Court Opinion

ID: 9679101
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 06:40:37.625598+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:10.131611
License: Public Domain

ONION, Judge
(concurring).
I concur in the result reached, but feel I must state my reasons for agreeing that ground of error #2 should be overruled.
Officer Chavez testified that prior to trial he refreshed his memory from a police offense report presently available which after some uncertainty he related he did not prepare but to which he contributed information and on which his name appeared as one of the officers participating “in the case.” The report apparently was made by one of three other officers.
*739The report was requested particularly for the purpose of cross-examination. Under these circumstances I feel the appellant was entitled to the report and I would not hesitate to overrule Artell v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 372 S.W.2d 944, limiting the so-called “Gaskin rule” (172 Tex.Cr.R. 7, 353 S.W.2d 467) to a previous statement made by the witness testifying for the State.
Such limitation was criticized in 16 Baylor Law Review 51, 60, as follows:
“The necessity for the right to inspect is not changed by virtue of the fact that another person’s work is used to refresh one’s memory. In fact, it would seem that there would be added reason to allow an inspection as a matter of right. Not only are the same safeguards needed (i. e. a right to see that the evidence is not merely fabricated, the right to see if there is anything in the report which would detract from the witness’ memory) but an additional safeguard is needed. This additional safeguard is the right to test the witness on cross to see if the facts about which he is testifying were his own observations and independent recollections or were merely gleaned or memorized by him from this hearsay report. At the very least, the defendant should be entitled to have such a report made a part of his bill of exceptions to allow the appellate court to decide if the defendant was injured by not being permitted by the trial court to inspect the report.”
My views on this problem have been previously expressed in Rose v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 427 S.W.2d 609; cf. Dover v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 421 S.W.2d 110.
I concur, however, in the overruling of the second ground of error because the appellant made no effort after trial to have the report made a part of the record on appeal so that he could demonstrate to this Court how he was harmed by the court’s action.
It is true that appellant’s counsel made a valiant effort to have the offense report attached to the record at the time of the court’s refusal to allow inspection, but failed to take any action thereafter to have it incorporated in the appellate record.
To have permitted the offense report to have been laid out in the record at the time it was requested, even for the purpose of the bill of exception alone, would have permitted the appellant to accomplish indirectly what he had been unable to do directly in view of the court’s ruling.
Before I would be willing to reverse for the trial court’s refusal to make the offense report available for the appellate record, I would require an effort after trial by the defendant for incorporation of the instrument in the record on appeal.
For the reasons stated, I concur.