Richard Vincent Ramos v. the State of Texas

TEXAS COURT OF APPEALS, THIRD DISTRICT, AT AUSTIN NO. 03-25-00824-CR NO. 03-25-00826-CR Richard Vincent Ramos, Appellant v. The State of Texas, Appellee FROM THE 26TH DISTRICT COURT OF WILLIAMSON COUNTY NOS. 24-1671-K26 & 24-1672-K26, THE HONORABLE DONNA GAYLE KING, JUDGE PRESIDING MEMORANDUM OPINION Richard Vincent Ramos was convicted of two counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child and sentenced to 90 years’ imprisonment on each count. See Tex. Penal Code §§ 12.32, 22.021. The victim in both counts was his niece N.M., who was twelve when she made an outcry about the abuse. 1 On appeal, Ramos contends that the trial court erred by allowing the outcry witness, N.M.’s mother, to testify about extraneous offenses allegedly committed against N.M.’s sisters and that two fines were improperly included in the bill of costs for each case. We will modify the trial court’s judgments of conviction and bills of costs to delete one fine and affirm the judgments as modified. 1 Because N.M. and her sisters were minors during the time that the abuse occurred, we will refer to them by aliases and to their family members by their relationships to them. See Tex. R. App. P. 9.10(a)(3) (defining sensitive information).  BACKGROUND Mother met Father in middle school while living in California, but they did not start dating until they reconnected in their twenties. Ultimately, they got married and had four daughters: N.M. (oldest), C.M. (second child), A.M. (third child), and P.M. (youngest). Mother’s parents lived nearby, and Mother and her children would regularly visit her parents’ home. Ramos is Mother’s brother, and he lived with their parents. In 2019, Mother and Father decided to move to Texas with their children. Shortly thereafter, Mother’s parents moved to Texas to be near Mother and her family. Ramos also left California and moved to Texas. Ramos and his parents temporarily moved into an apartment before moving into their new house. As it had been in California, Mother regularly brought her children to her parents’ apartment and home and let Ramos babysit her children. In 2022, Mother and Father went to California because Father was scheduled to have surgery there. Shortly after they returned to Texas, N.M. told Mother that Ramos had been sexually abusing her. Mother told Father, who called the police. The police arranged for N.M. to have a forensic interview and a forensic exam. The police arrested Ramos a few days later, and the police seized and later searched his phone. An extraction report created as part of the search showed that Ramos owned the phone and that he had installed a search engine designed to hide the identity of the person using it and to search the dark web. The report also showed that the phone’s user dictionary 2 had saved the following words for quick autofill purposes: “[n]ude, model, teen, girls, teens, models, young, preteen, girls, and girl.” The search history for the phone showed that the following searches had been performed on the phone: “[m]odels nude; 2 According to the testimony presented at trial, each cell phone has a user dictionary file that contains search terms that the user uses regularly that can then be used to auto-populate or autocomplete future searches. 2 photos leaks; nonnude preteen models; use net models; index young; images and videos; cherished model; cute, little models”; and “7, 8, 9, YO cuties.” The report listed other search terms that were used and that are terms used by individuals specifically seeking child pornography. Additionally, the report documented that the search engine browser had photos of child pornography in the cache folder and links to child pornography. After the police investigated the allegations, Ramos was charged with two counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child. Ramos elected to represent himself at trial. Before any witnesses were called, the trial court held a hearing outside the presence of the jury in which the State explained that it intended to call Mother as an outcry witness under article 38.072 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. During the hearing, Mother testified that in February 2022 she went out of state with Father and their two oldest daughters because Father was having surgery. Further, Mother explained that her two youngest children stayed with her parents while she was out of town. Shortly after returning home, Mother started preparing a meal for her family in the kitchen. While Mother was cooking, P.M. and A.M. were in the kitchen with her, and P.M. told Mother that Ramos hurt and kicked her while Mother was away on the trip. P.M. also told Mother that Ramos hurts her a lot. Mother exclaimed, “[W]hat!” C.M. overheard Mother and went into the kitchen to see what was happening. After being told what P.M. had said, C.M. told Mother that Ramos “touches us in places he shouldn’t” and explained that the touching was like what was described in a safety video shown at her school in which a child was sexually abused by a family member. P.M. and A.M. both agreed with that description and said, “Yeah, Mom, he does, he does that to us.” The children also explained that Ramos would touch them on their breasts, try to put his hand down their pants, make them look at things on his phone, and ask them to run around naked. 