Court Opinion

ID: 9760188
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 00:42:30.949975+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:09.048711
License: Public Domain

OPINION ON STATE’S MOTION FOR REHEARING
W. C. DAVIS, Judge.
On original submission, this Court in a panel opinion held the term “witness” as used in Sec. 36.06, V.T.C.A.Penal Code means one who has testified in an official proceeding.
In its motion for rehearing the State contends that had the legislature meant to limit the term “witness” to the meaning given in the panel opinion, such limiting terminology would have been included in Sec. 36.06 as it was in Sec. 36.05.1 The State, arguing that an eyewitness to a crime who is yet to become a testifying witness should be afforded the protection of the statute as he is in a higher degree of vulnerability to retaliatory threats than the *57ordinary citizen, urges that we adopt the dissenting opinion’s construction of the term “witness” as one who perceives an event and relays the information gained to the police.
Upon consideration of the State’s arguments, we remain convinced that the panel on original submission reached the proper result. In response to the State’s arguments, we point out that Sec. 36.06 as written provides protection for those “who relay information gained to the police,” by including informants as a class of individuals protected from retaliation. Furthermore, had the legislature meant to include “prospective witnesses” in the coverage of this statute, such terminology could have been included as in the preceding statute, Sec. 86.-05.
The State’s motion for rehearing is denied.

. Sec. 36.05 reads in pertinent part:
(a) A person commits an offense if, with intent to influence the witness, he offers, confers, or agrees to confer any benefit on a witness or prospective witness in an official proceeding or coerces a witness or prospective witness in an official proceeding... ” (Emphasis added)