Court Opinion

ID: 9760565
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 01:00:35.058367+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:13.745576
License: Public Domain

FARRIS, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent.
I dissent for the reasons stated in Buckner v. State, 719 S.W.2d 644 (Tex.App.— Fort Worth 1986, pet. pending) and Romies v. State, 717 S.W.2d 745 (Tex.App.— Fort Worth 1986, pet. pending).
I find curious the reliance of my brother justices on California v. Green, 399 U.S. 149, 90 S.Ct. 1930, 26 L.Ed.2d 489 (1970). Green involved the admission of a prior inconsistent statement of a witness. In Green, the State was apparently surprised by the inconsistency of the witness’s trial testimony with that testimony he had given at an earlier pre-trial hearing of the same case. The earlier pre-trial hearing was conducted before a judicial tribunal, the accused was represented in the pre-trial hearing by the same counsel who later represented him at the trial, and the accused had every opportunity to cross-examine the witness at the pre-trial hearing. In the instant case the videotaped testimony was recorded three months before the appellant was indicted.
TEX.CODE CRIM.PROC.ANN. art. 38.-071 (Vernon Supp.1987), the statute which Justice Keltner would find constitutional, requires that the videotape be made outside the presence of the accused and his attorney. No judicial tribunal is afforded an opportunity to protect the rights of the accused. It would be difficult to imagine a greater contrast than that between the facts of Green and of those of the instant case. Justice Keltner quotes Justice White in Green as stating that the Supreme Court could not share the view that belated cross-examination can never serve as a constitutionally adequate substitute for cross-examination contemporaneous with the original statement. Upon further reading one must note that Justice White was speaking in the context of the facts of the Green case. The importance of the facts in Green to Justice White’s decision is made obvious in his discussion of Barber v. Page, 390 U.S. 719, 725-26, 88 S.Ct. 1318, 1322, 20 L.Ed.2d 255, 260 (1968); Pointer v. Texas, 380 U.S. 400, 407, 85 S.Ct. 1065, 1069, 13 L.Ed.2d 923, 928 (1965); and Mattox v. United States, 156 U.S. 237, 15 S.Ct. 337, 39 L.Ed. 409 (1895). Justice White quotes the court in Pointer v. Texas, as noting that:
‘[t]he case before us would be quite a different one had [the witness’s] statement been taken at a full-fledged hearing at which petitioner had been represented by counsel who had been given a complete and adequate opportunity to cross-examine.’
Green, 399 U.S. at 165-66, 90 S.Ct. at 1939, 26 L.Ed.2d at 501.
*490As we noted in Buckner, the procedure mandated by article 38.071 precludes the necessary indicia of reliability present in Green and which would have been present in Pointer provided the witness’s statement had been taken at a full-fledged hearing at which the accused was represented by counsel and afforded a complete and adequate opportunity to cross-examine. See Buckner, 719 S.W.2d at 650.
Finally, I must note my disagreement and dissent from the opinion of Justice Hill. As noted, the videotape recording was made at a time prior to the indictment of the appellant, without any court supervision and without the opportunity for either the appellant or an attorney representing appellant to be present, to object to the manner of the taking and recording of testimony or to cross-examine the witness. This is not to say that the admission of deposition testimony is necessarily violative of an accused’s right to confrontation or that a court cannot structure a witness’s appearance or limit cross-examination in a reasonable manner designed to afford protection to the witness as well as to the rights of the accused. Clearly, upon a showing of necessity, an accused’s right of confrontation must give way so that the rights of the public shall not be sacrificed. See Mattox, 156 U.S. at 243, 15 S.Ct. at 339-40, 39 L.Ed. at 411. As we noted in Buckner, facts may require that an accused’s right of in-court confrontation with a child victim give way to the State’s greater compelling interest. Buckner, 719 S.W.2d at 650. Rather, I dissent because article 38.071 allows the admission in evidence of videotaped testimony recorded pri- or to formal accusation of the accused, without any judicial supervision or control, and mandates that the testimony be recorded outside the presence of an attorney for the accused; and all of this occurs without any judicial determination of necessity.
FENDER, C.J., concurs.