Charles Henry Booker v. the State of Texas

Affirmed and Memorandum Majority and Dissenting Opinions filed June 6,
2024.

In The

Fourteenth Court of Appeals

NO. 14-22-00919-CR

CHARLES HENRY BOOKER, Appellant
V.

THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee

On Appeal from the 338th District Court
Harris County, Texas
Trial Court Cause No. 1544381

MEMORANDUM DISSENTING OPINION

The June 2, 2022 reporter’s record recites the following:

At this time, having no reason that the Court finds that the
Court should not sentence the defendant, even though he has decided
on his own, voluntarily, to not be present -- that in and of itself is
direct correlation to the Court of his disrespect to the proceeding and
not being present, and still being out on the lam.
So having -- Mr. Charles Booker having nothing to say, it is the
order of the Court that Mr. Charles Booker, who has been adjudged to
be guilty of the offense of burglary of a habitation felony in Cause No.
1544381, found to be guilty by the jurors, the Court sentences Mr.
Booker to 35 years.

He is remanded to the custody of the sheriff of Harris County,
Texas, until he or she can obey and carry out the direction and
instructions of the sentencing. And the sentence will commence the
day that he is captured and taken into custody. Thank you-all.

The clerk’s record contains the trial court’s judgment signed June 2, 2022,
with the absent appellant’s thumbprint affixed to it. An unsigned judgment
addendum is also in the clerk’s record:

On this date, 12/14/2022, the Court assessed punishment at: 35
YEARS INSTITUTIONAL DIVISION, TDCJ with a FINE: of $ N/A.

The new sentence to begin is 12/14/2022.

Defendant is to receive jail credit as follows: 700 total number of
days.

There was neither a reporter’s record of the subsequent December 14, 2022
sentencing, nor a record that the court reporter was properly excused by agreement
of the parties from attending and making a full record of that proceeding. Tex. R.
App. P. 13.1.

Being charitable, what the trial court did was at best a mess. I would order a
new sentencing proceeding before considering the merits of the appeal. See
generally Meachum v. State, 273 S.W.3d 803, 805–06 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th
Dist.] 2008, order) (“Following the Court of Criminal Appeals decision
in Thompson [108 S.W.3d 287 (Tex. Crim. App. 2003)], we conclude that we
lack jurisdiction over appellant’s appeal based on the trial court’s failure to
pronounce the sentence in appellant’s presence.”).

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I dissent.

/s/ Charles A. Spain
Justice

Panel consists of Justices Bourliot, Zimmerer, and Spain (Zimmerer, J., majority).
Do Not Publish — TEX. R. APP. P. 47.2(b).

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