Court Opinion

ID: 9669164
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 02:41:23.615101+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:53.090680
License: Public Domain

W.C. DAVIS, Judge,
concurring.
The majority holds that the “issue raised on appeal by appellant was not whether the judge was wrong in summarily excluding the evidence, but whether the experiment was, in fact, admissible.” The majority examined the offered experiment and determined that the experiment was properly excluded because it was not performed under conditions similar to the testing at the time of arrest.
While I agree that the experiment itself was excludable in the discretion of the trial court I emphasize that the trial court’s action in summarily excluding the experi*478ment before hearing any evidence pertaining to the possible similarity or dissimilarity of the proposed experiment to the offense charged was error, albeit harmless error in this case.1
MILLER, J., joins.

. The principle that evidence in the form of an out-of-court experiment is admissible in the discretion of the trial court if the experiment was made under conditions similar to the event to which the experiment relates does not give the trial court authority to rule before hearing any facts concerning the experiment. Art. 40.09, See. 6(d)(1), V.A.C.C.P. is not an exception to this rule. The court may choose to wait until a showing of facts is made before ruling on the admissibility of the experiment, but it is improper to exclude an experiment without some knowledge of its circumstances; discretion may not be exercised arbitrarily.