Court Opinion

ID: 9667280
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:41:16.89731+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:36.748702
License: Public Domain

DOUGLAS, Judge
(dissenting).
The majority reverses this conviction first for a comment of the trial court. What occurred is set out in the majority opinion. There is no objection that there was a comment on the weight of the evidence. This Court has written many times that an objection to a comment on the weight of the evidence must be made to present the matter on appeal.
This gives a trial judge a chance to correct any error that he might have committed and not be reversed when the matter is mentioned for the first time on appeal. In Lee v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 454 S.W.2d 207, this Court held that an instruction to disregard any remarks of the trial judge cured the alleged error of the court in commenting on the weight of the evidence. See Howard v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 420 S.W.2d 706.
In the present case there was no comment on the weight of the evidence and this is apparently the reason why no such objection was made.
Let us look to the argument, the second reason for the reversal. The prosecutor gave a hypothetical case that would require a charge on self-defense. This was no misstatement of law. The prosecutor was giving an illustration. He was not asking the jury to convict upon evidence outside the record. He was not making, a misstatement of the law. He was not telling the jury what the judge did or did not believe. He was stating in effect that, if the evidence raises a defense, the court must submit an instruction on that defense.
In Shaw v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 510 S. W.2d 926 on motion for rehearing, June, 1974), it is written by the majority:
“This Court has said so many times that whenever evidence is presented, no matter how slight or from what source, which raises an affirmative defense, the accused is entitled to have that charge presented to the jury.”
The prosecutor was doing no more than telling the jury that, when the evidence raised an issue, the court should charge upon it.
The judgment should be affirmed.