Court Opinion

ID: 9776869
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 19:47:16.688335+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:43.851903
License: Public Domain

MORRISON, Judge
(dissenting).
My Brethren overrule appellant’s motion for rehearing, but I cannot bring myself to join them in such action. This is so because after further study, I have become convinced that the following portion of the opinion which I prepared originally is entirely erroneous, to-wit: “His claim that the court erred in permitting the prosecutor to question appellant as to the truthfulness of his statement, to which question the appellant answered, ‘The things in the statement are not- true’, need not be *439considered because even if inadmissible, the jury was not present, and this Court has always held that the court is presumed not to have considered inadmissible evidence.” I would be a poor judge indeed if I was not always ready to admit that I had erred. I overlooked the fact that appellant was questioned repeatedly, over strenuous objections, about the truth or falsity of certain admissions contained in the confession; for example, he was asked, “You told Officer Dunlap the truth when you gave him the statement and the things that went into the statement are the things that you told Officer Dunlap?”
It is now apparent that the question here presented may not be disposed of, as I did originally, by reference to Texas procedure because it has reached Federal Constitutional dimensions. My conviction arises from a re-examination of Rogers v. Richmond, 365 U.S. 534, 81 S.Ct. 735, 5 L.Ed.2d 760, and cases which followed the holding of the Supreme Court in that case. In Rogers, supra, the Supreme Court of the United States was reviewing a State court conviction where the trial court in the absence of the jury on a hearing as to the voluntary nature of the confession had considered the truth or falsity of the confession as one element of its reliability authorizing its introduction. The Court in reversing the State court conviction said, “Any consideration of this ‘reliability’ element was constitutionally precluded, precisely because the force which it carried with the trial judge cannot be known.” Rogers, supra, was later cited as authority on this question in Jackson v. Denno, 378 U.S. 368, 84 S.Ct. 1774, 12 L.Ed.2d 908; see also 1 A.L.R.3d 1205. This latter case was the basis for the reversal of our own decision in Lopez v. State, 366 S.W.2d 587.
On remand from the Supreme Court of the United States, Lopez v. State, 384 S.W.2d 345, we incorporated the Jackson v. Denno rule and said:
“In new trials arising hereunder and in future trials in this state where there is a fair question of voluntariness of a confession of the defendant, the trial judge shall grant to the defendant the opportunity to object to the use of said confession; shall grant a fair hearing before the Court on the issue of volun-tariness, and from all of the evidence and without regard to the truth or falsity of the confession, shall make a clear cut determination of the voluntariness of the confession, including the resolution of disputed facts upon which the voluntariness issue may depend. Upon request, such hearing shall be held and the court’s ruling made in the absence of the jury. Unless the trial judge is satisfied that the confession was voluntarily made he shall exclude it. If the confession has been found to have been voluntarily made and held admissible by the Court, it is recommended that the trial judge enter an order stating his findings, which order should be filed among the papers of the cause but not exhibited to the jury. Should the defendant testify at such a hearing, the cross-examination of the defendant shall be limited solely to the facts surrounding the voluntariness of the confession, and the defendant shall not be subject to cross-examination except for the limited purpose of facts involving the voluntary nature of his confession, nor shall the defendant be compelled to take the stand upon the trial of the cause upon its merits because of his testimony at this hearing.”
What I have said above is consistent with the reasoning in my recent dissent in Hill v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 403 S.W.2d 421.
Realizing the error of my ways in time, I respectfully dissent to the action of my Brethren.