3  Mother testified that after talking with C.M., P.M., and A.M., she went to N.M.’s room, woke her up, and asked her if Ramos had touched her too. N.M. started crying and told Mother that Ramos would pull her pants down and lick her in inappropriate places. Further, N.M. discussed how Ramos would threaten her if she did not comply with what he wanted her to do and threatened to hurt her if she told anyone about the abuse. Following Mother’s testimony at the hearing, Ramos generally objected to Mother’s testifying about the three sisters “since I have pending charges on those accusations. I believe if I’m being tried on the -- [N.M.]’s statements, the scope of the trial should be to [N.M.]’s statements.” After the State argued that Mother could testify as an outcry witness and could testify about the other children under article 38.37 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which allows the admission of evidence concerning offenses involving other victims, Ramos objected that article 38.37 did not apply because the offenses involving the other sisters “are actually not alleged now” because “they’re charged and indicted offenses. So I now have the presumption of innocence where my inference of guilt cannot be brought against me now since I have that presumption of innocence on these extraneous offenses.” The trial court overruled the objections and determined that Mother could testify as an outcry witness under article 38.072 and that article 38.37 also applied and authorized Mother to testify about the offenses involving her other daughters. After the hearing concluded, the trial on the merits commenced. In its case-in- chief, the State called as witnesses Mother, Maternal Grandmother, a counselor who treated N.M. and C.M., a sexual assault nurse examiner (“SANE”) who reviewed forensic reports prepared by another examiner, C.M., N.M., and police officers involved in the investigation. In his case-in-chief, Ramos called a forensic consultant to testify about the search of his phone 4 before electing to testify. The witnesses described the events summarized above and provided additional testimony as set out below. In her testimony, Mother explained that sometime after her parents moved to Texas, N.M. and C.M. both stopped wanting to spend the night at their grandparents’ home. Next, Mother testified similarly to what she said during the 38.072 hearing concerning how her children made outcries about Ramos after she returned from a trip to California. Further, Mother explained that C.M. said that Ramos would put his hands inside the girls’ pants to touch their genitals and would put his hand in their shirts to touch their breasts. Regarding N.M., Mother testified that N.M. started shaking and told Mother that Ramos would pull her pants down, “lick her in her pookie,” and threaten to hurt her if she told anyone. Next, Maternal Grandmother testified that N.M. and C.M. stopped wanting to spend the night at her house and that N.M. asked to sleep in Maternal Grandmother’s room rather than the guest room next to Ramos’s room that the girls usually slept in. Further, Maternal Grandmother recalled that in February 2022 Mother called her and said that Ramos “molested my daughters.” In addition, Maternal Grandmother stated that the children would not make up those allegations. C.M. testified that in February 2022 when she was eleven, she told Mother that Ramos “was touching us inappropriately.” Further, she discussed how prior to making that disclosure guest lecturers at her school had discussed sexual abuse and shown a video regarding abuse. She did not realize what Ramos had been doing to her and her sisters was wrong until attending that lecture. Moreover, she said that the abuse started when she was six or seven. When discussing the abuse, she described how Ramos would put his hands into her and her sisters’ pants, show her his penis, and bite her butt. Additionally, she testified that he told her 5 that he would lick her while she slept. Concerning Ramos’s phone, she explained that he used it to show her photos of a girl spreading her legs while not wearing underwear and of a naked man holding a naked child. Next, N.M. testified