Court Opinion

ID: 9682612
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 08:14:48.13166+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:40.403986
License: Public Domain

TEAGUE, Judge,
concurring.
In its opinion on original submission, this Court, relying upon the Supreme Court’s decision of Smith v. California, 361 U.S. 147, 80 S.Ct. 215, 4 L.Ed.2d 205 (1959), stated the following:
When considering the validity or the applicability of a statutory presumption that may impinge or infringe upon First Amendment freedoms, we must closely and carefully scrutinize and examine such a presumption before it can ever be upheld and sustained.
This Court further stated the following in its original opinion:
Our research has yet to reveal a single instance where a statutory presumption, such as this one, which could infringe upon the freedom of speech or press, has, standing alone, ever survived constitutional challenge or muster, and neither the Court of Appeals nor the State directs our attention to such a case.*
This Court held on original submission that because a First Amendment freedom was implicated at the outset in this cause, the statutory presumption provided by V.T. C.A., Sec. 43.23(e), could not be used to obtain appellant’s conviction. Had there been no First Amendment right implicated in this cause, then the statutory presumption might have been upheld.
*585The majority on rehearing correctly points out the following: “The New York court [People v. Kirkpatrick, 32 N.Y.2d 17, 343 N.Y.S.2d 70, 295 N.E.2d 753 (New York 1973), appeal dismissed for want of a substantial question sub nom., Kirkpatrick v. New York, 414 U.S. 948, 94 S.Ct. 283, 38 L.Ed.2d 204 (1974) ] held that the conviction in that cause would stand regardless of the validity of the presumption because there was enough evidence to satisfy the requirement of scienter without resorting to the statutory presumption of New York Penal Law, Sec. 235.10. Thus, the alternative reasoning of the New York court in affirming the conviction failed to present to the Supreme Court a controversy to resolve, thus no substantial question.”
Thus, the New York court, when confronted with the issue, unlike this Court, was able to use an alternative method of disposing of its case. This Court, in its original opinion, did quote from Chief Justice Fuld’s dissenting opinion, but did so only in the context of the First Amendment issue that confronted this Court.
The State’s motion for rehearing is correctly overruled.

 The State argues that People v. Kirkpatrick, 32 N.Y.2d 17, 343 N.Y.S.2d 70, 295 N.E.2d 753 (New York 1973), appeal dismissed for want of a substantial question sub. nom., Kirkpatrick v. New York, 414 U.S. 948, 94 S.Ct. 283, 38 L.Ed.2d 204 (1974) holds that a presumption similar to Sec. 43.23(e) will stand challenge or muster in the face of an implicated First Amendment right. However, it does not so hold, as the majority on rehearing correctly explains. See post.