Court Opinion

ID: 9676463
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 05:25:02.637751+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:48.294032
License: Public Domain

CLINTON, Judge,
dissenting.
Revising the Code of Criminal Procedure in 1965, the Legislature takes out former article 756, requiring that a motion for new trial “shall set forth distinctly in writing the grounds [for granting one.]” Today the majority would have this Court put it back in. Otherwise it must affirm the judgment of the Dallas Court of Appeals, for the opinion of that court is emminently correct.
September 15, 1980, upon leave of court being granted appellant filed his first amended motion for new trial with affidavit of Juror Potts attached. The State failed to file any contesting pleadings whatsoever. See Article 40.06, Y.A.C.C.P. The judge of trial court convened a hearing on the amended motion September 26, 1985. Presumably both sides announced ready. The trial court permitted appellant to elicit testimony from Juror Willis relative to a discussion among some jurors concerning availability of psychiatric therapy for appellant while confined in TDC. The State says it made “repeated specific objections” to admitting that testimony on grounds that the matter was not “enumerated” in the amended motion as a basis for new trial. (The majority says the objection was “that there was insufficient notice given to prepare a rebuttal.”) The trial court overruled the State’s objections and admitted the testimony. The trial court heard argument by appellant and overruled the motion for new trial.1
On direct appeal appellant contended discussion by jurors attested to by Potts and testified to by Willis constituted receipt of “other evidence” contrary to Article 40.-03(7), V.A.C.C.P. The State took the position that the issue “has not properly been preserved for review” in that a hearing on motion for new trial must be confined to allegations in the motion. Thus the State claims error by the trial court in receiving that evidence and testimony. For reasons stated in its opinion the Dallas Court of Appeals rejected the State’s contentions and held that “the alleged error is preserved for review.”
Notwithstanding all axioms about discretion of the judge of a trial court concerning matters involved in proceedings for new trial, the majority holds that the discussion at issue “was not properly presented by the motion for new trial, should not have been entertained by the trial court at the hearing on the motion for new trial and was not properly preserved for appeal.” Contrary *622to the direction of Article 44.23, V.A.C.C.P., the majority disposes of this cause on what is surely the merest of technicalities, and in one fell swoop it also reenacts article 756, finds the trial court abused its discretion and charges that holding as the Dallas Court of Appeals did “is to annihilate the motion for new trial.”
What the majority opinion does not and cannot do, however, is to deny that during deliberations jurors in this cause did in fact receive other evidence within the meaning of Article 40.03(7), supra, and that the discussion of it harmed this appellant in his effort to obtain probation and generally on the issue of punishment. Appellant did not receive a tolerably fair trial by jury, and is exposed to twenty years confinement on that account.
To legislating form of motion for new trial and adhering to it over substance of due process and due course of law, I dissent.
TEAGUE, J., joins.

. In the body above I have merely traced the flow of hearing on motion for new trial. The proceeding was much more comprehensive in terms of testimony, evidence and objections. For example, the only objection made by the State to the proffer of Pott’s affidavit is that it constitutes hearsay. Willis was presented as a witness by the State; her testimony about availability of psychiatric help came in on crossex-amination over objection that it was not within "the motion and the grounds for the motion." Other similar testimony was admitted. Finally, when the State reiterated its objection, the trial judge took pains to point out that the discussions are reflected in Pott’s affidavit attached to the motion.