that Ramos started sexually abusing her when they all lived in California. Regarding the first incident, she related that he pulled his penis out and told her to touch it. When testifying about another incident in California, she explained that it happened when she was seven and that Ramos locked his bedroom door, took off her clothes, put a pillow over her face, and inserted his penis into her vagina. She also explained that the assault was painful and that he threatened to hurt her if she told anyone. She recalled similar incidents happening a lot and remembered that he would also tell her to put his penis in her mouth and would punch and kick her if she did not comply. Concerning incidents occurring in Texas, she testified that he inserted his penis into her mouth and vagina multiple times when she was ten. Regarding one of the incidents, she remembered that she refused his directive to put his penis in her mouth, that he hit her in response, that he threatened to hurt her again if she continued to refuse, and that he then forced his penis into her mouth. Additionally, she testified about an incident that occurred while she was lying down to go to sleep in which Ramos masturbated over her and ejaculated on her stomach. She remembered that Ramos would stick his hands in her pants and touch her vagina and asked her to take a shower with him. She related that when she fell asleep one day, she woke up feeling pain and realized that Ramos had inserted his finger into her vagina. Regarding another incident, she testified that Ramos held her head down on his bed, hit her when she moved, and tried to insert his penis into her vagina, but she stated that she was able to get away that time. She also described Ramos’s biting her butt but related that it stopped when she got 6 older. She discussed how Ramos told her and C.M. that he would lick them while they slept. N.M. testified that she did not feel safe staying in the guest room at her grandparents’ house and asked to sleep on the floor of their room when she spent the night. Further, she recalled seeing pictures of naked children on Ramos’s phone and computer. Regarding the outcry, N.M. testified that she and her sisters told their parents about the abuse in February 2022 when she was twelve. She related feeling sad when she learned that Ramos abused all her sisters too and felt like she should have protected them somehow. The counselor who treated N.M. and C.M. following their outcries testified that N.M. and C.M. both discussed Ramos’s sexually abusing them and that there was no indication that they had been coached. The SANE testified that she did not evaluate any of Mother’s children but did review the reports prepared by a prior nurse. The SANE explained that N.M., C.M., A.M., and P.M. all made outcries of sexual abuse during their exams. One of the officers involved in the case testified that he talked with Father about a sex offense involving children, that Father reported what had happened to his children, and that there were four children involved in the report. Another officer testified that he seized Ramos’s cell phone when Ramos was arrested and took the phone to a forensic lab. One of the detectives involved in the case explained that one of the children said during a forensic interview that Ramos showed her pornography on his cell phone. An investigator who worked for the Attorney General’s Office testified about the extraction report that was made in the case concerning the contents of Ramos’s phone. He also testified that the presence of an image in the cache file indicates that the phone was used to view the image. Based on his training and experience, he 7 believed that the contents of Ramos’s phone showed his intent to look for and view child pornography. In his case-in-chief, Ramos called a forensic consultant who reviewed the extraction report. In his testimony, the consultant explained that images in a cache file could not be viewed without special software and that he did not see any programs like that on Ramos’s phone. Although the consultant initially testified that his review of the report did not lead him to conclude that Ramos was searching for child pornography, he later agreed in his cross-examination that two of the search terms found on Ramos’s phone are specifically used to search for child pornography and that Ramos’s use of those terms indicated that he was looking for child pornography. Further, the consultant testified that the search engine found on Ramos’s phone could be used to search for child pornography by bypassing normal security features and that images found in cache memory typically indicate that the person looked at the image or downloaded it. However, he agreed that images can be stored in cache if they were in a pop-up ad or an email attack and that images of child pornography can show up in pop-up ads in countries where child pornography is not illegal. Finally, Ramos testified and attempted to undermine the testimony of N.M. and C.M. by stating that there was a significant deformity on his penis that neither child mentioned. Further, he claimed that he never babysat the children alone. Although he did admit to biting the children’s butts over their clothing, he denied sexually abusing his nieces. Even though he agreed that the search terms set out above were extracted from his phone, he asserted that he did not perform those searches. Further, he urged that Mother forced her children to lie about the abuse. 