Court Opinion

ID: 9668178
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 02:04:55.340712+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:43.384988
License: Public Domain

BAIRD, Judge,
concurring.
When a mistrial is granted on the basis of prosecutorial misconduct, the United States Constitution bars retrial only when the misconduct was intended to goad the defendant into moving for a mistrial. Oregon v. Kennedy, 456 U.S. 667, 676, 102 S.Ct. 2083, 2089, 72 L.Ed.2d 416 (1982). However, as Justices Brennan and Marshall noted, Kennedy did not prevent state courts from interpreting their state constitutions to provide a greater standard of protection. Id., 456 U.S. at 678-79, 102 S.Ct. at 2091. We embrace this question today and hold that the Texas Constitution does, in fact, provide a greater standard of protection.
As Justice Powell’s concurrence in Kennedy makes clear, it is virtually impossible to prove the prosecutor’s intent when engaging in the misconduct that caused a mistrial. Id., 456 U.S. at 678-79, 102 S.Ct. at 2091. Indeed, Kennedy ⅛ burden has proven so impossible as to render its holding meaningless. This is so because the burden requires proof of two separate elements of mens rea. First, the defendant must prove the prosecutorial misconduct was intentional and, secondly, that the misconduct was engaged in specifically to goad the defendant into moving for a mistrial. While it was perhaps possible to prove the former, it is virtually impossible to prove the latter. Thus, in reality, Kennedy and, therefore, the United States Constitution provide no protection.1
However, today a majority of this Court finds such protection in the Texas Constitution; the defendant must no longer prove that either the misconduct was committed intentionally or that it was committed for the purposes of goading the defendant into moving for a mistrial.2 Under the Texas Constitution, prosecutors are now responsible for their misconduct without regard for their *702mens rea when engaging in the misconduct or their reasons for doing so.3
With these comments, I join the opinion of the Court.4

. My independent research failed to reveal even a single case where the Kennedy burden was met.

. The lead opinion seems to require some form of mens rea accompany the misconduct. However, a mens rea requirement is unnecessary for two reasons. First, such an inquiry is subsumed in the trial judge’s determination that the conduct was misconduct sufficient to warrant ..a mistrial. Second, and more importantly, if the misconduct was so egregious as to require a mistrial, it does not matter, for double jeopardy purposes, whether the misconduct was intentional, reckless or negligent. Consider this example. Assume that during his closing argument the prosecutor made a direct comment on the defendant's election not to testify and that comment caused a mistrial. In a double jeopardy context it makes no difference whether the remark was intentionally made by a seasoned prosecutor or negligently made by a prosecutor trying his first case. The important inquiry is whether the misconduct deprived the defendant *702of his valued right to complete his trial before the first jury.

. I continue to believe that the factors of Autran v. State, 887 S.W.2d 31 (Tex.Cr.App.1994), should be considered when determining whether the Texas Constitution provides greater protection than its federal counterpart. Although the opinion of the Court does not follow that format, I am confident the Autran factors support today's holding.

. In closing, I pause to note that one should not automatically assume that an interpretation under the Texas Constitution that, in theory, provides greater protection will, in practice, provide such protection. This was noted by Justice Rehnquist in Kennedy when he stated:
... we are not sure that criminal defendants as a class would be aided [because] knowing that the granting of the defendant’s motion for mistrial would all but inevitably bring with it an attempt to bar a second trial on grounds of double jeopardy, the judge presiding over the first trial might well be more loath to grant a defendant’s motion for mistrial.
Id.., 456 U.S. at 676, 102 S.Ct. at 2090. Judge McCormick’s dissent exemplifies the fallacy of such an assumption: On the one hand he attacks the majority for providing "criminal defendants 'more protection,’ ” post at 703, and on the other hand he argues the lead opinion "actually provides less protection to criminal defendants than that provided by the Federal Constitution.” Post at 704.