Court Opinion

ID: 9771737
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 16:52:17.340337+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:35.937374
License: Public Domain

CAMPBELL, J.,
dissents for the reason that venireperson Freeman, although qualified under Garrett v. State was disqualified under Wainwright v. Witt, and therefore his excusal by the trial judge was proper.
WHITE and MEYERS, JJ., join this note.
APPENDIX
this case. Perhaps the most important areas we want to ask you about are your feelings about the death penalty. So why don’t we start out and ask you to explain to us how you feel about the death penalty as a possible punishment for a crime.
A. I am against the death penalty.
Q. And how long have you been against the death penalty?
A. Probably a decade.
Q. Okay. And why are you against the death penalty?
A. I don’t believe the facts bear out the fact that it is a deterrent. And that is the usual major argument for it.
Q. So if you were designing the laws of our state, or the United States laws, you would fashion something other than the death penalty as a punishment for a crime? Is that a fair statement?
A. Correct.
Q. How strongly are you against the death penalty? Are you strong enough against it where you feel like you cannot take an oath to follow that law if you were selected as a juror in a case?
A. Yes. I don’t believe I could ever vote for a death penalty.
Q. When you say you could never vote for it, I take it that’s about as strong a feeling as ever comes down the pike, I take it?
A. Right.
Q. You are saying that there is no set of facts for which you could ever vote for the death penalty?
A. I believe. I can’t imagine a set of facts like that.
Q. Have you ever heard of a case where you could vote for the death penalty, if you thought the facts justified it?
A. No.
Q. I take it, then, that you are coming in here with a predisposition against the death penalty as a punishment for a crime?
A. Yes.
Q. We often use the terms “bias” and “prejudice”. Bias and prejudice simply mean having a predisposition, and a fairly strong predisposition. Would you say that you have a bias and a prejudice against the death penalty as a punishment for a crime?
A. Your definition, I am not sure. If bias and prejudice means prejudgment without some study, no. If it means an inclination, yes.
Q. How about a prejudgment with some study?
A. Okay. Fine.
*295Q. If we use that definition for prejudice, will you find yourself with a prejudice against the death penalty as a punishment for a crime?
A. Yes.
Q. The State has a burden of proof at the first phase of the trial to prove someone is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. And if we prove someone’s guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, we are entitled to have a jury vote guilty. With your strong predisposition against the death penalty, are you saying that if the State proved to you that someone was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, that you would find yourself unable to vote guilty, knowing the death penalty was a possible punishment?
A. No, I believe that I could vote guilty on the indictment.
Q. Okay. Then if that happened, we would enter into the second phase of the trial of a capital murder case in which there are two possible punishments; one being a sentence of life in prison, and the other being the death penalty. Would your predisposition against the death penalty cause you to always vote in favor of a life sentence, rather than the death penalty as a punishment?
A. As I understand it, the Jury does not set the penalty, right? The Judge does that?
Q. That’s right.
A. So your question was?
Q. What a Jury does, is the Jury answers the special issues.
A. These questions?
Q. Right.
A. Right.
Q. The way the special issues are answered tells the Judge what the Judge has to do. Going back in the jury room to deliberate on a ease, you would know what the effects of your answers are. My question to you is knowing the effects of your answers, would you yourself always vote in a way the life sentence would be imposed, instead of the death penalty as a punishment?
A. No. I would try to address each of the three that we have, special issues, questions, individually, and answer it individually, knowing that, collectively, a group would answer, and the Judge would follow the dictates of the answers.
Q. Well, you told me a few minutes ago you were against the death penalty.
A. Right.
Q. Are you saying that your feelings against the death penalty would have no bearing on your thinking if you were a juror in a case?
A. I believe that’s true.
Q. You could totally set your feelings aside?
A. No. It’s a matter of my distinguishing between my responsibility to determine the guilt or innocence on what is charged, my responsibility to answer the three questions, and there my responsibility ends.
Q. Okay. Let me go one step further and tell you that the Judge has no discretion to change your answers.
A. Right.
Q. And you would know the effects of your answers sitting back in the jury room. You would know if the answers came out “Yes”, “Yes”, “No”, that the Judge has no choice but to give the death penalty.
A. Give me some information. As the questions are answered, does each juror know how every other juror is answering?
Q. Yes, they do.
A. They do? Okay. See, I didn’t know that process.
Q. It takes a unanimous vote of all twelve jurors to answer a question “Yes”, or at least each of the first two questions. If they are both answered “Yes”, the Jury has decided to give the person the death penalty. And there is a third question which comes in. And if it is answered “No”, then the Jury has no choice' — well, the Jury has given the person the death penalty, or told the Judge—
A. Are these the same three issues that are in this paper?
Q. That’s correct.
*296A. I believe that I could answer each of these honestly, straightforwardly, even knowing what the outcome would be. Just the commitment to integrity would drive me to answer each one honestly and not project back upon my answer the consequence.
Q. Okay. If I can read into what you were saying, if you were back in the jury room deliberating and deciding if a man was going to live or die, that wouldn’t enter into your mind, if you were deliberating on these questions?
A. On these three?
Q. Yes.
A. Special Issue Number Three would be quite pointed, wouldn’t it? Well, the question is: Do you find that there is a sufficient mitigating circumstance to warrant the sentence of life imprisonment.
Q. Yes, sir.
A. I would just try to answer that question.
Q. What do you mean by that?
A. Well, if I, in hearing the developments of the case, were to hear something that, in my judgment, would mitigate against the imposition of the death penalty, I would answer that “Yes”.
Q. Okay. Given your feelings against the death penalty as a punishment for a crime, do you think you would have more of a tendency to find something mitigates against the death penalty than someone who had an open view to the death penalty as a punishment for a crime?
A. Well, one can never know that, but I would try not to, but it could happen.
Q. Okay. Let me tell you what my predicament is here, Doctor. I have a responsibility under the law to see that the State of Texas is fairly represented in this lawsuit.
A. Sure.
Q. And we are seeking the death penalty in this case. We are looking for a jury of twelve people who, fairly and impartially, can give consideration to the death penalty as a punishment for a crime. And, you know, given the facts that you told me a few minutes ago, that you are dead set against the death penalty, and you have been against the death penalty for at least a decade, I am trying to figure out in my mind how you can make the leap into forgetting about the death penalty and forgetting about sentencing someone to death and honestly answer these questions.
A. Well, in my mind, what’s going on is that you are not asking me to decide whether the death penalty will be imposed or not. I am being asked to decide the guilt or innocence of the charge. I am being asked to answer three questions. And I can do that.
Q. The three questions come at the second phase of the trial. You already found someone guilty of capital murder. You found them guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
A. Right.
Q. In the second phase of the trial, you are solely concerned with those three questions.
A. Right.
Q. Do you see what Question Number One is basically asking of you?
A. Yes.
Q. Do you think it’s possible the State could prove to you beyond a reasonable doubt that someone may — that there is a probability they may be violent in the future?
A. I think that’s possible. That’s the second question, isn’t it?
Q. That’s actually the first question.
A. That the first one? Right, first one. Yes, I think that’s possible.
Q. What type of evidence would you be looking for there?
A. Professional psychiatric, or psychological, sociological evidence.
Q. What type of psychological or sociological evidence would you feel that points toward someone being a threat?
A. Well, at this point, I don’t know. That would be up to the professional.