enhancement paragraph, to which he pleaded “true,” the jury sentenced him to life imprisonment.

¶3In his sole point of error, appellant claims that his Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights were violated by the trial court’s instruction to the jury that they find the enhancement paragraph “true.”

¶4*923The State argues that appellant’s plea of true to the enhancement paragraph, as well as appellant’s stipulation that he was the same person convicted of the offense charged in the enhancement paragraph, relieves them of the burden of proof on the enhancement.

¶5This identical issue has been decided in the State’s favor on at least two separate occasions, once by the Court of Criminal Appeals and once by this court. See Harvey v. State, 611 S.W.2d 108, 111 (Tex.Crim.App.1981); Urbano v. State, 808 S.W.2d 519, 528 (Tex.App.—Houston [14 th Dist.] 1991, no pet.). The opinions in both cases clearly stated the rule that a plea of “true” to enhancement paragraphs relieves the State of the burden of proof on those issues. Based on this line of precedent, we overrule appellant’s point of error and affirm the trial court’s judgment.

/21/sw3d/922 · .json · Public domain