Court Opinion

ID: 9778336
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 21:00:50.276676+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:33:07.626111
License: Public Domain

*669DALLY, Judge,
concurring.
I am in complete agreement with the majority Opinion on State’s Motion for Rehearing. I also rely on my dissenting opinion on original submission. However, points raised in the dissenting Opinions on State’s Motion for Rehearing deserve further comment.
First, in “distilling” the model instruction from other jurisdictions as an elixir for this jurisdiction (See Judge Clinton’s dissenting Opinion on State’s Motion for Rehearing, footnote 3), no account has been taken of the broad discretion federal and many state trial judges have in instructing the jury regarding the weight and the considerations the jury is to give portions of the evidence. See Fed.R.Crim.P. 30; Quercia v. United States, 289 U.S. 466, 53 S.Ct. 698, 77 L.Ed. 1321 (1933); 2 Wright, Federal Practice and Procedure, Sec. 488 (1969); 8A Moore, Federal Practice, Sec. 30.10 (2d ed. 1978); California Constitution, Art. VI, Sec. 10; California Penal Code, Sec. 1127; South Carolina Constitution, Art. V, Sec. 17; Norris v. Clinkscales, 47 S.C. 488, 25 S.E. 797 (1896); State v. Johnson, 66 S.C. 23, 44 S.E. 58 (1903). Also, I disagree that one of the jurisdictions said to have “met the challenge” has indeed done so. See Ives v. Commonwealth, 184 Va. 877, 36 S.E.2d 904 (1946). In Texas, trial judges are bound by Art. 36.14, V.A.C.C.P., which provides, in pertinent part:
“[T]he judge shall . . . deliver to the jury ... a written charge distinctly setting forth the law applicable to the case; not expressing any opinion as to the weight of the' evidence, not summing up the testimony, discussing the facts or using any argument in his charge calculated to arouse the sympathy or excite the passions of the jury . . .”
Second, I disagree that a charge on mistaken identity is akin to the defense of alibi. In the charge on the defense of alibi, the jurors are instructed that if they believe a defendant’s alibi they are to find the defendant not guilty. Is it being suggested in the dissent that a jury be instructed to acquit a defendant because a witness failed to identify the defendant in a pretrial lineup, even though that witness had made an in-court identification of the defendant and even though the in-eourt identification by the witness may have been corroborated by other witnesses?
I also note that the dissenters in their Opinions on State’s Motion for Rehearing have not had the temerity to quote for the inspection of the bench and the bar the appellant’s specially requested charge which the trial judge correctly refused to submit to the jury.