Court Opinion

ID: 9653703
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 17:52:13.756282+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:53.013414
License: Public Domain

OPINION ON APPELLANT’S MOTION FOR REHEARING
MORRISON, Judge.
Since the rendition of our prior opinions, the Supreme Court of the United States has handed down opinions in two cases which we deem pertinent to the disposition of the case at bar. In Berger v. California, 393 U.S. 314, 89 S.Ct. 540, 21 L.Ed.2d 508 (January 13, 1969), the Court gave Barber v. Page, 390 U.S. 719, 88 S.Ct. 1318, 20 L.Ed.2d 255, fully retroactive application. Barber is thus applicable to this case. In Harrington v. California, 395 U.S. 250, 89 S.Ct. 1726, 23 L.Ed.2d 284 (June 9, 1969), the petitioner’s lack of opportunity to cross-examine two co-defendants whose confessions were introduced in evidence, which practice the Court denounced in Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123, 88 S.Ct. 1620, 20 L.Ed.2d 476, was held to constitute harmless error under *81the rule set out in Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705. Both Bruton and Barber involve the 6th Amendment right of an accused to confront the witnesses against him, and the application of Chapman to Bruton applies with equal force to Barber. What remains to be resolved in this case is whether, under the facts of this case and under the Chapman and Harrington tests, the introduction of Porter’s testimony given at a prior trial constituted reversible error.
At appellant’s trial, two disinterested witnesses, in addition to Porter, testified that they saw appellant shoot the deceased under conditions which would negative self-defense. We perceive no taint upon their testimony. This case, as was Harrington’s, was not one of circumstantial evidence. Based on this record we cannot say that the violation of Barber in admitting Porter’s previous testimony requires a reversal of this conviction.
We will now discuss the additional grounds of error raised in appellant’s original brief. We overrule appellant’s contention that the State failed to show the cause of death. The two untainted witnesses testified that appellant shot the deceased with a pistol from a few feet away. The evidence that deceased was alive before being shot by appellant and after the shooting was dead at the scene has been held by this Court to be sufficient in Tellez v. State, 162 Tex.Cr.R. 456, 286 S.W.2d 154.
We find no merit in appellant’s objection to the court’s charge on the ground that it failed to require the jury to find the specific intent to kill. We quote from our opinion in Tapley v. State, 158 Tex.Cr.R. 495, 256 S.W.2d 583, as follows:
“To say that even though an accused pointed a deadly weapon directly at the injured party and fired the same, but that in doing so he did not intend to kill, would be bordering on an absurdity.”
Appellant’s third ground of error is that the court failed completely to charge the jury on the law of self-defense. No objection to the form of the charge was made. We have examined the court’s charge and it contains all the requisite elements of the law of self-defense and instructs the jury to acquit if they find that appellant acted in his own self-defense from real or apparent danger.
Appellant’s last ground of error is based on alleged jury misconduct. Appellant offered the testimony of a juror and her affidavit and the State offered the affidavits of eight jurors which were diametrically opposed to that offered by appellant as to what occurred in the jury room.
In Walton v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 398 S.W.2d 555, we said:
“It has been the consistent ruling of this Court that where an issue of fact is drawn as to what occurred in the jury room, the proper tribunal to decide that issue is the trial judge, who hears the witnesses.”
Appellant’s motion for rehearing is overruled.
GRIFFIN, Special Judge, joins in this opinion.