Ex parte Vela (original by presiding judge keller)
Annotate this CaseThe issue this case presented for Court of Criminal Appeals' review centered on what effect granting a new punishment hearing had on a stacking order. Applicant was convicted of aggravated robbery and sentenced to life in prison. He was also convicted of possession of heroin and sentenced to sixty years. The trial court ordered that the heroin sentence be “stacked” onto the aggravated-robbery sentence. Applicant subsequently appealed his aggravated-robbery conviction, and the case was reversed and remanded for a new punishment hearing. At the new punishment hearing, he again received a life sentence, but the trial court did not issue a new stacking order with respect to the heroin sentence. Applicant argued on appeal that that the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) was treating his heroin sentence as if it were stacked onto the aggravated-robbery sentence. He claimed that once the aggravated-robbery case was reversed, it vanished for stacking purposes. In addition, he argued that because the trial court did not issue a new stacking order with respect to the heroin sentence when he was re-sentenced for the aggravated robbery, the heroin and aggravated-robbery sentences should run concurrently. The Court of Criminal Appeals concluded that the granting of a new punishment hearing removed the sentence from the stacking order. Because the trial court did not issue a new order stacking the new sentence in the re-sentenced case onto the sentence for an existing conviction, applicant’s sentences ran concurrently.
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