8  After considering the evidence, the jury found Ramos guilty of both counts of aggravated sexual abuse against N.M. During the punishment phase, neither side called any witnesses nor introduced any evidence. Ramos elected not to present any closing argument, and the State urged the jury to assess the maximum punishment. After deliberating, the jury recommended that Ramos be sentenced to ninety years’ imprisonment on each count, and the trial court rendered its judgment of conviction consistent with the jury’s verdict. Ramos appeals his convictions. DISCUSSION In his first issue on appeal, Ramos contends that the trial court erred by allowing Mother to testify about the extraneous offenses involving C.M., A.M., and P.M. In his second issue, he argues that the trial court erred by including two fines in the bill of costs in each case. Mother’s Testimony When challenging the trial court’s overruling his objection to Mother’s testimony, Ramos acknowledges that Mother was the outcry witness and that Mother could testify regarding the outcry N.M. made; however, he argues that the outcry statute only allows the outcry witness to testify about “statements that describe the alleged offense.” See Tex. Code Crim. Proc. art. 38.072, § 2(a)(1)(A). In light of this statutory language, he urges that the trial court’s ruling allowing Mother to testify about the extraneous offenses constituted error. Further, he suggests that the erroneous ruling resulted in reversible harm because the State emphasized Mother’s testimony about the extraneous offenses, because the jury was able to hear evidence pertaining to his allegedly sexually assaulting three other children, and because the jury was allowed to consider the extraneous offenses for purposes of character conformity. 9  As an initial matter, we note that it appears that Ramos did not preserve his first appellate issue. Generally, to preserve error for appeal, a defendant must make a timely, specific objection, request, or motion to the trial court stating the specific grounds for the ruling sought by the complaining party, unless the specific grounds were apparent from the context. Tex. R. App. P. 33.1(a). Preservation of error is a “systemic requirement” on appeal. Darcy v. State, 488 S.W.3d 325, 327 (Tex. Crim. App. 2016). “An appellant fails to preserve error by failing to object when he had the opportunity.” Burt v. State, 396 S.W.3d 574, 577-78 (Tex. Crim. App. 2013). “To avoid forfeiting a complaint on appeal, the party must ‘let the trial judge know what he wants, why he thinks he is entitled to it, and . . . do so clearly enough for the judge to understand him at a time when the judge is in the proper position to do something about it.’” Pena v. State, 285 S.W.3d 459, 464 (Tex. Crim. App. 2009) (quoting Lankston v. State, 827 S.W.2d 907, 909 (Tex. Crim. App. 1992)). “[T]he point of error on appeal must comport with the objection made at trial.” Yazdchi v. State, 428 S.W.3d 831, 844 (Tex. Crim. App. 2014). An objection stating one legal theory may not be used to support a different legal theory on appeal. Broxton v. State, 909 S.W.2d 912, 918 (Tex. Crim. App. 1995). The preservation rule “ensures that trial courts are provided an opportunity to correct their own mistakes at the most convenient and appropriate time—when the mistakes are alleged to have been made.” Hull v. State, 67 S.W.3d 215, 217 (Tex. Crim. App. 2002). Appellate courts should not address the merits of an issue that has not been preserved for appellate consideration. See Blackshear v. State, 385 S.W.3d 589, 591 (Tex. Crim. App. 2012). During the article 38.072 hearing, Ramos generally objected that “the scope of the trial should be to [N.M.]’s statements” because there were charges against him based on the other offenses and that the State should not be allowed to introduce evidence regarding the 10 extraneous offenses because the presumption of innocence applied to them and prohibited them from being discussed during this case. He did not argue, as he does on appeal, that the language of the outcry witness statute prohibits an outcry witness from testifying about extraneous offenses involving other children. Accordingly, his arguments on appeal do not comport with the objections made below, and he has not preserved his first issue for appellate consideration. See Tex. R. App. P. 33.1; see Taylor v. State, 509 S.W.3d 468, 474 (Tex. App.