Court Opinion

ID: 9779052
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 21:34:41.789159+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:33:20.294567
License: Public Domain

DEV ANY, Justice,
dissenting.
The majority would persuade the reader to its view by giving a lurid account of the appellant striking the victim “again and again” with comments as though, in omniscient style, the account was from a viewpoint of an eye witness.
An appellate review should be restricted to the question of whether the confession was obtained in violation of appellant’s constitutional rights. It matters not how bad this majority can “paint” appellant to assess the degree of her constitutional rights. The gruesomeness of this crime can in no way measure the constitutional rights of an accused. Cf Ex parte Duffy, 607 S.W.2d 507, 526-27 (Tex.Crim.App.1980). In a dissenting opinion, Judge Phillips restated this fundamental principle of law: “Although the crime committed was heinous, the rule of law must still control our determination.” Franklin v. State, 606 S.W.2d 818, 832 (Tex.Crim.App.1978).
While realizing that “constitutional inquiry into the issue of voluntariness requires more than a mere color-matching of cases,” Beecher v. Alabama, 389 U.S. 35, 38, 88 S.Ct. 189, 191, 19 L.Ed.2d 35 (1967), the totality of circumstances goes to the events surrounding the confession, not the crime that an accused may or may not have committed. None of the cases cited by the majority state that an analysis of the vol-untariness of a confession includes a consideration of the manner in which the crime was committed. In fact, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals specifically stated that “[t]he determination of whether a confession is voluntary must be based upon examination of the totality of the circumstances surrounding its acquisition.” Barton v. State, 605 S.W.2d 605, 607 (Tex.Crim.App. 1980) (emphasis added). To consider the appellant’s actions of cutting the telephone wires and beating “an old woman to death with a hammer” in determining whether appellant’s confessions were voluntary, results in a “rule of weighted constitutional rights” as Justice Whitham states in his dissent. It does not necessarily follow that a person who is capable of committing a heinous crime would not be intimidated by police officers. The majority’s analysis as to the voluntary nature of appellant’s confessions is unpersuasive.
Accordingly, I vigorously dissent from such a standard for determining the application of a fundamental constitutional right.