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Vincent Edward McGarity v. State
Citation: Not availableDocket: 04-10-00112-CR
Court: Court of Appeals of Texas; February 22, 2011; Texas; State Appellate Court
Original Court Document: View Document
Vincent Edward McGarity's appeal of his aggravated robbery conviction was affirmed by the appellate court. McGarity challenged the trial court's decision to enhance his sentence based on a prior felony conviction, arguing that the State did not provide sufficient documentation and that he had not pleaded true to the enhancement. During sentencing, the trial court admitted a 'pen packet' for a previous conviction of possession of cocaine from February 1, 1990, despite defense objections regarding its sufficiency. The appellate court noted that the State must establish beyond a reasonable doubt both the existence of a prior conviction and the defendant's connection to it. Initially, the record lacked the pen packet, but the parties later submitted an agreed record that included it. The pen packet contained an affidavit affirming its authenticity, photographs of McGarity, and the 'Judgment Adjudicating Guilt,' which confirmed that McGarity had been placed on probation for possession of cocaine in 1988, with a subsequent revocation due to a violation. The appellate court found that the documentation provided was adequate to support the enhancement of McGarity's sentence to fifteen years of confinement. The fingerprint card in the pen packet includes McGarity’s personal details such as date of birth, sex, race, height, eye color, hair color, skin tone, and TDCJ-ID number. While the State did not provide fingerprint testimony to directly link McGarity to the conviction, sufficient evidence was presented for the trial court to establish this connection through a comparison of the photographs and physical descriptions in the pen packet with McGarity’s appearance at trial. This aligns with the precedent set in Gollin v. State, which allows for the proof of prior convictions through matching descriptions. Therefore, the pen packet met the State's burden of proving both McGarity’s prior conviction and his identity as the convicted individual. The court concluded that a reasonable trier of fact could find beyond a reasonable doubt that the prior possession conviction existed and was linked to McGarity. Consequently, the trial court did not err in enhancing McGarity’s sentence, leading to the overruling of his appeal and affirmation of the trial court's judgment.