—Austin 2015, pet. ref’d) (determining that defendant failed to preserve complaint that outcry witness should not have been allowed to testify regarding extraneous offense); see also Brown v. State, 632 S.W.3d 75, 78 (Tex. App.—El Paso 2020, no pet.) (“If pro se litigants were not required to comply with applicable rules of procedure, they would be given an unfair advantage over parties represented by counsel.”). 3 Even if this issue were preserved, we could not sustain Ramos’s first issue on appeal. To be entitled to reversal, Ramos would have to show that the trial court erred, and the record would have to show that the error harmed him. See Tex. R. App. P. 44.2(b). Because “[t]he admission of inadmissible hearsay testimony under article 38.072 is nonconstitutional 3 We note that in both Ramos’s and the State’s briefs, the parties observe that Ramos did not object to Mother’s testimony during trial and that there is contradictory case law concerning whether a party must re-urge an objection made at a 38.072 hearing when the outcry witness testifies at trial. Compare Galvan v. State, No. 08-23-00162-CR, 2024 WL 1599208, at *2 (Tex. App.—El Paso Apr. 12, 2024, no pet.) (mem. op., not designated for publication) (determining that defendant preserved complaint by objecting before trial and obtaining ruling concerning outcry witness), with State v. Kaiser, 822 S.W.2d 697, 702 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth 1991, pet. ref’d) (“Likewise, a preliminary ruling on the admissibility of evidence pursuant to article 38.072 will not preserve error for appeal—there must be a timely, specific objection proffered at trial.”); see also Tex. R. Evid. 103(b) (“When the court hears a party’s objections outside the presence of the jury and rules that evidence is admissible, a party need not renew an objection to preserve a claim of error for appeal.”). Having determined that Ramos did not preserve his complaint for a separate reason, we need not also decide whether he failed to preserve the claim by failing to object when Mother was called as a witness at trial. See Tex. R. App. P. 47.1. 11 error,” Shaw v. State, 329 S.W.3d 645, 653 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2010, pet. ref’d), any error “must be disregarded” if it did “not affect substantial rights,” Tex. R. App. P. 44.2(b). “It is well settled that the erroneous admission of [evidence] is not cause for reversal ‘if the same fact is proven by other [evidence] not objected to.’” Smith v. State, 499 S.W.3d 1, 6 (Tex. Crim. App. 2016) (plurality op.) (quoting Leday v. State, 983 S.W.2d 713, 718 (Tex. Crim. App. 1998)). In other words, error in the improper admission of evidence is harmless if the same or similar evidence is admitted at another point in the trial. Estrada v. State, 313 S.W.3d 274, 302 n.29 (Tex. Crim. App. 2010). This is true regardless of whether the other evidence “was received . . . before or after the complained-of ruling.” Coble v. State, 330 S.W.3d 253, 282 (Tex. Crim. App. 2010) (quoting Leday, 983 S.W.2d at 718). During the trial, Mother testified regarding how C.M., A.M., and P.M. made outcries concerning Ramos that prompted Mother to ask N.M. if she had also been sexually abused. After Mother finished testifying, other witnesses discussed the offenses involving C.M., A.M., and P.M., and Ramos did not object to any of their testimonies. For example, Maternal Grandmother testified that Mother told her in February 2022 that Ramos sexually abused her daughters, and Maternal Grandmother explained that her granddaughters would not make up claims regarding sexual abuse. Similarly, C.M. testified that she told Mother in February 2022 that Ramos was inappropriately touching her and her sisters by putting his hands inside their pants, that he showed her his penis, and that he said that he would lick her body when she slept. Like C.M., N.M. testified that Ramos told her and C.M. that he would lick them while they slept, and N.M. explained that in February 2022 she and her sisters all told their parents that Ramos had been sexually abusing them. The counselor who treated N.M. and C.M. explained that both sisters discussed how Ramos had sexually abused them. The SANE testified that the reports 12 made after all four sisters were forensically examined documented that all four sisters reported being sexually abused. Finally, one of the police officers involved in the case related that Father reported