Court Opinion

ID: 9862918
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 02:28:45.601331+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:38:11.190160
License: Public Domain

MORRISON, Judge
(dissenting).
I cannot agree that the Court was authorized under the facts before us here to limit appellant’s right of self defense by charging on provoking the difficulty. The testimony of State’s witness Retha Gardner was that she left her establishment and that appellant and Betty McKee offered to accompany her to a grocery store and that thereafter appellant and Betty agreed to go to Baby’s Place on Crawford Street and were in the act of so doing when Calvin Woods and his friend came toward the three of them.
Judge Hawkins in a scholarly opinion in Mason v. State, 88 Tex.Cr.R. 642, 228 S.W. 952, set forth the elements which should be present in order to authorize the giving of a charge on provoking the difficulty. I find none of them present in the case at bar and therefore conclude that the court erred when he instructed the jury that appellant would lose his right of self defense if they found that he provoked the difficulty with the injured party.
I respectfully dissent.