Court Opinion

ID: 9672531
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:56:36.897162+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:16.888318
License: Public Domain

LAGARDE, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. The majority hold that the trial court’s oral comment “[a]nd I now find that there is evidence of a conspiracy ...” constituted a comment on the weight of the evidence which was calculated to benefit the State or prejudice the rights of the defendant. See Tex.Code Crim.ProC.Ann. art. 38.05 (Vernon 1979); see also Becknell v. State, 720 S.W.2d 526, 531 (Tex.Crim.App. [Panel Op.] 1986), appeal dism’d, cert. denied, 481 U.S. 1065, 107 S.Ct. 2455, 95 L.Ed.2d 865 (1987). In so holding, the majority give the jury no credit for common sense or intellect by further concluding that those ten words
“negated the jury’s role as the sole judge of the credibility of all the witnesses and failed to accord the jury its full function of judging the weight and credibility of the testimony free from the influence of the trial judge.” From those ten words, the majority not only conclude that “the jury could but surmise that the judge believed that a guilty verdict would or should be forthcoming,” but, further, that by those ten words “the trial court advised the jury in their presence and hearing that in the court’s opinion the State had established the existence of the conspiracy.”
Because the majority opinion does not, in my opinion, fairly and accurately put the challenged ten word comment by the trial court in the context in which it appears in the partial record before this Court, I feel compelled to do so.
Bachus was charged by indictment with criminal conspiracy to commit aggravated unlawful possession with intent to deliver cocaine.1 The indictment alleged, in pertinent part, that Bachus did:
knowingly and intentionally agree with Lawrence Anthony Smith, Jr. and others unknown to the Grand Jury that they or one or more of them engage in conduct that would constitute [the] offense of possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance, to-wit: cocaine, in an amount by aggregate weight, including any adulterants or dilutants of 400 grams or more and one or more of them performed on [sic] overt act, to-wit: produced current money of the United States of America, to facilitate the purchase of the above-described controlled substance, in pursuance of the aforementioned agreement with the intent that the offense of possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance be committed
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Bachus and co-defendant Lawrence Anthony Smith were tried together before the same jury. During the course of their joint trial, the State offered evidence of prelimi*408nary drug negotiations between Smith and Officer Craig Leffler. Bachus’s defense counsel objected based on hearsay with regard to Bachus “until the State established that the statements were made in furtherance of the conspiracy.” The trial court sustained the hearsay objection and “excluded it as to defendant Bachus until there was evidence of a conspiracy.” The challenged testimony, however, was admitted before the jury. The trial court simply restricted the jury’s consideration of the testimony to Smith alone. See Tex.R.Crim. Evid. 105(a).
After further testimony,2 the trial court decided during a sub rosa conference that Smith’s statements were admissible against Bachus under the co-conspirator exception to hearsay. See Tex.R.Crim.Evid. 801(e)(2)(E). Following the sub rosa conference and somewhat later into the trial,3 the following occurred:
THE COURT: Be seated. Mr. Uhl, did you want to offer some more evidence?
MR. UHL: Yes, your Honor. Judge, we offer the testimony that the Court had previously admitted only against the Defendant Smith. We now at this time offer that against the Defendant Reginald Bachus, also.
MR. CUNNINGHAM: Your Honor, before the Court rules, may I respond?
THE COURT: Yes.
MR. CUNNINGHAM: I’d like to know what testimony he’s talking about or referring. to so that I can properly respond to it.
THE COURT: I think he’s offering the testimony between Officer Leffler and Defendant Smith, and I excluded it as to Defendant Bachus until there was evidence of a conspiracy. And I now find that there is evidence of a conspiracy, and I’m going to admit it for all purposes.
MR. UHL: Against both defendants.
THE COURT: Yes.
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Defense counsel then objected as follows:
MR. CUNNINGHAM: Your Honor, comes now Defendant Reginald Emery Bachus, and objects to the Court’s ruling that he, quotation marks, the Judge, in the presence of the jury — I object to the statement of the Court that the Court had sustained the objection to admitting the testimony as to Bachus, and the Court’s statement, quotation marks, and I want the court reporter to put the exact words in there that the Judge used. But as I recall, the Judge said, I now find that there is evidence of a conspiracy in this case. Unquote.