his children being sexually abused and specified that four children were mentioned in the report. Because the unobjected-to testimony from these witnesses was similar to Mother’s testimony concerning the offenses involving C.M., A.M., and P.M., we conclude that any error stemming from the admission of Mother’s testimony did not affect Ramos’s substantial rights and was, therefore, harmless. See Valle v. State, 109 S.W.3d 500, 509 (Tex. Crim. App. 2003) (“An error in the admission of evidence is cured where the same evidence comes in elsewhere without objection.”); Lamerand v. State, 540 S.W.3d 252, 257 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2018, pet. ref’d) (determining that any error from admission of hearsay in medical report was harmless because other evidence established same facts); see also Anderson v. State, 717 S.W.2d 622, 627 (Tex. Crim. App. 1986) (“Whether or not the testimony complained of was admissible as an exception to the hearsay rule is irrelevant” “[i]f the fact to which the hearsay relates is sufficiently proved by other competent and unobjected to evidence . . . .”). For these reasons, we overrule Ramos’s first issue on appeal. Fines In his second issue, Ramos contends that the trial court erred by including in its bills of costs $100 fines for intoxication convictions and $50 fines for juvenile delinquency prevention. When presenting this issue, Ramos contends that the inclusion of these fines was erroneous because neither applied to the offenses at issue in this case and because the fines were not orally pronounced when he was sentenced. Accordingly, Ramos requests that the fines be 13 deleted and that the judgments of conviction be reformed to reflect that he is only required to pay $325 in court costs. In response, the State asserts that nothing in the record indicates that the fines identified by Ramos were imposed in these cases. However, the State identifies another fine—the Child Abuse Prevention Fine—imposed in both bills of costs and included in the court costs portions of the judgments of conviction that it asserts should be stricken because the fines were not imposed by the jury in its sentences nor orally pronounced by the trial court. See Van Flowers v. State, 629 S.W.3d 707, 710 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2021, no pet.) (noting that appellate courts give due consideration to State’s concession). The bills of costs prepared in both cases specify that Ramos must pay $290 for mandatory state consolidated court costs and local consolidated court costs, a $100 Child Abuse Prevention Fine, and $85 in peace officer service fees. Although the bills of costs both list fines for intoxication convictions and for juvenile delinquency prevention, neither fine was checked, nor were the fines included in the “TOTAL OF ALL COSTS DUE $475.” Accordingly, we agree with the State that the bills of costs and judgments of conviction do not need to be reformed to delete the imposition of fines for intoxication convictions and juvenile delinquency prevention. Turning to the Child Abuse Prevention Fine, that fine was imposed under subarticle 102.0186(a) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which provides that “[a] person convicted of an offense” under certain provisions of the Penal Code, including the one governing aggravated sexual assault of a child, “shall pay a fine of $100 on conviction of the offense.” Tex. Code Crim. Proc. art. 102.0186(a); see Tex. Penal Code § 22.021(a)(1)(B). “The ‘Cost Act,’ which became effective on January 1, 2020, amended this article to, among other things, reclassify this $100 fee as a fine, rather than a court cost.” McCarter v. State, 722 S.W.3d 138, 14 144 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2025, no pet.); see Act of May 23, 2019, 86th Leg., R.S., ch. 1352, §§ 2.40, 5.04, 2019 Tex. Gen. Laws 3981, 4006, 4035. This reclassification applies to offenses committed after the effective date of the Act, which was January 1, 2020. See Act of May 23, 2019, 86th Leg., R.S., ch. 1352, §§ 5.01, .04, 2019 Tex. Gen. Laws 3981, 4035. Because the financial obligation imposed under subarticle 102.0186 is imposed as a fine, it is “punitive in nature and is part of a defendant’s sentence.” See Anastassov v. State, 664 S.W.3d 815, 820 (Tex. Crim. App. 2022). Since fines are punitive and intended to be part of a defendant’s sentence, they “generally must be orally pronounced in the defendant’s presence.” Armstrong v. State, 340 S.W.3d 759, 767 (Tex. Crim. App. 2011); see Tex. Code Crim. Proc. art. 42.03, § 1(a) (providing, with certain exceptions, that sentence be pronounced in defendant’s presence); Weir v. State, 278 S.W.3d 364, 366 (Tex. Crim. App. 2009) (explaining differential treatment for fines and court