Court Opinion

ID: 9774938
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 18:38:41.228536+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:17.561959
License: Public Domain

BAIRD, Judge,
dissenting.
I believe the majority errs in its treatment of appellant’s fourth point of error. Rosales, 841 S.W.2d 368 at 379-380.
I.
As set forth by the majority, appellant objected, during the voir dire process, to the State’s use of its peremptory challenges to exclude “both Mexican-Americans and Chícanos and black people” because such action would deprive appellant of his “federal and state constitutional right to a cross section of his peers” and his “right to a fair trial by his peers.” The trial court denied appellant’s request to have the State specify the reasons for the exercise of its peremptory challenges. Rosales, 841 S.W.2d at 379.
Appellant was tried in 1985, prior to the landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court in Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986). Contrary to the majority’s assertion, we have, without exception, excepted pre-Batson cases from our ordinary rules of procedural default.1 In Henry v. State, 729 S.W.2d 732 (Tex.Cr.App.1987), at the conclusion of his voir dire examination, the defendant requested the trial judge instruct the prosecutor not to use peremptory challenges against members of any minority race. Id. at 734. After the jury was impaneled and sworn, appellant objected to the State’s use of peremptory strikes to eliminate the African-American venire-members from the jury panel. Id. at 735. Although Henry couched his argument in terms of picking “a fair representation of this community,” (an objection virtually identical to the objection lodged by appellant) Judge Miller, writing for a unanimous Court, held that because the case was tried before Batson, the objection was timely and sufficient because Henry presented “the issue to the trial court.” Id. at 736. In a later opinion written by Judge Clinton, who today speaks for the majority, we interpreted Henry as holding only that a defendant need call the issue to the trial judge’s attention at “some point during the pendency of the trial.” Mathews v. State, 768 S.W.2d 731, 732 (Tex.Cr.App.1989).
This Court has repeatedly cited Henry with approval. Presiding Judge McCor*384mick, writing for a unanimous Court, relied upon Henry in DeBlanc v. State, 732 S.W.2d 640 (Tex.Cr.App.1987). Therein, DeBlanc failed to specifically object to the prosecutor’s use of peremptory challenges; however, because DeBlanc was pending on appeal when Batson was decided, this Court applied a relaxed standard for error preservation and concluded that the Bat-son issue was adequately preserved for review. The Court noted:
Clearly [DeBlanc] did not voice a clear objection to the use of the peremptory strikes by the prosecutor. However, by virtue of his motion to challenge the array and his efforts to point out that the prosecutor was using his peremptories on blacks, it is clear from the record that [DeBlanc] was concerned with the exclusion of blacks from the jury and did present his concerns to the trial judge. Although we caution defense attorneys that such efforts would be inadequate in cases tried after Batson, we are compelled by fairness to hold that [De-Blanc] has properly preserved the issue.2 Henry v. State, [729 S.W.2d 732 (Tex.Cr.App.1987) ].
DeBlanc, 732 S.W.2d at 642.
In Chambers v. State, 742 S.W.2d 695 (Tex.Cr.App.1988), Judge Campbell, writing for a unanimous Court, reaffirmed our holding in Henry. Therein, Chambers, at his pre-Batson trial, preserved his Batson claim simply by noting the race of each veniremember and by asking for the State to proffer a race-neutral explanation in each instance where the State challenged an African-American veniremember.
Finally, in Tompkins v. State, 774 S.W.2d 195 (Tex.Cr.App.1987), aff'd 490 U.S. 754, 109 S.Ct. 2180, 104 L.Ed.2d 834, another pre-Batson case, we interpreted Tompkins’ complaint “that the trial judge erred in overruling his motion to quash the jury ... because the State excluded by peremptory strikes five black venireper-sons, thus depriving [Tompkins] of ‘his right to a trial by a jury of his peers which was truly representative of a cross-section of the community’ ” as raising a Batson claim. Tompkins, 774 S.W.2d at 199.
II.
