Despite their prevalence, the process of reaching a plea agreement can be tricky.
In State v. Hatter, decided by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) on January 22, 2025, Sanitha Lashay Hatter was charged with the felony offense of assault of a peace officer under Texas Penal Code Ann. § 22.01(b-2). During plea negotiations, the assistant district attorney (ADA) agreed to dismiss the felony assault charge if Hatter pleaded guilty to the DWI charge arising out of the same incident and pleaded guilty to a separate DWI charge committed after the assault and DWI incident. However, due to representation by two different attorneys in cases, Hatter did not agree to the plea terms.
After Hatter declined the plea agreement, the ADA filed a motion to dismiss the felony charge, reserving the right to refile. The trial court granted the motion, and the ADA refiled the felony assault charge two months later under a different cause number.
In response, Hatter’s counsel filed a motion for specific performance of the original “gentlemen’s agreement” reached before the second DWI incident occurred—an agreement in which the ADA had agreed to dismiss the felony assault charge and not refile it in exchange for a guilty plea to the related DWI charge and the second (subsequent) DWI charge.
In support of the motion for specific performance, Hatter’s counsel submitted an affidavit in which they attested to the following:
- The Assault of a Public Servant in cause number 1622433 arose out of the same transaction as a misdemeanor Driving While Intoxicated charge in cause number 2248201. Counsel was appointed to represent Appellee in the felony assault case. Appellee subsequently was arrested and charged with another DWI.
- The offer from the State was that in exchange for a plea of guilty in the DWI cases, the felony assault case would be dismissed. However, another attorney represented Appellee on the DWI charges and was unwilling to agree to the resolution.
- After additional discussion, the felony prosecutor made multiple promises indicating that he would “not only dismiss the felony case regardless of the misdemeanor dispositions, but that he would promise never to refile the felony case.” The prosecutor told counsel that he would enter “other” as the reason for dismissal and write “subject to refile,” but again promised that the case would not be refiled.
- The felony case was dismissed before the disposition of the DWI cases. The following month, the DWI cases were dismissed.
- When the arresting officer learned that all the cases against Appellee had been dismissed, she complained, and a superior at the Harris County District Attorney’s Office ordered the prosecutor to refile the case despite his promises.
At the hearing regarding the specific performance, the ADA stated he did not recall using the terms “promise” or “gentlemen’s agreement” during the plea negotiations with defense counsel, but acknowledged he had no intention of refiling the felony assault charge, and until he was ordered to do so by a superior following the arresting officer’s complaint.
This situation highlights the tension between prosecutorial discretion and law enforcement influence in Harris County and across the country. Charging decisions should remain within the purview of the ADA, whose legal expertise guides the process, rather than with the arresting officer.
The Hatter case worked its way through several procedural gauntlets. First, the trial court granted Hatter’s motion for specific performance, directing the ADA to dismiss the refiled felony charge. The State appealed this ruling to the 14th District Court of Appeals with an alternate demand for mandamus relief directed to the trial court.
On September 30, 2021, the appeals court upheld the trial court’s ruling that a plea agreement was not only in place but enforceable. The CCA then overruled the appeals court’s decision, concluding that the “plea offer” made by the ADA never became a “plea agreement.” The court explained its reasoning:
“There are several reasons for our conclusion that the dismissal of Appellee’s felony assault charge was not pursuant to a plea bargain agreement. First, the offer did not become an agreement because a plea bargain agreement requires both parties to agree to the terms of the offer. Appellee never agreed. Appellee’s counsel acknowledged in her affidavit that the dismissal of the felony charge was contingent upon the pleas in the misdemeanor cases. Counsel likewise acknowledged that Appellee’s counsel on the misdemeanor cases was unwilling to negotiate a plea in accordance with the agreement. And there is no evidence in the record that Appellee ever agreed to plead guilty to the DWIs as part of the State’s plea offer nor did she plead guilty to the DWIs. Without Appellee’s agreement to plead guilty to the DWIs, the parties did not have a plea bargain agreement.
“Second, even if we were to assume that Appellee and the State had reached an agreement, that agreement never became binding because it was never approved by the trial court. The terms of the plea bargain offer were never brought to the trial court for approval. Unless the trial judge accepts a plea agreement, the contract of the plea agreement is not binding on the parties…
“Here, even assuming Appellee had agreed to the terms of the State’s plea bargain offer, the trial court never had the opportunity to approve the agreement. The State’s motion to dismiss, for example, indicated only that the State reserved the right to refile. Because Appellee never sought to enter a guilty plea in the DWIs, no trial court ever inquired as to the existence of a plea bargain agreement or informed Appellee whether the agreement would be followed or rejected as required.
“The court of appeals concluded that Appellee was prevented from holding up her end of the bargained for agreement because the State made her performance impossible by dismissing the DWI charges. But this conclusion presumes that Appellee agreed to plead guilty to the DWIs and, as discussed above, the record does not support that conclusion. It also presumes that the trial court would have approved the plea bargain agreement, thereby rendering its terms binding on the parties. Before approval by the trial court, the State was to withdraw its offer to dismiss the felony. Without the trial court’s approval of the terms of the plea bargain and the agreement of both parties to those terms, the State was not bound to its initial plea offer.”
The Hatter case underscores the importance of documenting each detail of a plea agreement in the contract between the State and the defendant and of securing trial court approval for enforceability. It also illustrates the importance of defense lawyers who have seperate cases involving a shared client communicating and working together before resolving their cases.
