Court Opinion

ID: 9683276
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 13:25:43.181853+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:46.824920
License: Public Domain

OPINION ON STATE’S PETITION FOR DISCRETIONARY REVIEW
PER CURIAM.
V.T.C.A. Penal Code, § 43.23(c)(1) provides that a person commits an offense if, knowing its content and character, he possesses with intent to promote any obscene device. Charged inter alia on the presumptions prescribed by § 43.23(e) and (f), respectively, a jury found appellant guilty of possessing with intent to promote an ob*102scene device, namely, twenty nine dildos, knowing the content and character of the device. The Houston (1st) Court of Appeals reversed the judgment of conviction, finding the statutory presumptions are facially unconstitutional because violative of the First, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, but concluding:
“Without the presumptions created by the 43.23(e) and (f) there was sufficient evidence to convict the appellant under the valid sections of 43.23. However, the court’s charge on the effect of 43.23(e) and (f) constitutes reversible error, and the judgment of the trial court is therefore reversed and the cause remanded.”
Hall v. State, 646 S.W.2d 489 (Tex.App.—Houston (1st), 1982).
In its petition for discretionary review the sole ground presented by the State is that the court of appeals erred in holding that the trial court’s jury charge on the presumptions of § 43.23(e) and (f) constituted reversible error because the statutory presumptions are facially unconstitutional. We granted leave to file the petition for review February 16, 1983, in order to consider the ground asserted by the State along with several other causes that seemed similarly situated: e.g., Skinner v. State, 647 S.W.2d 686 (Tex.App.—Houston (1st) 1982), and Davis v. State, (Tex.App.—Waco, No. 10-81—119-CR, delivered July 8, 1982). Later developments now dictate that we reverse the judgment of the Houston (1st) Court of Appeals in this cause.
We reversed the judgment in Skinner on insufficient evidence to convict, finding that “regardless of the applicability of the presumption stated in subsection 43.23(e), no rational trier of fact could have found appellant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt ...,” Skinner v. State, 652 S.W.2d 773 (Tex.Cr.App.1983). On the other hand we reversed the judgment of the Waco Court of Appeals in Davis v. State, finding inter alia that “the presumption provided by Sec. 43.23(e) must fall,” Davis v. State, 658 S.W.2d 572 (Tex.Cr.App., 1983) and have this day denied State’s motion for rehearing with written opinion.
In the instant cause we conclude that the error found by the court of appeals in the charge to the jury with respect to the presumptions is not reversible error, for the court also found, and we agree, that even without application of the presumptions the evidence was sufficient to convict appellant. Thus, we need not, and do not, reach the holding that § 43.23(f), as well as § 43.-23(e), is unconstitutional. Skinner v. State, supra, at 776.
The judgment of the court of appeals is reversed and the judgment of conviction in the trial court is affirmed.