Court Opinion

ID: 9666646
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:23:43.532297+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:59:38.264506
License: Public Domain

DAUPHINOT, Justice,
concurring.
I write in concurrence because I respectfully disagree with the majority’s Bander analysis.
The general rule is that when a defendant in a criminal trial successfully moves for a mistrial, he may not thereafter invoke the bar of double jeopardy against a second trial.1 The exception to that general rule is limited to “those eases in which the conduct giving rise to the successful motion for a mistrial was intended to provoke the defendant into moving for a mistrial.”2
I believe that, as this court has done in the past, we should look first to determine whether the case now before this court is governed by the general rule or whether it falls within the narrow exception addressed by Bander.3 As I understand the opinion, the majority begins its analysis with the exception to the rule. The majority does not distinguish between the Bander situation and the situation before this court. Bander dealt with “an objectionable comment [that was] so emotionally inflammatory that curative instructions [were] not likely to prevent the jury being unfairly prejudiced against the defendant.” 4 The majority, relying on Ban-der, concludes that “a mistrial is necessary where a State’s witness invokes his Fifth Amendment rights on cross-examination only when the direct testimony is so inflammatory or prejudicial that an instruction to disregard would not erase the testimony from the minds of the jurors.”5
The majority is incorrect in declaring that an inflammatory event is the sole ground for granting a mistrial. In reversing the Eight Circuit Court of Appeals in Bruton v. United States, the United States Supreme Court held that an instruction to disregard is not “an adequate substitute for petitioner’s constitutional right of cross-examination. The effect is the same as if there had been no *781instruction at all.”6 Thus failure to grant a mistrial when the defendant’s confrontation right is denied is error, and in Bruton, it was reversible error.7 But the error may be found to be harmless if properly admitted evidence of guilt is overwhelming.8
The case before us should be affirmed because
1. The prosecutor engaged in no intentional or reckless misconduct creating an inflammatory event;
2. The trial judge did not act improperly in granting Appellant’s motion for mistrial when it became obvious that, despite the trial judge’s efforts, Appellant would be denied his right to cross-examine the State’s witness against him;9 and
3. Appellant himself requested the mistrial and cannot now complain because it was granted.10
I would specifically hold that the cautious trial judge acted properly. For these reasons, I respectfully concur in the result.

. See Oregon v. Kennedy, 456 U.S. 667, 102 S.Ct. 2083, 72 L.Ed.2d 416 (1982); Torres v. State, 614 S.W.2d 436 (Tex.Crim.App. [Panel Op.] 1981).

. Kennedy, 456 U.S. at 679, 102 S.Ct. at 2091, 72 L.Ed.2d at 427.

. See Ex parte Loffland, 670 S.W.2d 390 (Tex.App.—Fort Worth 1984, pet. ref'd) (Appellant contended that the conduct of the trial judge provoked the defense to request a mistrial. This court found that because there was no intent on the part of the trial judge to provoke the mistrial, no evidence of bad faith conduct by the trial judge, no evidence of intentional misconduct or gross negligence on the part of the trial judge, and no judicial overreaching, the fact that the trial judge should not have granted the mistrial was irrelevant to the issue before this court. Because the Loffland case did not fall within the narrow exception to the general rule, we held that retrial was not barred).

.Bauder v. State, 921 S.W.2d 696, 698 (Tex.Crim.App.1996).

.Slip op. at 779.

. See Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123, 137, 88 S.Ct. 1620, 1628, 20 L.Ed.2d 476, 485-86 (1968).

. See id.

. See Schneble v. Florida, 405 U.S. 427, 430, 92 S.Ct. 1056, 1059, 31 L.Ed.2d 340, 344 (1972).

. See Gori v. United States, 367 U.S. 364, 365-70, 81 S.Ct. 1523, 1524-28, 6 L.Ed.2d 901, 903-05 (1961) (refusing to hold that retrial after a mistrial granted sua sponte was necessarily double jeopardy and stating that the U.S. Supreme Court would not force federal trial courts to refrain from "exercisfing] their most sensitive judgment — according to their own lights in the immediate exigencies of trial — for the more effective protection of the criminal accused”).

.See Kennedy, 456 U.S. at 679, 102 S.Ct. at 2091, 72 L.Ed.2d at 427; Torres, 614 S.W.2d at 441.