Court Opinion

ID: 9665563
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 00:51:28.980493+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:16.735916
License: Public Domain

DUGGAN, Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent from the en banc majority’s refusal to grant the State’s motion for rehearing. I would grant the motion to rehear en banc, withdraw our panel opinion issued upon appellant’s motion for rehearing, and affirm the trial court’s judgment. The original panel, of which I was part, erred in the analysis in our opinion on appellant’s motion for rehearing, in which we reversed appellant’s conviction.
The panel opinion on appellant’s motion for rehearing correctly acknowledges that appellant was not required to demand that the State make an election because “the State introduced evidence of only one act of possession, i.e., the cocaine found in the rear of the patrol car.” Election was not involved. When the State rested its case-in-chief, appellant was not without notice of what act he was called upon to defend. During the presentation of the defense’s case, appellant placed before the jury by his judicial confession the fact of a separate act of possession of cocaine, one that met all the elements of the indictment. The basis for requiring a State’s election was simply not present; the State presented only one of the two fact scenarios shown.
The panel opinion on rehearing then proceeds to state — erroneously, I believe — that “[wjhen appellant took the stand and admitted possessing cocaine earlier [on the same day], an act that would also fit within the terms of the indictment, he was admitting that he committed an extraneous offense; he was not admitting that he committed the offense charged and proved up by the State.” (Emphasis added.) The quoted and italicized words point up the majority’s two errors: (1) rejecting the offense proved by appellant’s judicial confession by labelling it as “extraneous,” contrary to the well established definí*18tion of that term; and (2) assuming that only State’s evidence is allowed to prove an indictment.
The “extraneous” offense
Appellant argues in his brief that his judicial confession was to “a prior uncharged possession,” or “an uncharged collateral offense.” The panel opinion’s characterization of the defense-proved possession as an “extraneous offense” erroneously accepts that argument.
Appellant’s judicial confession to possession of cocaine was not an extraneous offense, as the term is interpreted. This Court has previously recognized the accepted definition of an “extraneous offense” as “any act of misconduct, whether resulting in prosecution or not, that is not shown in the charging papers.” McDonald v. State, 692 S.W.2d 169, 173 (Tex.App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 1985, pet. ref'd) (emphasis added); Gomez v. State, 626 S.W.2d 113, 114 (Tex.App.—Corpus Christi 1981, pet. ref'd); Shugart v. State, 796 S.W.2d 288, 294 (Tex.App.—Beaumont 1990, pet. ref'd). Clearly, the act of possession of cocaine to which appellant judicially confessed is described precisely in the indictment; is therefore “shown in the charging papers;” and is consequently not an extraneous offense.
What evidence suffices to prove an indictment’s allegations?
The panel opinion’s second erroneous basis for striking down appellant’s judicial confession as improper proof under the indictment is that the judicial confession was not “proved up by the State,” but by the defense. I know of no limitation on sufficiency of evidence that restricts proof of the elements of an indictment to one side or the other. Jurors are routinely instructed that they are the exclusive judges of the facts proved, the credibility of the witnesses, and the weight to be given to the evidence. They are not instructed that proof of any element must come from one party or the other.
Further, it is well settled that sufficiency of the evidence is measured by the charge that was given the jury. Boozer v. State, 111 S.W.2d 608, 610 (Tex.Crim.App.1984); Ortega v. State, 668 S.W.2d 701, 703 (Tex.Crim.App.1983); Benson v. State, 661 S.W.2d 708, 714-15 (Tex.Crim.App.1982). Whether the jury chose to believe the State’s testimony or the defendant’s judicial confession, either version constituted evidence that met every element of the offense set out in the indictment and the charge.
I would hold that the prosecutor did not err in closing argument by inviting the jury to consider both the State’s and the defendant’s versions of the evidence, and to convict under either.
I would grant the State’s motion for en banc hearing, set aside the panel’s opinion on rehearing, and affirm the trial court’s judgment.
MIRABAL, WILSON, and HEDGES, JJ., join in the dissent.