costs). Alternatively, if a jury imposes a fine and if the jury’s verdict is read out loud, it may be included in the judgment even if the trial court does not specifically pronounce the fine when pronouncing sentence. Ette v. State, 559 S.W.3d 511, 515-17 (Tex. Crim. App. 2018). “When there is a conflict between the oral pronouncement of sentence and the sentence in the written judgment, the oral pronouncement controls.” Taylor v. State, 131 S.W.3d 497, 500 (Tex. Crim. App. 2004). The indictments in these cases alleged that the offenses occurred in December 2020 and February 2021, and there was no assertion below that the offenses occurred before the effective date of the Cost Act. Accordingly, the imposed Child Abuse Prevention fees were fines and had to be orally pronounced at sentencing or be part of the jury’s verdict that was read out loud. See Ette, 559 S.W.3d at 515-17; McCarter, 722 S.W.3d at 144. Because neither of those occurred and because the oral pronouncement controls over the judgment, the $100 Child Abuse 15 Prevention Fines should not have been included in the bills of costs or in the court costs sections of the judgments of conviction as our sister courts of appeals have similarly concluded. See Bonilla v. State, 739 S.W.3d 878, 882 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2026, pet. ref’d); Abad v. State, 729 S.W.3d 108, 116-17 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2025, no pet.); McCarter, 722 S.W.3d at 144; Fugett v. State, 721 S.W.3d 120, 122 (Tex. App.—Amarillo 2025, no pet.); Rhodes v. State, 712 S.W.3d 226, 235 (Tex. App.—Eastland 2025, no pet.). 4 Appellate courts have the authority to modify a trial court’s judgment when we have the necessary information to do so and affirm it as modified. See Tex. R. App. P. 43.2(b); Bigley v. State, 865 S.W.2d 26, 27-28 (Tex. Crim. App. 1993). Although we agree with the State that the modifications requested by Ramos are not warranted and, therefore, overrule his second issue, we also agree with the State that the Child Abuse Prevention Fines should not have been imposed because they were not orally pronounced at sentencing and were not part of the jury’s verdict that was read out loud. Accordingly, we modify the bills of costs to delete the $100 4 Although the State suggests that the modification is necessary, it warns of the possibility that the deletion might render the sentence illegal because the fine is mandatory in nature. See Tex. Code Crim. Proc. art. 102.0186 (using word shall); Tex. Gov’t Code § 311.016 (explaining that legislature’s use of word “‘[s]hall’ imposes a duty”). Although cases have explained that the absence of a fine when a fine is required by the statute governing the offense renders the sentence illegal and void, see Bradshaw v. State, 331 S.W.2d 52, 52 (Tex. Crim. App. 1959) (reversing conviction for driving while intoxicated where no fine was imposed because statute at time required minimum fine of $50); Saldivar v. State, 542 S.W.3d 43, 48 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2017, pet. ref’d) (explaining that statute governing manufacturing and distributing controlled substance requires that defendant be sentenced to prison term and fined, that fine was mandatory, and that trial court’s failure to assess fine rendered judgment void), we have been unable to find case law supporting a conclusion that the absence of a fine like the Child Abuse Prevention Fine that is mandatory in nature but not part of the punishment provided for by the statute governing the offense renders the judgment illegal and void, cf. Columbus v. State, -- S.W.3d --, No. PD-0538-25, 2026 WL 1852097, at *5 (Tex. Crim. App. June 25, 2026) (distinguishing between fines imposed under Chapter 12 of Penal Code as part of punishment and mandatory ones imposed through other means). Moreover, as set out above, several of our sister courts have determined that striking the Child Abuse Prevention Fine is correct under the circumstances present here. 16 Child Abuse Prevention Fine and to reflect that the “TOTAL OF ALL COSTS DUE” is “$375.” See Abad, 729 S.W.3d at 123-24 (explaining that appellate courts may modify bill of costs by deleting fine and fees). In turn, we reform the trial court’s judgments to reflect that the amount due as “Court Costs” is $375.00. See Tex. R. App. P. 43.2(b); Bigley, 865 S.W.2d at 27-28. CONCLUSION Having modified the trial court’s judgments and bills of costs to remove the Child Abuse Prevention Fine and having overruled Ramos’s two issues on appeal, we affirm the trial court’s judgments of conviction as modified. __________________________________________ Karin Crump, Justice Before Justices Triana, Crump, and Ellis Modified and, As Modified, Affirmed Filed: October 14, 2026 Do Not Publish 17