Court Opinion

ID: 9667213
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:38:41.938858+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:36.043208
License: Public Domain

CADENA, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
I cannot agree that the instruction cured the prejudicial effect of the statement by the witness for the State which called defendant’s silence to the attention of the jury.
*389Even if the reasoning in Williams v. State, 643 S.W.2d 136 (Tex.Crim.App.1982) were persuasive, that decision is not controlling under the facts in this case. One of the “unique facts” which the Williams opinion relies on is that the defendant in that case did not testify. Id. at 138. In this case the defendant did testify.
The reasoning in Williams is contained in the following statement:
In this cause, in light of the facts adduced, the fact that appellant did not testify or offer any evidence, and the additional fact that appellant’s having previously been sentenced to the penitentiary was absolutely and totally irrelevant and immaterial to any issue of the case, we are able to conclude that the unresponsive answer of the witness, Chambers, was error. We further hold that such error was not curable by the instruction that trial judge gave to the jury. However, we also reluctantly hold that the error was not reversible error because of the harmless error doctrine of law. See Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 21-24, 87 S.Ct. 824, 826-828, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967). We are unable to state that there is a reasonable possibility that the part of the unresponsive answer of Chambers, which reflects that the appellant previously had been sentenced to the penitentiary, affected either the jury’s verdict of guilt or the punishment assessed.

Id.

The Court explains its holding as follows:
1. The defendant did not testify and offered no evidence. As already pointed out, in the case before us appellant did testify.
2. The error was not curable by the instruction to disregard. In prior portions of the Williams opinion the court referred to cases holding, as does the majority opinion in this case, that the unresponsive portion of the answer of the witness was admittedly prejudicial. It is difficult to understand how prejudicial error which cannot be cured by an instruction can be held to be “harmless error.”
3.It seems that the Williams opinion accords not a little weight to the fact that the inadmissible testimony was blurted out by a witness in the form of an unresponsive answer and was not intentionally elicited by the prosecuting attorney. Apparently, whether the prejudicial statement constitutes reversible error depends upon whether the prosecution is responsible for presenting it to the jury. There are some who might argue that the important consideration in determining whether the presentation of evidence is harmful does not depend on the degree to which the district attorney is at fault, since the purpose of a reversal is not to punish the prosecutor but to attempt to secure a fair trial to the accused. The damage from testimony such as that involved in Williams and in this case results from the nature of the testimony itself, without reference to the participation of the prosecution in calling it to the jury’s attention. In Williams the jury was told that the defendant had committed at least one other crime. The fact that such information was contained in an unresponsive answer does not reduce its harmful effect.
The Williams rationale is not easily accepted. The argument that prejudicial error which cannot be cured by an instruction is, nevertheless, 'harmless because the defendant did not testify and it resulted from an unresponsive answer for which the prosecutor cannot be blamed does not overwhelm one with the force of its logic.
Williams does not hold, as the majority opinion would have us believe, that, as a general rule, where prejudicial evidence is given to a jury inadvertently, the error is cured by an instruction to disregard. The Williams opinion makes only one statement with reference to the effect of an instruction in such a case, and that statement is simply that such error was not curable by the instruction. Id. at 138.
Another interesting aspect of the Williams opinion is the fact that, in declaring the prejudicial incurable error harmless, the Court said that it could find no reason*390able possibility that the testimony concerning the defendant’s prior conviction affected either the verdict of guilt or the punishment assessed. Since the sentence was based on two prior felony convictions, there is, perhaps, no possibility that the inadmissible testimony could have affected the jury’s determination of guilt or innocence, since the life sentence was mandatory. The evidence, as summarized in the opinion, was that “someone” stole a car from a dealer’s lot, and that some 10 days later defendant was arrested after he had been seen driving what proved to be the stolen vehicle. Assuming that the summary of the evidence is fair, the conviction rested on the fact that on one occasion, less than 10 days from the date of the theft, defendant was seen driving the stolen car. The conviction was based, according to the resume in the opinion, entirely on circumstantial evidence and the so-called presumption that possession of recently stolen property supports an inference of guilt. Under these circumstances, it is hard to accept a conclusion which gratuitously asserts that there is no reasonable possibility that the jury’s verdict was affected by evidence tending to show that the defendant had a propensity for criminal acts.
In the case before us, appellant’s co-defendant gave testimony which tended to show that appellant did nothing which led to the death of the victim, merely helping move the body after the co-defendant had killed the victim. Appellant testified only that he was struggling with the dead woman when his co-defendant struck the deceased on the head with a hammer. Given such testimony, there is no basis for holding that it is impossible to say that there is a reasonable possibility that the unresponsive answer, which called the jury’s attention to the fact that appellant had offered no exculpatory statements previously, contributed to the finding of guilt.
I would reverse the conviction and remand the cause for a new trial, particularly in view of the fact that even if we are willing to accept the unusual reasoning in Williams, that case is distinguishable since here the appellant testified.