Texas Courts of Appeals
Lemon v. State
No. 14-24-00985-CR 7/14/26
Issue:
Was the trial court’s pronouncement of sentence deficient because the court “never ordered that the punishment be carried into execution”?
Holding:
No. Under Code of Criminal Procedure Art. 42.03, §1, the trial court told the defendant the length of his sentence and the defendant was given an opportunity to respond, “thus satisfying the reasons underpinning the necessity of an oral pronouncement” (citation omitted). “Magic words are not required.” Read opinion.
Commentary:
Although a trial court must orally pronounce the sentence in the defendant’s presence, the judge is not required to follow a specific script while doing so. This published case will be a useful authority for prosecutors to ward off future challenges from persnickety defendants who dislike the particular language used by a trial court during the oral pronouncement of sentence. It may even be helpful by analogy in other situations where a defendant challenges the diction of a trial court’s oral instructions, such as in an instruction to disregard or other curative instruction.