Court Opinion

ID: 9774931
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 18:38:34.709583+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:17.948361
License: Public Domain

OVERSTREET, Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I agree with the majority’s conclusion that the court of appeals erred in its treatment and analysis of appellant’s evidence sufficiency claim. However, I strongly disagree with remanding the cause back to the court of appeals for reanalysis.
The court of appeals has already explicitly stated that the evidence was insufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that two of the named conspirators, specifically Araujo and Bates, were a part of the combination. Fee v. State, 722 S.W.2d 234, 239 (Tex.App.—San Antonio 1986). Thus it seems to me to be incredibly fruitless to remand to the court of appeals for it “to determine whether the evidence shows all seven individuals alleged to have conspired ... did in fact do so” when the court of appeals has already quite explicitly said that the evidence was insufficient with respect to two of them.
I note that the indictment alleges that the offense occurred on or about August 11, 1983, and that appellant was convicted and sentenced in April of 1984. The court of appeals published its opinion on December 31, 1986. Appellant’s petition for discretionary review was filed in this Court on February 2, 1987 and granted on March 9, 1988. The cause has remained here in the upper reaches of “appellate orbit” ever since. I see no value whatsoever in remanding this cause, particularly when the court of appeals has quite clearly already decided the very issue upon which we re*397mand. See Fee v. State, 722 S.W.2d at 239. Surely justice, for both the State and appellant, would be better served by disposition now rather than in the distant future when this cause continues on its journey into the outer limits of appellate space and returns to this Court via another petition for discretionary review, which will no doubt be filed by whichever party is dissatisfied with the court of appeals’ decision on remand. Years of orbiting around lost in the depths of appellate space is more than long enough.
I vociferously dissent to unnecessarily bouncing the instant cause around like an over-sized ping-pong ball rather than deciding the issue now when it is properly before this Court.