Court Opinion

ID: 9778906
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 21:25:35.281545+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:33:15.700806
License: Public Domain

TEAGUE, Judge,
dissenting.
Adhering to my views that I set out in the dissenting opinion that I filed on original submission, I respectfully dissent to the majority opinion’s holding that Toby Lynn Williams, appellant, is precluded from raising the Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986), issue for the first time on appeal because he failed to complain in the trial court when the jury that convicted him and answered the special issues in the affirmative, which assured him to be sentenced by the trial judge to a premature death, was selected. Also see the dissenting opinion that I filed in Mathews v. State, 768 S.W.2d 731 (Tex.Cr.App.1989) (On appellant’s motion for rehearing). (delivered this date).
The majority opinion so holds notwithstanding the fact that at that time neither Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79,106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986), nor its principle that a prosecuting attorney may not blatantly exercise his peremptory strikes on an individual because of his or her race was extant.
*543Notwithstanding that appellant’s trial occurred prior to when Batson was decided, appellant was entitled to receive the benefits of Batson v. Kentucky because it was decided when his case was on appeal. See Griffith v. Kentucky, 479 U.S. 314, 107 S.Ct. 708, 93 L.Ed.2d 649 (1987).