619 SW2D 156 - Hall v. State

How this case has been cited

Cited by 36 later decisions — most recently October 2006 · most notably Green v. State (1984), Crane v. State (1990)

36 state decisions

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

¶1OPINION

ROBERTS, Judge.

¶2The appellant pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter, an offense that is normally a felony of the second degree. It also was alleged that the appellant had been convicted of a felony once before, which would have increased the punishment to that of a felony of the first degree. V.T.C.A., Penal Code, Section 12.42(b). The appellant pleaded untrue to this “repeater” allegation. The issue was submitted to a jury, which found the “repeater” allegation true, and which assessed a punishment of confinement for life.

¶3In his third ground of error the appellant raises the same objection that he made in the trial court: That the proof of the “repeater” allegation was insufficient because the allegation was that he had been convicted previously “upon an indictment” in a Michigan court, while the only proof was that he had been convicted on an information. That variance renders the proof insufficient. Boone v. State, 450 S.W.2d 614 (Tex.Cr.App.1970); Melancon v. State, 367 S.W.2d 690 (Tex.Cr.App.1963).

¶4According to this Court’s decision in Porier v. State, 591 S.W.2d 482 (Tex.Cr.App.1979), the Double Jeopardy Clause does not forbid the State to attempt again to prove the prior conviction. But the present judgment cannot stand, for it is based on insufficient proof.

¶5The judgment is reversed and the cause is remanded.