Court Opinion

ID: 9667534
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:48:18.041318+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:38.684985
License: Public Domain

DAVIDSON, Judge,
dissenting.
More constitutional guarantees go here.
Under our Bill of Rights every person accused of crime is entitled to be confronted by the witnesses against him (Art. 1, Sec. 10, Const.). The Sixth Amendment to the Federal Constitution carries the same guarantee.
Under the opinion of my brethren, those guarantees are no longer in force or effect in this state.
Here, we have the mechanical recording used as a witness in the case. It was that mechanical device that gave testimony as a witness in the ease. It was that mechanical device that testified it heard a witness, the sheriff, make certain statements which the state utilized to contradict and impeach the witness in his sworn testimony. The statements so made were not in appellant’s presence.
Such testimony came from no witness who was duly sworn, as such, in the case. The appellant was not. accorded an opportunity to cross-examine the witness that gave the testimony used against him.
We are not here dealing with the testimony of living witnesses who gave their testimony, under the pain and penalty of perjury, as to what they heard the sheriff say in their presence or while in the office of the county attorney.
*32In Kemper v. State, 63 Texas Cr. R. 1, 138 S.W. 1025, we said:
“The constitutional provision that the accused shall be confronted with the witnesses against him means that the witnesses on the part of the state shall be personally present when the accused is on trial, or that they shall be examined in his presence and be subject to cross-examination by him.”
Also, in Garcia v. State, 151 Texas Cr. R. 593, 210 S.W. 2d 574, we cited, with approval, Salinger v. United States, 272 U. S. 542, 47 S. Ct. 173, 71 L. Ed. 398, in stating that “The right of confrontation is a right granted by the Constitution to preserve the common law right and not to broaden it or disturb its exceptions.”
We also said in the Garcia case:
“It is generally agreed that the process of confrontation has two purposes. The main and essential one is to secure the opportunity of cross-examination.”
In connection with the proposition that the testimony by the machine denied the right of cross-examination, I am impressed with what the Supreme Court of Kansas said upon that question in State v. Lowry, 185 P. 2d 147, 163 Kansas 622, in holding testimony of a lie detector inadmissible:
“The [lie detector] operator, appearing as a witness to report and interpret the results of the test, might be questioned as to his qualifications, experience, his methods, and on similar matters, and that is about all. But the machine itself — conceding the comparatively high percentage record as to accuracy and reliability claimed for it — escapes all cross-examination.”
If such be true as to the lie detector, how much more so would the recording machine be exempt from and escape cross-examination !
If the state can, as it did here, set a mechanical recording device in the witness chair in the courtroom and have it testify as a witness in the case before and to the jury, there is nothing to prevent it from having witnesses record their testimony upon a mechanical device and, upon the trial of the case, have that mechanical device testify to such statement — all without confronting the accused with the witnesses against him or giving *33him the opportunity to cross-examine those witnesses as to their testimony.
To this destruction of the constitutional guarantees mentioned, I can but enter my solemn protest, which I respectfully do.