Court Opinion

ID: 9768165
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 05:44:56.485182+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:37.027681
License: Public Domain

MEYERS, Judge,
concurring.
Like the majority, I cannot subscribe to an understanding of Dunn v. State, 721 S.W.2d 325 (Tex.Crim.App.1986) that requires per se inadmissibility of those confessions tendered after a statement-taking officer both gives a proper Tex.Code Chim. PROC. Ann. art. 38.22 § 2(a)(2) warning and later states that the confession can be used “for or against” the defendant. Once the defendant has been properly admonished that his statements may be used against him at trial he has been properly warned under art. 38.22 § 2(a)(2). And like the majority, I agree that the issue in this case does not even involve the statutory or constitutional adequacy of the pre-interrogation warnings, but instead involves whether appellant voluntarily confessed under the totality of the circumstances. In other words, appellant’s claim cannot be resolved by merely applying the test, as set out in Fisher v. State, 379 S.W.2d 900 (Tex.Crim.App.1964), for determining when a promise renders a confession inadmissible. This is so because, as the majority asserts, there is more to appellant’s claim than the making of a promise. But not much more. In fact, his claim, as set out in the majority’s opinion, includes only one circumstance that does not appear to be an inducement by promise. Specifically, the investigator’s alleged comment that appellant would be found guilty if he chose to go to trial is not a promise, but rather a statement spoken, perhaps, to create fear in appellant’s mind. All of the other circumstances set out in appellant’s claim appear to me to be in the nature of a promise. Because the majority’s opinion might be misunderstood to suggest that there is much more to appellant’s claim than that he was made promises so that he would confess, I can concur in the result only.