Court Opinion

ID: 9777862
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 20:26:00.314004+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:33:02.122835
License: Public Domain

COHEN, Justice,
concurring.
The prosecutor in this case violated a rule that has been characterized by the Court of Criminal Appeals as “hornbook law” that “no reasonably competent prosecutor” would violate. Thompson v. State, *305651 S.W.2d 785, 786, n. 3 (Tex.Crim.App.1983) (emphasis in original). Thus, I unhesitatingly join the decision that the prosecutor made a grossly improper argument, and the court erred by overruling appellant’s objection.
It is more difficult to decide whether such error is automatically reversible, without regard to harm, or whether it may be harmless. Several cases have held that the prohibition against a direct comment on the defendant’s failure to testify is mandatory and harm from such an argument is not generally cured by an instruction to the jury. Montoya v. State, 744 S.W.2d 15, 37 (Tex.Crim.App.1987) (op. on reh’g). Montoya is a good example of the law’s confusion on this issue. The argument in Montoya was a direct reference to the defendant’s failure to testify. Id. at 35. Although it stated the rule and cited authorities supporting it, the Montoya court conducted a lengthy, detailed discussion of facts that rendered the error harmless, applied a harmless error test, and unanimously held the error was harmless. Id. at 38-40. The court reached this conclusion even though it recognized the “tremendous” protection afforded a defendant who exercises his state and federal constitutional rights not to testify. Id. at 37. Thus, even a direct comment on a defendant’s refusal to testify is, sometimes, subject to harmless error review.
My opinion is that a direct comment should be automatically reversible because it violates a mandatory statute that is “hornbook” law, which “no reasonably competent prosecutor” would violate, as stated in Thompson. Such a rule requires prosecutors to be competent and to act in good faith. However, if the law is that a prosecutor’s bad faith or grossly incompetent violation of a mandatory statute can be harmless, I would hold that it was harmless here, if we look to the evidence alone. Appellant was caught in the act of driving a stolen car and fled at high speed in the car and then on foot. He was arrested while fleeing. This is overwhelming evidence of guilt, which, in my opinion, would have resulted in a guilty verdict even without the State’s flagrantly illegal argument. “The presence of overwhelming evidence of guilt plays a determinative role in resolving the [harmless error] issue.” Harris v. State, 790 S.W.2d 568, 587 (Tex.Crim.App.1989). I doubt that this error kept jurors from properly applying the law to the facts. Id. at 588. On this record, the error was not likely to have disrupted the jury’s orderly evaluation of the evidence. Id. But Harris also requires us to consider the source of the error, the nature of the error, whether it was emphasized by the State, and whether “declaring the error harmless would encourage the State to repeat it with impunity.” Id. at 587. The prosecutor was the source of the error. The error was egregious because it violated a mandatory statute, something no reasonably competent prosecutor could have done in good faith. The error was emphasized at final argument because the prosecutor mentioned it three times, and the judge implicitly approved it the first time by overruling the objection. Finally, declaring the error harmless would encourage the State to repeat it.
As the Harris court declared, “any harmless error rule is basically one of judgment.” Id. at 585. “The reviewing court must focus on the process and not on the result.” Id. at 588. “[A]n appellate court should be concerned with the integrity of the process leading to the conviction.” Id. at 587. Given the requirement that we focus on the process and not on the result, given the rule that harmful error is not automatically cured by overwhelming evidence, and given the danger that declaring this error harmless would encourage its repetition, I conclude that this error threatened not just the appellant, but also the integrity of the process leading to the conviction. Harris tells us that judges should use “judgment.” Mine is that repeated prosecutorial misconduct of constitutional magnitude should not be condoned in this particular case, even though the evidence was overwhelming.