Court Opinion

ID: 9718025
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:15:11.004984+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:03.647019
License: Public Domain

MURPHY, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent from the majority’s judgment because I believe that the victim impact testimony allowed in this case had no bearing upon appellant’s moral blameworthiness because it lacked foreseeability. At the punishment phase of the trial, the victim’s grandmother testified as to the impact of the crime upon the victim’s uncle, even going so far as to imply that the victim’s uncle killed himself as a result of the victim’s death. Without a proper predicate establishing the relevance of the testimony from the victim’s grandmother, the testimony exceeds the proper scope of victim impact testimony.
Article 37.07, § 3(a) of the code of criminal procedure provides that during punishment, “evidence may be offered by the State and the defendant as to any matter the court deems relevant to sentencing....” Tex.Code Crim. Proc. Ann. art. 37.07 (Vernon Supp.2000). In capital felony cases, article 37.071, § 2(a) of the code of criminal procedure contains language almost identical to article 37.07, § 3(a). Tex.Code Crim. Proc. Ann. art. 37.071 (Vernon Supp.2000).
During punishment, relevant evidence is information appropriate for the jury to consider in the exercise of its unfettered discretion to assess whatever punishment within the prescribed range it sees fit. Brooks v. State, 961 S.W.2d 396, 398 (Tex.App.-Houston [1st Dist.] 1997, no pet.). Victim impact testimony is relevant when it implicates or has bearing on appellant’s personal responsibility and moral culpability. See Ford v. State, 919 S.W.2d 107, 115 (Tex.Crim.App.1996) (death penalty case in which jury was required to answer a special issue concerning the defendant’s personal moral culpability); Stavinoha v. State, 808 S.W.2d 76, 79 (Tex.Crim.App.1991) (non-death penalty case in which the court held that the victim impact testimony had bearing on appellant’s moral blameworthiness); Miller-El v. State, 782 S.W.2d 892, 896 (Tex.Crim.App.1990) (evidence of degree of injury extending into the future was admissible at punishment because such evidence bore on the defendant’s moral blameworthiness).
A number of courts, in both capital and non-capital cases, have determined that evidence of a close relative’s emotional scarring was admissible as having bearing upon the defendant’s personal responsibility and moral culpability. See McDuff v. State, 939 S.W.2d 607, 620 (Tex.Crim.App.1997) (testimony of sister regarding her *782family’s inability to properly dispose of her sister’s remains, and her fears of going out at night alone as a result of her sister’s rape and murder); Ford, 919 S.W.2d at 112-16 (testimony of father regarding impact of seeing the scene of the murder, his fear, and his missing his son); Brooks, 961 S.W.2d at 397-400 (sister’s testimony regarding the murder of her brother and its impact upon her, resulting in her having to seek care from a physician); Peoples v. State, 874 S.W.2d 804, 807 (Tex.App.-Fort Worth 1994, pet. ref'd) (testimony of mother regarding her anguish as her son died in her arms). This evidence of emotional scarring has bearing upon the defendant’s moral culpability because it is clearly foreseeable. See McDuff, 939 S.W.2d at 620. This is not necessarily the case with extended family members. When the victim is a stranger to the criminal, while foreseeable that a mother, father, sister, or brother would feel an impact of the criminal conduct, it is not as foreseeable that aunts, uncles, and grandparents would feel the same impact. That is not to say, however, that the impact of a crime can never reach aunts, uncles, and grandparents. If a proper predicate is laid that establishes a connection between a victim and an aunt, uncle, or grandparent equivalent to the connection that exists between parents and children, or between siblings, the impact upon these persons would be foreseeable, and the testimony would be clearly relevant. Moreover, if the criminal is aware of a special relationship between the victim and an aunt, uncle, or grandparent, the impact of the crime upon these persons would be foreseeable, and their testimony would be clearly relevant. No such evidence exists in the present case.
The testimony in the present case centered around the impact of the murder upon the victim’s uncle, who had committed suicide. The record fails to provide any description of the relationship between the victim and his uncle, nor does the record reflect that appellant knew or should have known that his criminal conduct would impact upon the victim’s uncle. The record in our case merely indicates that the grandmother’s testimony centered not upon the effect of the murder on her, but rather upon the victim’s uncle who committed suicide. Moreover, the record reveals that the victim’s uncle, pri- or to the murder, was “badly in depression.” The victim impact testimony in the present case is clearly more tenuous and less foreseeable, than testimony from a brother, sister, mother, or father regarding fear, anguish, and/or depression. Unlike a victim’s immediate family members, the emotional scarring of an uncle, or a grandmother, without a proper predicate evincing a close relationship between the uncle or grandmother to the victim, is not as foreseeable, and as such, has no bearing upon the defendant’s moral culpability.
Moreover, I can not say that such error was harmless. The victim impact testimony allowed in the present case blamed the appellant for the death of the victim’s uncle. Accordingly, the judgment of the trial court should be reversed and remanded for a new sentencing hearing.