Opinion
No. 05-04-01383-CR
Opinion Issued May 5, 2005. DO NOT PUBLISH. Tex.R.App.P. 47.
On Appeal from the Criminal District Court, No. 2, Dallas County, Texas, Trial Court Cause No. F04-34443-I. Affirmed.
Before Justices MORRIS, LANG, and MAZZANT.
OPINION
In this case, Angie Lavonne Hollins waived a jury trial and entered a non-negotiated guilty plea to injury to a child younger than fourteen years of age. The trial court accepted appellant's plea and sentenced her to thirty years' confinement. In a single point of error, appellant contends the trial court abused its discretion in not rejecting her guilty plea. We affirm the trial court's judgment. At trial, appellant testified she understood the punishment range for the offense and was freely and voluntarily pleading guilty to the offense because she was guilty. Appellant's signed judicial confession was admitted into evidence without objection. Appellant testified that on the date of the incident, she and her sister had been smoking marijuana and drinking alcohol all day. None of her four children was home when she began smoking and drinking. Someone later brought her four-year-old son, who has cerebral palsy and asthma, home. Appellant testified she did not remember injuring her son, but she did recall taking him out of the bathtub. Appellant did not see any injury to her son and she did not know her son had second and third-degree burns over seventeen percent of his body when she took him out of the bathtub. Appellant testified she did not take her son to the hospital. Appellant's father testified he had never seen injuries on any of appellant's children and he had never seen appellant abuse the children. In her sole point of error on appeal, appellant argues that her testimony and her father's testimony showed she did not intentionally cause serious bodily injury to her son. Appellant contends that because she asserted the affirmative defense that she was not aware of her son's injuries, the trial court should have sua sponte rejected her guilty plea. When a defendant waives her right to a jury trial and enters a guilty plea, it is the trial court's duty to consider all the evidence submitted. The trial court may find the defendant guilty of the crime charged, guilty of a lesser included offense, or not guilty, as the evidence requires. See Aldrich v. State, 53 S.W.3d 460, 467 (Tex.App.-Dallas 2001), aff'd, 104 S.W.3d 890 (Tex.Crim.App. 2003). When the trial court acts as the fact finder, it is not required to withdraw a defendant's guilty plea sua sponte and enter a plea of not guilty because no purpose would be served by doing so. See id. The trial court thus had no duty to withdraw appellant's guilty plea in this case. We overrule her sole point of error. We affirm the trial court's judgment.