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MR. CUNNINGHAM: For the reason that that is the issue that this jury has to decide, and that the State’s — and that the Court’s remarks that he found that there was evidence of a conspiracy is a comment on the weight of the evidence in this case [sic] invades the providence [sic] of the jury, because it tells the jury that this Court has already made a determination that there is evidence of a conspiracy.
That is not the prerogative of this Court. That’s the prerogative of the jury. The Court has now put itself in the place of the jury, told the jury that you have found that there is evidence of a conspiracy.
The trial court overruled the objection and, likewise, overruled defense counsel’s motion for a mistrial.
Based on the above record excerpt, it is a reasonable deduction that the trial court, in initially sustaining Bachus’s hearsay objection and limiting the testimony, had stated in front of the jury that it was excluding Smith’s testimony “until there was evidence of a conspiracy.” Thus, even excluding the ten words to which Bachus objected, i.e., “[a]nd I now find that there is *409evidence of a conspiracy,” upon admission of Smith’s testimony, the jury would logically have concluded that the trial judge had implicitly decided that “there was evidence of a conspiracy.” Cf. Washington v. State, 771 S.W.2d 587, 545 (Tex.Crim.App.), cert. denied, — U.S.-, 109 S.Ct. 3229, 106 L.Ed.2d 578 (1989) (holding that improper bolstering occurred where testimony shows a witness attended a lineup but no evidence that the witness identified the defendant, and the case goes to trial, the logical conclusion is that the witness did identify the defendant.) Bachus did not at trial, and does not on appeal, complain of the trial court’s comments, made both at the time he sustained defense counsel’s objection and later when he overruled it, that he “excluded it until there was evidence of a conspiracy.” Thus, any error as to those comments is waived. White v. State, 601 S.W.2d 364, 366 (Tex.Crim.App. 1980).
Furthermore, in context, the trial court’s comment simply explained that the intervening evidence had rendered the earlier restricted testimony admissible for all purposes against both defendants. See Liveoak v. State, 717 S.W.2d 691, 696-97 (Tex. App.—San Antonio 1986), pet. ref’d per curiam, 741 S.W.2d 451 (Tex.Crim.App. 1987); Young v. State, 644 S.W.2d 18, 21 (Tex.App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 1982, pet. ref’d); see also Moore v. State, 505 S.W.2d 842, 844 (Tex.Crim.App.1974). The majority seem to give great weight to the conclusion that jurors are “prone to seize with alacrity” upon those ten spoken words but fail to recognize well-established law that not only are jurors “prone” to follow the court’s instructions, but in fact are presumed to follow the court’s instructions. Rose v. State, 752 S.W.2d 529, 554 (Tex. Crim.App.1987) (on mot. for reh’g). The court, in its written charge read at the conclusion of the trial and presumably taken with them into the jury room, specifically and explicitly instructed them that it did not determine what weight should be given such evidence and, further, specifically and explicitly instructed them not to so interpret any of his comments and directed them to wholly disregard his comments. The jury is presumed to have followed those instructions. Id. Furthermore, the court in Rose found particular significance in the judge’s written instructions because “this was the judge’s last word on the subject.” Id. Although the presumption is rebuttable, the evidence before us reflects nothing to rebut the presumption that the jury followed the court’s instructions to the letter. See Cobarrubio v. State, 675 S.W.2d 749, 752 (Tex.Crim.App. 1983).
I am unwilling to conclude, as do the majority, that the ten challenged words uttered during the course of a four-day trial “fester[ed] in the jury’s mind so as to increasingly benefit the State ... [and] prejudice the defendant as the trial progresse[d].” . I choose, rather, to conclude that the jurors did in fact just as the law presumes they did — followed the trial court’s written instructions to disregard any comment he may have made during the course of the trial. Based on other unob-jected-to comments by the trial court, the jury would have necessarily concluded that the trial court had found evidence of a conspiracy when it admitted the objected-to evidence for all purposes against both defendants.
