Reported / Citable
Background
Trevor Dallas Blankenship pleaded guilty in Tarrant County to two misdemeanors: unlawful carrying of a weapon and driving while intoxicated (DWI). He was placed into the Veterans Treatment Court program, but after his removal from that program, the trial court sentenced him to one year’s confinement in the Tarrant County Jail on each offense.
Blankenship appealed both convictions. His appointed appellate counsel, finding no non-frivolous grounds for appeal, filed a motion to withdraw and an Anders brief pursuant to Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738 (1967), along with the procedural safeguards required by Kelly v. State, 436 S.W.3d 313 (Tex. Crim. App. 2014). Blankenship did not file a pro se response, and the State agreed the appeals were frivolous.
The court independently reviewed the full appellate records, as required when an Anders brief is filed. While agreeing the appeals were otherwise frivolous, the court identified three categories of errors in the trial court’s judgments requiring correction.
The Court’s Holding
The court of appeals granted counsel’s motion to withdraw and affirmed both convictions, but modified the judgments to correct several monetary errors. In the DWI judgment (cause no. 1784261), the court deleted a $100 fine that was never orally pronounced at sentencing, $270 in court costs duplicated across both judgments in violation of Texas Code of Criminal Procedure Article 102.073(a) — which bars assessing the same court cost more than once in a single criminal action involving multiple convictions — and $2 in transaction-based reimbursement fees for which no transaction had occurred. In the unlawful-carrying judgment (cause no. 1776730), the court likewise deleted $2 in unsupported reimbursement fees.
The court found no other arguable basis for appeal in either record. As modified, both judgments were affirmed.
Key Takeaways
- An unorally-pronounced fine cannot appear in a written judgment; it must be deleted even when the underlying conviction is otherwise affirmed on Anders review.
- Under Texas Code of Criminal Procedure Article 102.073(a), when a defendant is convicted of multiple offenses in a single criminal action, each court cost or fee may be assessed only once — costs should be assessed based on the lowest cause number when offenses are the same category.
- Administrative transaction fees under Article 102.072 require an actual transaction by the collecting office; a $2 fee is improper where the records show no payment was received and no transaction was processed.
- Independent appellate review of the record is mandatory upon the filing of an Anders brief, even when both parties agree the appeal is frivolous.
Why It Matters
This decision is a practical reminder that Anders appeals are not pure rubber stamps. Even when appointed counsel and the State agree no arguable issues exist, Texas appellate courts must independently scour the record — and here that review surfaced concrete, correctable errors in monetary assessments that would otherwise have stood against the defendant.
For practitioners, the case reinforces two recurring pitfalls in multi-count misdemeanor sentencings: the need to ensure all fines are orally pronounced before they appear in a written judgment, and strict compliance with the single-assessment rule for court costs under Article 102.073(a). Defense counsel reviewing judgments in consolidated or companion cases should routinely check for duplicated cost line items.