in Re State of Texas Ex Rel, Tharp, Jennifer

PRICE, J.,

filed a dissenting opinion in which JOHNSON, J., joined.

When it became clear that the trial judge in the underlying felony DWI prosecution, Judge Dibbrell Waldrip, did not intend to make a deadly weapon finding, the State withdrew its plea offer to Faulkner, the defendant. When Faulkner persisted in wanting to waive a jury trial and plead guilty before the court, the State declined to consent to the waiver, as it is absolutely entitled to do under Article 1.13 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.1 Judge Waldrip empaneled a jury accordingly. In what was apparently a surprise to the…