Court Opinion

ID: 9667165
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:37:06.578752+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:35.486652
License: Public Domain

BAIRD, Judge,
dissenting.
The application for writ of habeas corpus pending before this Court alleges ineffective assistance of counsel at trial, supplemented with a claim pursuant to Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U.S. 302,109 S.Ct. 2934, 106 L.Ed.2d 256 (1989). In an unpublished per curiam opinion, this Court rejected applicant’s claim of ineffective assistance, but filed and set the claim alleging Penry error. Ex parte Harvey Earvin, No. 15,921-03, (Tex.Cr.App. delivered July 21, 1989). Today, a majority of this Court decides that the decision to review the Penry issue was improvident. I believe the ineffectiveness claim is so compelling that the application of Penry, with its attendant complexities, e.g., procedural default, what constitutes mitigating evidence, whether the special issues provide a vehicle for expressing a “reasoned moral response” to mitigating evidence, Penry, 492 U.S. at 328, 109 S.Ct. at 2952, need not be reached in this case.1 I would, on the Court’s own motion, file and set applicant’s claim of ineffective assistance of counsel.
*382The record in this case, consisting of a scant 874 pages, is replete with examples of counsel’s deficient performance. During voir dire the following occurred: 1) counsel failed to object when the prosecutor suggested to four veniremembers who eventually served as jurors on the case to disregard as a mitigating factor that petitioner was eighteen years old at the time of the offense, Jurek v. State, 522 S.W.2d 934, 940 (Tex.Cr.App.1975), (age to be considered under special issue two); Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586, 604, 98 S.Ct. 2954, 2964-65, 57 L.Ed.2d 973 (1978), (sentencer may “not be precluded from considering, as a mitigating factor, any aspect of a defendant’s character or record and any of the circumstances of the offense that the defendant proffers as a basis for a sentence less that death.”), 2) counsel accepted several of the jurors who had knowledge of the case without questioning the venire-members whether they had formed an opinion about applicant’s guilt, Murphy v. Florida, 421 U.S. 794, 95 S.Ct. 2031, 44 L.Ed.2d 589 (1975); (veniremember excludable for cause where he has established a conclusion as to guilt or innocence of defendant that will influence veniremember in his action in reaching a verdict); Bernard v. State, 730 S.W.2d 703 (Tex.Cr.App.1987), 3) counsel failed to object when the State informed a veniremember who eventually sat upon the jury that the first special issue concerned intentional behavior, Marquez v. State, 725 S.W.2d 217, 244 (Tex.Cr.App.1987) (something more than intentional conduct must be found at the punishment phase of the trial on the issue of deliberateness), and 4) defense counsel failed to object to the exclusion for cause of seven veniremembers who stated opposition to the death penalty where the State failed to establish a basis for their exclusion under Witherspoon v. Illinois, 391 U.S. 510, 88 S.Ct. 1770, 20 L.Ed.2d 776 (1968).
The evidence adduced at the guilt/innocence phase consisted largely of accomplice witness testimony and the admission of petitioner’s confession. Counsel, however, never cross-examined the accomplices regarding potential bias with respect to their testimony given in exchange for leniency. Moreover, counsel failed to request a jury charge instruction on accomplice witness testimony. Tex. Code Crim.Proc.Ann. art. 38.14 (a conviction cannot be had upon the testimony of an accomplice unless corroborated by other evidence tending to connect the defendant with the offense committed; and the corroboration is not sufficient if it merely shows the commission of the offense). No hearing was ever held challenging the validity of the confession. Jackson v. Denno, 378 U.S. 368, 84 S.Ct. 1774, 12 L.Ed.2d 908 (1964). In fact, the only defensive motion filed by trial counsel was a post-trial motion to withdraw as attorney of record. At trial, there was no objection to the admission of the confession. The trial record, likewise, is devoid of a single defense objection. Defense counsel never invoked the rule. Counsel allowed a police officer to testify from the autopsy report, relieving the State from having to call the medical examiner.
The jury charge on punishment included the following:
By the term “deliberate”, as used in the special issue, is meant with careful consideration or deliberation; with full intent; not hastily or carelessly — as a deliberately formed purpose; with awareness of the consequences.”
A person acts with intent with respect to the nature of his conduct, or to the result of his conduct, when it is his conscious objective or desire to engage in the conduct or cause the result.
Counsel never sought the inclusion of a definition of deliberate which would more specifically delineate the differences between that term and the term intentional. This takes on greater meaning given the prosecutor’s closing argument which suggested to the jury that a finding of intentional at the guilt/innocence phase necessarily subsumed a finding of deliberateness. Counsel failed to object to this argument, just as he failed to object to the State’s voir dire which suggested the same misstatement of law.
I am well aware that this Court has previously rejected petitioner’s ineffectiveness claims. I would nonetheless file and *383set this petition for writ of habeas corpus and address the ineffectiveness claim pursuant to the standards set forth in Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). See also Hernandez v. State, 726 S.W.2d 53, 57 (Tex.Cr.App.1986).

. I believe that the Court’s disposition of the Penry issue is premature. In Graham v. Collins, 896 F.2d 893 (5th Cir.1990), rehearing granted, en banc, 903 F.2d 1014, a panel of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that art. 37.-071 failed to provide the jury with a vehicle in which to give effect to the petitioner's mitigating evidence of youthfulness at the time of the offense. In the case at bar, applicant was eighteen years old at the time of the offense. Instead of perfunctorily dismissing applicant’s Penry claim, I believe that this Court should wait for further guidance from the federal court system on the issue of youth.