Ricondo v. State

In Ricondo v. State, 634 S.W.2d 837, 842 (Tex. Cr. App. 1982), the defendant refused to enter a plea after the indictment was read. Therefore, the trial court entered a plea of "not guilty" for him. Ricondo, 634 S.W.2d at 839-40. The defendant then decided that he wished to enter a plea of "guilty." Id. at 840. At that point, the trial court gave the defendant admonishments concerning his range of punishment, but the admonishments were not complete. The Court noted that, even though the trial was originally a bifurcated proceeding, it should have become a unitary proceeding when the defendant changed his plea to "guilty." Id. at 841. Because the trial court continued the trial as if it were a bifurcated proceeding, and because admonishments as to the punishment range were not required in a bifurcated trial, the Court held that failure to admonish was not reversible error. Id. That is, even though the trial court erroneously proceeded with a bifurcated trial instead of a unitary trial, we reviewed the defendant's ground as if the trial had been properly bifurcated. Id. at 843.