The majority tell us that during examination of the State’s very first witness “counsel for appellant interposed a hearsay objection to that testimony with regard to appellant until the State established that the statements were made in furtherance of the conspiracy.” Consequently, counsel for appellant, within his objection, assumed a conspiracy. Implicit in the trial court’s later admission of the challenged statements as to Bachus was a finding by the trial court that there was evidence of a conspiracy and that the challenged statements were made in furtherance thereof. Consequently even excluding all comments, both those objected-to and those unobject-ed-to, the jury could have, and probably necessarily would have, concluded that the trial court found that there was evidence of a conspiracy and, further, that the challenged statements were made in furtherance of the conspiracy. Thus, based solely *410on defense counsel’s phrasing of his objection, when coupled with the trial court’s later admission of the challenged statements, and excluding the challenged comment of the trial court, the logical conclusion would have been the same.
It is important to note what the trial court did not say. It did not say that there was a conspiracy. Only the majority do. It did not say the State had established the existence of a conspiracy. Only the majority do. It did not say the evidence was sufficient to establish a conspiracy. Only the majority do. And the reason they do is apparent — to transform the trial court’s statement that he found evidence of a conspiracy into a perceived comment on the weight to be given that evidence.
Someone once said that “the faults we see in others are merely reflections of our own inadequacies.” Applying that notion to the majority opinion, I conclude that the surmise, conjecture, and sheer speculation it attributes to the jury is merely a reflection of its own surmise, conjecture, and sheer speculation which it generously used, albeit maladroitly, in reaching its conclusion that the trial court’s statement of what had already been assumed by defense counsel in his objection was a comment on the weight of the evidence “calculated to benefit the State or prejudice the rights of the Defendant.”
In essence, the majority has said that the “twelve good and true” jurors in this joint trial were so intimidated by their “own judge” that they “seized with alacrity” upon only ten words which he spoke to them in admitting evidence during the course of a four-day trial; and that they gave great weight to and were heavily influenced by that comment. In doing so, the majority, in effect, say that those same jurors were not intimidated by their “own judge” and, in complete disregard of the law and of their sworn oath to do so, totally ignored and refused to adhere to the following written instructions of that same judge which were not only read to them but which were taken with them into the jury room:
At times throughout the trial the Court has been called upon to pass on the question of whether or not certain offered evidence might properly be admitted. You are not to be concerned with the reasons for such rulings and are not to draw any inferences from them. Whether offered evidence is admissible is purely a question of law. In admitting evidence to which an objection is made, the Court does not determine what weight should be given such evidence; nor does it pass on the credibility of the witness. As to any offer of evidence that has been rejected by the Court, you, of course, must not consider the same. As to any question to which an objection was sustained, you must not conjecture as to what the answer might have been or as to the reason for the objection.
You are instructed that you are not to allow yourselves to be influenced in any degree whatsoever by what you may think or surmise the opinion of the Court to be. The Court has no right by any word or any act to indicate any opinion respecting any matter of fact involved in this case, nor to indicate any desire respecting its outcome. The Court has not intended to express any opinion upon any matter of fact in this case, and if you have observed anything which you have or may interpret as the Court’s opinion upon any matter of fact in this case, you must wholly disregard it.
You are the exclusive judges of the facts proved, of the credibility of the witnesses and the weight to be given their testimony, but the law you shall receive in these written instructions, and you must be governed thereby.
To paraphrase a recent quote of Margaret Thatcher, “the most honorable gentleman always was an eloquent advocate, but I don’t believe that he believes a word of what he has said.”
Because I conclude that the trial court’s comment was not “calculated to benefit the State or prejudice the rights of the defendant,” I would affirm.

. TexPenal Code Ann. § 15.02(a) (Vernon 1974) and Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann. art. 4476-15, §§ 4.011, 4.03(c)(d)(3) (Vernon 1989). Article 4476 of the Texas Revised Civil Statutes has now been codified and may be found in sections 481.108 and 481.112 of the Texas Health and Safety Code. Tex.Health & Safety Code Ann. §§ 481.108, 481.-112(a), (c) (Vernon 1991).

. The State’s brief, unchallenged by Bachus, shows thirty-two intervening pages in the record between the initial sustaining of the objection and the sub rosa conference.

. The State’s brief, likewise unchallenged by Ba-chus, reflects an additional 230 intervening pages before the State offered the evidence in front of the jury.