Court Opinion

ID: 9822564
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 09:10:38.386422+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:22:39.091534
License: Public Domain

IN THE
                          TENTH COURT OF APPEALS

                                 No. 10-22-00393-CR

CARLOS EUGENO SERRANO,
                                                            Appellant
v.

THE STATE OF TEXAS,
                                                            Appellee

                           From the 52nd District Court
                              Coryell County, Texas
                             Trial Court No. 21-26567

                                CONCURRENCE

       The sole issue in this appeal is whether the trial court committed reversible error

by including a limiting instruction in the jury charge when one was not requested or

given at the time that the extraneous offense evidence was admitted. We have addressed

this issue before. This is what we said:

       A trial judge must—without any request or objections from the parties—
       prepare a charge that accurately sets out the law applicable to the charged
       offense. See Delgado v. State, 235 S.W.3d 244, 249 (Tex. Crim. App. 2007);
       TEX. CODE CRIM. PROC. art. 36.14. The trial court is not required to include
       a limiting instruction in the jury charge when no instruction was requested
        at the time the evidence was admitted. Delgado, 235 S.W.3d at 254. Steggall
        did not request a limiting instruction pursuant to Rule 404(b) of the Rules
        of Evidence at the time that evidence of possible extraneous offenses was
        admitted; thus, this evidence was admissible for all purposes. See id. But
        Steggall has not cited, nor have we found, any cases holding that a trial
        court is prohibited from including a limiting instruction in such a situation.

        Instead, the Court of Criminal Appeals long ago considered and rejected an
        argument that the trial court reversibly erred by including a limiting
        instruction regarding extraneous offenses in the jury charge over the
        appellant's objection in Fair v. State. See Fair v. State, 465 S.W.2d 753, 754
        (Tex. Crim. App. 1971). In Fair, the Court determined that the included
        instruction, although not required, "was not harmful but beneficial to the
        appellant" and it was not reversible error to instruct the jury that it could
        consider the extraneous offense for a limited purpose over the defendant's
        objection. Fair, 465 S.W.2d at 755.

        In short, the Court of Criminal Appeals has held that an extraneous-offense
        limiting instruction is beneficial to a defendant, and a trial judge does not
        commit reversible error by including such instruction in the jury charge. As
        such, the inclusion of this instruction was not reversible error. See Fair, 465
        S.W.2d at 755.

Steggall v. State, No. 10-17-00017-CR, 2018 Tex. App. LEXIS 6228, *3-4 (Tex. App.—Waco

Aug. 8, 2018, pet. ref’d).

        I would respectfully say it again just like that and thus avoid the characterization

of the trial court’s extraneous offense instruction as proper or criticize it as being

superfluous. I concur in the Court’s judgment.

                                           TOM GRAY
                                           Chief Justice

Concurrence delivered and filed August 30, 2023
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Serrano v. State                                                                          Page 2