Yazdchi v. Texas (Original)
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In November 2000, appellant pled guilty to aggregate theft and elected to have the judge assess punishment without an agreed recommendation. The judge assessed appellant's punishment at ten years' imprisonment but suspended his sentence and placed him on straight probation with ten years' community supervision. About five years after appellant had satisfactorily completed his probation, he was indicted for two third-degree felonies that he committed in 2006: falsely holding oneself out as a lawyer and aggregate theft of over $20,000 and under $100,000. Appellant was tried for both offenses at a single trial in November 2010. Prior to trial, the parties filed pretrial motions and had discussions with the trial court about the legal consequences stemming from the early termination of appellant's prior community supervision. Appellant filed a motion in limine seeking a hearing to determine, in part, whether the prior convictions listed in the State's notice were "final convictions." Appellant also filed a pretrial motion for community supervision acknowledging his earlier community supervision for felony theft that had been set aside, but later changed that election to be sentenced by the trial-court judge, apparently after the judge determined that appellant would be ineligible for community supervision from the jury. In this case, the issue before the Court of Criminal Appeals was whether appellant was eligible for felony community supervision from a jury when his prior community supervision, which he received under a straight probation and which was terminated by a discharge order that permitted him to withdraw his plea of guilty, dismissed the indictment, and set aside the verdict, became resurrected by the conviction. The Court held that the court of appeals properly determined: (1) appellant was not eligible for community supervision from the jury because his conviction in this case revived his earlier conviction for the limited purpose of probation ineligibility, even though his earlier conviction had been terminated by a discharge order that permitted him to withdraw his plea of guilty, dismissed the indictment, and set aside the verdict; and (2) appellant did not preserve his complaint that it is impermissible to impeach his testimony with a prior probation that was discharged through judicial clemency. The judgment of the court of appeals was affirmed.
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