Court Opinion

ID: 9756255
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 21:18:45.585121+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:17.123105
License: Public Domain

KELLER, P.J.,
dissenting.
The Court finds counsel ineffective without permitting him to defend himself, and the reason for doing so seems to be the Court’s inability to conceive of a trial strategy for failing to object to the prosecutor’s argument. I respectfully dissent.
Time and again, we have reversed courts of appeals decisions that find ineffective assistance of counsel.1 Especially in cases like this one, “where the alleged derelictions primarily are errors of omission de hors the record rather than commission revealed in the trial record” we have said that “collateral attack may be the vehicle by which a thorough and detailed examination of alleged ineffectiveness may be developed and spread upon a record.”2 Our inability to think of a strategy does not mean that such a strategy could not have existed. There is no good reason to jump the gun and grant relief in this case, when the record-and counsel’s reasons for his actions-can be fully developed on habeas.
There is another reason not to grant relief at this point. The Court makes an effort to explain why this case is different from the many ineffective-assistance cases in which we have reproved courts of appeals for granting relief. But the only difference seems to be that in those cases it was the court of appeals that could think of no strategy for counsel’s actions, and in this case it is our Court that can think of no strategy. I do not know what lesson the courts of appeals are to gather from our inconsistent approaches to these claims.
Moreover, the Court brands defense counsel “ineffective” without giving him a chance to explain the reasons for his actions. I would not denounce counsel without giving him a chance to respond to these allegations. Even in post-conviction writ applications, this Court’s consistent practice is to give defense counsel a chance to respond to charges of ineffective assistance.
Finally, under a bill now pending in the legislature, any attorney found to have rendered ineffective assistance of counsel will be forever ineligible for appointment as either lead or second-chair counsel in a death penalty case — -at trial, on appeal, or in post-conviction habeas.3 The Court’s decision in this case could have far-reaching consequences for the luckless trial attorney. If there were no alternative to granting relief on direct appeal, perhaps I would find appellant’s argument more persuasive. But habeas corpus, where a detailed examination of these claims “may be developed and spread upon a record,” not only avoids the pitfalls I have anticipated, but offers a better method of arriving at the truth.
It may well be that appellant will prove his allegations and obtain relief on habeas *105corpus. But granting relief at this juncture is premature.

. See, e.g., Freeman v. State, 125 S.W.3d 505 (Tex.Crim.App.2003); Rylander v. State, 101 S.W.3d 107 (Tex.Crim.App.2003); Bone v. State, 77 S.W.3d 828 (Tex.Crim.App.2002).

. Jackson v. State, 973 S.W.2d 954, 957 (Tex.Crim.App.1998).

. Proposed H.B. 268 (proposed Article 11.071, § 1(d)(2)(D)), House Comm. Report, March 1, 2005.