In Trevino v. State, 815 S.W.2d 592 (Tex.Cr.App.1991), we held, as the majority does today, that Trevino’s alleged Batson claim sounded too much like a “fair cross section” complaint and overruled Trevino’s point of error. Trevino, 815 S.W.2d at 598 n. 3. Trevino petitioned the United States Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari. In Trevino v. Texas, — U.S. -, 112 S.Ct. 1547, 118 L.Ed.2d 193 (1992), the Court summarily granted Trevino’s petition for a writ of certiorari and reversed our judgment. The Supreme Court held that Trevino’s trial objection preserved his equal protection appellate claim.
We cannot ignore the fact that were we to hold petitioner had forfeited his equal protection claim by failing to state it with sufficient precision, we would be applying a stricter standard than applied in Batson itself. There petitioner had conceded in the state courts that Swain foreclosed a direct equal protection claim, and he based his argument on the Sixth Amendment and a provision of the Kentucky Constitution. Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S., at 83 [106 S.Ct., at 1715], Yet we treated his allegation of a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment as sufficient to present the question. Id., [476 U.S.] at 84-85, n. 4 [106 S.Ct. at 1716 n. 4]. Because petitioner’s case is here on direct review, he is entitled to the rule we announced in Batson....
Trevino v. Texas, — U.S. at -, 112 S.Ct. at 1550.
Today, the majority, though aware of the Supreme Court’s decision in Trevino, elects to stick its head in the sand and continue on its predetermined course to overrule this point of error. What is particularly disturbing about the majority’s approach is that the State does not contend appellant’s Batson claim is not preserved. Indeed, the State concedes that at the time of appellant’s objection, the State had exercised peremptory challenges against two Mexi*385can-American veniremembers. State’s brief pg. 36. The State only argues that appellant’s point is without merit because
appellant has not established a prima fa-cie case of purposeful racial discrimination on the part of the trial prosecutors in the exercise of their peremptory challenges, and is therefore, not entitled to a Batson hearing. State’s brief pg. 37.
In short, the majority advances an argument not made by the State and then conveniently ignores that the argument has been expressly rejected by the United States Supreme Court.
The majority misses the issue by holding that appellant’s fair cross section objection did not preserve his Batson claim for appellate review. As the Supreme Court recognized, Batson himself made a fair cross section argument. How can the majority recognize that Henry raised a similar cross section complaint on appeal and that we treated it as an Equal Protection claim, Rosales, 841 S.W.2d at 379-380, and now reject appellant’s claim when his objection was virtually identical to the objection lodged in Henryl The issue is whether appellant preserved his Batson claim for appellate review, i.e., did appellant call the issue to the trial judge’s attention at “some point during the pendency of the trial” as required by Mathews, supra? The issue is not whether appellant is entitled to relief under a Sixth Amendment argument which was rejected in Holland and Seubert.
The majority, without explanation and in complete defiance of the decision in Trevino v. Texas, as well as the prior decisions of this court, holds appellant to a much higher standard than the similarly situated defendants in Batson, Henry, DeBlanc, Chambers, Tompkins and Trevino. Apparently the majority has decided to take a “wait and see” approach by passing appellant’s shuck to the Supreme Court. Consistent with our precedent, this appeal should be abated with instructions to the trial court to conduct further proceedings consistent with Batson.
With these comments, I respectfully dissent.3
MILLER and OVERSTREET, JJ„ join this opinion.

. The majority states: “We have also declined since Henry to except Batson error from ordinary rules of procedural default." Rosales, 841 S.W.2d at 380. That statement is clearly erroneous. In DeBlanc v. State, 732 S.W.2d 640, 642 (Tex.Cr.App.1987), we unanimously held:
... Although we caution defense attorneys that such efforts would be inadequate in cases tried after Batson, we are compelled by fairness to hold that appellant has properly preserved the issue.

. Unless otherwise indicated, all emphasis herein is supplied by the author.

. The majority's disposition of the remaining points of error is premature; therefore, I express no opinion on the remaining points of error.