Anastassov v. Texas (original by judge slaughter)
Annotate this CaseIn separate indictments, a grand jury charged Appellant Stoyan Anastassov with two instances of second-degree-felony indecency with a child by sexual contact. The indictments alleged that Appellant, a professional tennis coach, unlawfully engaged in sexual contact with one of his female students, a child younger than seventeen years old, with the intent to arouse and gratify his sexual desire by contacting her genitalia and her breast with his hand. Appellant pleaded not guilty to both charges, and the two cases were tried together in a single proceeding. The jury found Appellant guilty of the offenses alleged and assessed his punishment at confinement for nine years on one charge, three years on the other, and a $10,000 fine in each case. The trial court accepted the jury’s verdicts and sentenced Appellant accordingly. The issue this case presented for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals was whether, if a defendant is convicted of multiple offenses stemming from the same criminal episode in a single proceeding, the trial court imposes fines as part of the sentence for each offense, and the sentences are to be discharged concurrently, should each judgment include the fine actually imposed, or should only one of the judgments include a fine to ensure that the defendant pays only once? The Court concluded each judgment must include the fine actually imposed. The court of appeals erred here by deleting one of Appellant’s two lawfully-assessed concurrent fines of $10,000 for his indecency-with-a-child convictions under the mistaken belief that including both fines in the judgments would improperly indicate that they were to be stacked. Accordingly, the Court reversed the portion of the court of appeals’ judgment deleting the fine in case number F-1550350-V, and reinstated the $10,000 fine that the trial court originally included in the written judgment for that offense. The Court otherwise affirmed the court of appeals’ judgment.
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