Court Opinion

ID: 9648180
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 14:07:38.290807+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:56.908610
License: Public Domain

DAVIDSON, Judge
(dissenting).
Both by pleading and by proof, relator denied that he was the person named in the executive warrant and that he was a fugitive from the demanding state.
The burden was upon the respondent to overcome, by proof, the issue thus presented. The executive warrant, alone, is not sufficient to do so. Ex parte Kaufman, 168 Tex. Cr. Rep. 55, 323 S.W. 2d 48; Ex parte Ryan, 168 Tex. Cr. Rep. 351, 327 S.W. 2d 596.
Here is how the state-respondent attempted to discharge that burden:
*582An assistant district attorney took a picture of relator (appellant, here) on the day of his arrest. This picture he sent to “the authori ties” in the demanding state and they returned it to the assistant district attorney with an affidavit of a detective who said in that affidavit that the picture was that of the “Oliver O’Connor” whom he arrested in August, 1955.
This hearsay testimony is held by this court to be admissible and sufficient in law to overcome the positive sworn testimony to the contrary and as evidence sufficient to establish not only that this relator was the same person named in the executive warrant but also that he was the person charged with a crime in the demanding state, from which he had fled.
It is my opinion that such is not the law. It is the constitutional right, both state and federal, of an accused to be confronted by the witnesses against him.
Hearsay evidence establishes no fact, nor can the person testifying thereto commit perjury by such testimony.
I dissent.