Court Opinion

ID: 9676841
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 05:35:40.971499+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:51.816915
License: Public Domain

CORNELIUS, Chief Justice,
concurring.
I concur in the judgment, but my concurrence is based on reasoning somewhat different from that expressed in the majority opinion.
Tex.R.Crim.Evid. 606(b) is literally contradictory. It provides that on an inquiry into the validity of a verdict a juror may not testify to his mental processes. It further *902states, however, that a juror may testify to anything relevant to the validity of the verdict. The only way to reasonably harmonize these inconsistent provisions and make sense of the rule is to conclude that “validity of the verdict” means something that would cause the verdict to be set aside, i.e., those things set out in Tex. R.App.P. 30(b) and the cases decided under that rule and the predecessor statute, Tex. Code Crim.Proc.Ann. art. 40.03 (repealed 1986).
A juror’s subjective motivation for voting a certain way is not a matter that affects the validity of the verdict unless that motivation is produced by one of the acts or conditions listed in Rule 30(b). Standing alone, then, a juror’s subjective decision to vote a certain way in order to avoid criticism is not a matter that affects the validity of the verdict. Pilot v. State, 38 Tex.Crim. 515, 43 S.W. 1024 (1898); Tex.R.App.P. 30(b). Thus, the trial judge correctly refused to consider juror Fulbright’s affidavit.
BLEIL, J., concurs.