Court Opinion

ID: 9733459
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 17:08:13.935787+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:41.744454
License: Public Domain

EDELMAN, Justice,
dissenting.
Appellant was charged and tried for driving while being intoxicated by alcohol only, i.e., not drugs (even though the latter would have also been an offense 1). As the majority opinion reflects, the evidence left no doubt that appellant was intoxicated, but only whether he had consumed alcohol to reach that condition. The majority opinion concludes that the trial court erred in admitting portions of the videotape showing: (i) an officer’s questions and appellant’s answers about his right to counsel; (ii) appellant’s subsequent attempt to leave the room; and (iii) the officer’s comments about appellant thereby terminating the interview. The majority holds that admitting this evidence was error because it can be interpreted as an attempt by appellant to invoke his right to remain silent and/or have an attorney to advise him.
The majority opinion further concludes that appellant was harmed by the admission of these portions of the videotape *725because the jury could consider such evidence of a defendant invoking his constitutional rights as an implied admission of his guilt. However, as the majority opinion reflects, harm is shown by whether the error might have prejudiced the jurors’ decision making, their application of the law to the facts, and their orderly evaluation of the evidence. Ultimately, it is a question of whether a rational trier of fact might have reached a different result without the error.
In this case, nothing in the inadmissible portions of the videotape was probative of the only real issue in this case: whether appellant became intoxicated from alcohol or something else. Thus, whatever the jury relied upon in resolving the conflicting evidence presented by the officers and appellant’s witnesses on that question, there is no indication that it could have been the videotape. Therefore, there is no reason to believe that the inadmissible portions of the videotape prejudiced the jurors’ decision making or that a rational trier of fact might have reached a different result without them. Accordingly, I would conclude that the error was harmless and affirm the conviction.

. See Tex. Pen. Code Ann. § 49.01(2)(A) (Vernon Supp. 2000) (defining "intoxicated” to include loss of faculties from introduction of controlled substance or drug as well as alcohol).