Court Opinion

ID: 9675539
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:56:54.902461+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:35.414756
License: Public Domain

DAVIDSON, Judge,
dissenting.
This case was assigned, originally, to Commissioner Belcher for the writting of the opinion therein.
After studying the record, Judge Belcher drew an opinion in which he recommended that the case be reversed and the cause remanded.
I agreed to and approved that opinion, and here adopt it as my dissenting opinion in this case:
Judge Belcher’s opinion is as follows:
“The conviction is for the offense of being an accomplice to the crime of robbery with firearms; the punishment, eight years in the penitentiary.
*173“The indictment alleges only John Henry Kirk as the principal offender although the evidence shows that two other persons participated with him in the actual commission of the robbery.
“The state introduced in evidence appellant’s written statement showing his knowledge of the robbery and how he was implicated in it as an accomplice. The voluntary nature of this confession became a disputed issue in the trial but was resolved against him by the jury under an appropriate charge.
“The state next introduced into evidence the written statement of John Henry Kirk which showed, first, that he, with two others, committed the offense of robbery, and it next related the facts and circumstances showing the details of the connection and guilt of the appellant as an accomplice to the robbery. Such facts and circumstances were not necessary to connect John Henry Kirk, as a principal, with the commission of the robbery, because his written statement had theretofore fully related facts showing his guilt and their elimination would not impair or render incomplete the confession showing the robbery.
“Appellant complains of the action of the trial court in admitting in evidence, over his objection that they were hearsay, that they were not necessary to the proof of the robbery alleged to have been committed by John Henry Kirk, and that said portions of said written confession were prejudicial to him, portions of the written confession of John Henry Kirk, a principal offender, showing appellant’s guilt as an accomplice — which, in part, reads as follows:
“ ‘That afternoon I ran into Joseph Boone Louvier, who we call Frenchy, and I told him that we needed a car to go up in the country in. I told him that we were going to rob a bootlegger and needed his car for the job. I told him I would fix him up if the job came off «¿right. He told me I could borrow his car. * * * We each shipped in enough to pay Frenchy Louvier $100 for the use of his car. * * * I took the $100 to give Frenchy for the use of his car and gave it to him later in the day. * * * I left Frenchy’s 25 automatic pistol that we had used in the job there at the house when we took his car home. * * * On Friday I saw Frenchy Louvier and he said he would have to have some more money since he was hot on the job and I gave him $100 and Curly Drake give him $100. The next day he said he had to have some more money and I give him $190 and Curly *174gave him $50 more. That made $540 he got for us using his car on the job. He know what job we had pulled and how much we had got ***.’”
“Only the appellant is here on trial — on trial for the offense of being an accomplice to robbery with firearms.
“John Henry Kirk, one of the three principals, did not testiby in the case.
“Nowhere in the court’s charge are the above quoted and complained of portions of John Henry Kirk’s written statement relating to appellant’s guilt as an accomplice excluded from the consideration of the jury.
“The confession of the principal offender is admissible on the trial of an accomplice not for the purpose of proving the guilt of the accomplice but for the purpose, solely, of proving the guilt of the principal. 1 Branch’s P.C., 2d Edition, 100, Sec. 93; 2 McCormick and Ray, Texas Law of Evidence, 96, Sec. 1219.
“In referring to the cases holding that the confession of the principal may be used on the trial of the accomplice to fix the principal’s guilt, we said, in Browney v. State, 128 Texas Cr. Rep. 81, 79 S.W. 2d 311, at p. 314:
“ ‘The cases holding that the confession of the principal may be used on the trial of the accomplice to fix the principal’s guilt * * * go no further than to give effect to the general rule that the admissions or confessions of the principal (if they would be admissible if the principal were on trial) are admissible on the trial of the accomplice, not for the purpose of proving the guilt of the accomplice, but for the purpose solely of proving the guilt of the principal. See White v. State, 10 Texas App., 167; Smith v. State, 91 Texas Cr. Rep. 15, 237 S.W. 265.’ ”
“In Smith v. State, 91 Texas Cr. Rep. 15, 237 S.W. 265, we said:
“Statements in the confession which might relate solely to the guilt of the accomplice, and which throw no light on the principal’s actions, should be excluded.’ ”
“John Henry Kirk’s confession was admissible to prove that he was the robber as alleged, but it was not admissible to prove that the appellant was an accomplice to the' robbery. The state*175ments in the confession connecting appellant with the acts of Kirk, the principal offender, and showing appellant’s guilt as an accomplice were not admissible against him under the facts of this case and were reasonably calculated to be hurtful and prejudicial to him. The admission of such statements in evidence over appellant’s objection was error.”
To Judge Belcher’s opinion I make these additional observations :
There is perhaps no rule of law more firmly established than that which prohibits the introduction of hearsay testimony, especially when the hearsay testimony relates to the guilt of the accused.
Such was the hearsay testimony that the state introduced, over appellant’s objection, when it read into the evidence the written confession of the accomplice witness Kirk showing that appellant was guilty of the offense charged, i.e., being an accomplice to the robbery committed by Kirk. '
Under all the rules of evidence of which I am aware, appellant’s objection should have been sustained. I do not understand that either the state or the majority opinion holds to the contrary, but they insist that the trial court’s instruction to the jury cured the error.
Appellant’s objection was to the admission of the evidence. He did not sit by and wait until the evidence had gone before the jury to object; he did everything he could do to protect himself against the admission of illegal and harmful evidence. His rights, then, should be judged by the objection made and his endeavor to keep the jury from hearing the hearsay evidence in the first instance.
Has the time come when the state can, over a proper and timely objection, get before the jury testimony which is illegal and harmful to the accused and escape reversible error in so doing by the court’s instructing the jury not to consider the illegal and harmful evidence? If so, then an objection to the admission of testimony means nothing, and the trial court can admit illegal and harmful evidence at his pleasure so long as he instructs the jury not to consider the testimony.
If the testimony was inadmissible and was not to remain *176with the jury, it ought not to have been admitted in evidence in the first instance.
To follow the doctrine that the withdrawal of the evidence cured the error and relieved the appellant of any injury as a result thereof would be, in my opinion, the same as saying that a stab wound is cured when the knife is withdrawn.
The inadmissible testimony was so prejudicial as that its harmful effect could not be cured by a withdrawal of the evidence from the jury.
I respectfully dissent.