Court Opinion

ID: 9643285
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 20:24:41.366221+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:59.053679
License: Public Domain

McDONALD, Judge
(dissenting).
The majority opinion erroneously construes two cases which they cite and rely upon. Judge Morrison says in the majority opinion that “we are persuaded to follow the two courts which have already passed upon this question”, referring to the taking of appellant’s fingerprints. In Shannon v. State, 207 Ark. 658, 182 S.W.2d 384, the Supreme Court of Arkansas, as pointed out in the opinion, was dealing with a case involving the fingerprinting of a defendant before his trials while he was out on bail. Shannon had not been fingerprinted through oversight. In State v. La Palme, 104 N.H. 97, 179 A.2d 284, the defendant was ordered to be fingerprinted after a finding of guilty and the posting of bail.
*682• Texas has long followed the practice or rule which recognizes the right of an officer to take a mug shot and fingerprint a prisoner immediately upon his confinement to jail. I am heartily in accord with this procedure and find no disagreement with it. However, we are not here concerned with this question and we do not, by any means, plan on limiting this right or disturbing it. 'This procedure is valuable to law enforcement officers in establishing the identity of inmates, disseminating this information to «other officers throughout the country, and assisting in the apprehension of a criminal and identifying escapees and wanted criminals.
In the case at bar, as reflected by the bill of exception but not by the majority opinion, the appellant had already been fingerprinted by a trusty in the jail and the entire purpose of the Assistant District Attorney in moving the Court for the order to direct this appellant to submit himself to again be fingerprinted was actually to enable the state to produce a better witness than the jail trusty, as it is noted that the state’s counsel told the Court in response to the Court’s query about whether or not appellant had been fingerprinted when he was originally arrested, “He most likely was; but it was a trusty who could not identify the defendant and his credibility would not be of the highest nature." It is clear to me from the record that the state was not initially fingerprinting a prisoner. They were using this vehicle as an avenue to accelerate the credibility of their witness by this time having a police officer who was a fingerprint expert to take the prints -of the appellant under an order of the Court. This policeman expert later took the stand as a State’s witness and testified fully for the state, and probably his testimony was no doubt more credible than testimony that would have been given by the jail inmate trusty who took the original prints •earlier. The record reflects that these fingerprints were taken after an announcement of “Ready” on the part of both sides, after the trial had started, and they were used in evidence not just for the purpose of identifying appellant, but they were used by the state to prove the prior conviction in the state of Pennsylvania.' While this action of the trial court might not have amounted to testimonial compulsion in the literal sense, it did for all practical purposes compel appellant to give testimony against himself.
I do not think that this Court would be extending the rule in Beachem v. State, 144 Tex.Cr.R. 272, 162 S.W.2d 706, and in Apodaca v. State, 140 Tex.Cr.R. 593, 146 S.W.2d 381, by following these precedents in the case at bar. In Apodaca the defendant was compelled to walk straight lines, turn sharply, put his finger to his nose and urinate in a bottle. A police officer testified that the defendant was ordered to act. The case was reversed as being a demonstration by an act which tends to self-incrimination which is as obnoxious to the constitutional provision that one accused of crime shall not be compelled to give evidence against himself as self-incrimination by words. In the Beachem case the defendant was in jail and he was required to say certain words so that a state's witness could identify him. The witness’s identification of the appellant as the robber was based upon evidence produced by appellant and was obtained, according to the opinion, in such a manner as to bring it within the constitutional provision prohibiting self-incrimination.
It is apparent to me that the appellant, Apodaca and Beachem all three were required to perform acts which incriminated them. It seems to me that the case at bar falls squarely within the rule announced in these two cases. It does not seem to me that this Court should entertain a reluctance to extend these rules announced, as Judge Morrison points out.
This Court should either follow these two cases, or it should overrule them.
The quotation from Wigmore on Evidence, cited by the majority, is not in point *683and may be distinguished on its face from the facts in this case.
I respectfully dissent to the affirmance of this case.