Court Opinion

ID: 9777330
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 20:07:43.724951+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:52.678786
License: Public Domain

OVERRULING OF APPELLANT’S MOTION FOR REHEARING WITHOUT WRITTEN OPINION
TEAGUE, Judge,
dissenting.
This Court previously granted appellant’s motion for rehearing to reconsider the question, whether or not the jury argument of Karen Matkin, one of the prosecuting attorneys in this cause, constitutes reversible error.1 Today, a majority of this Court overrules without written opinion the appellant’s motion, to which ruling I respectfully dissent.
The facts of this cause are rather simple. Appellant, Clara Turnbough, and Nathan Ray were all parties to the robbery of Ronald King, the assistant manager of a Pizza Hut Restaurant in the City of Waco. Appellant and Ray actually committed the robbery, with Turnbough acting as the “get away driver” of the automobile in which all three left the premises after the robbery had occurred. All three were subsequently apprehended in Pensacola, Florida, but were later returned to Waco after charges were filed against them for committing the King robbery. Appellant was tried separately from Ray and Turnbough, but during the appellant’s trial Turnbough testified for the State.
During the appellant’s trial, George Foster, a district attorney’s investigator, testified that shortly before appellant’s trial commenced, he had conversations with Turnbough about the King robbery. However, he also testified on direct examination by one of appellant’s counsel, Alex Tandy, that he also had had conversations with Turnbough about “other matters.” On cross-examination by Malone, one of the *928prosecutors, he was asked what the “other matters” were, but Tandy’s objection to the question was sustained. Nevertheless, Malone asked, without objection from either of appellant’s attorneys, the following question, and received the following answer from Poster.
Q: All right. George, when you were talking to Clara about these other matters, were these things in which she was suspected of some violations of the law?
A: No, sir. (Emphasis added).
On redirect examination, Tandy asked Foster the following questions, and received the following answers:
Q: Mr. Foster, why were you over there is — just how come you to be over there yesterday to talk with Clara Turnbough?
A: I don’t believe I was over there yesterday.
Q: Or whenever you were, the last time you were over there to talk to her — this morning — this morning how come you to be over there and just happen to be talking with her?
A: This morning I went and got her and brought her over here.
Malone, now seeing that the door was slightly ajar, on recross examination and without objection, asked Foster the following questions and received the following answers:
Q: Have you gone up and talked to her in the jail about this case before, George ?
A: This easel
Q: Uh-huh.
A: No, sir.2 (Emphasis added).
Q: You talked to her about other matters in every instance, isn’t that right?
A: Yes, sir, that’s correct.
Q: If Mr. Tandy wants to know how come you were up there talking to her, tell the jury why you were up there talking to her.
A: We were talking to her about two unsolved murders.
Q: All right. That you thought she might have some knowledge about but she was not a suspect. Is that correct, sir?
A: That’s correct.
Q: Just answer this yes or no: Did you have suspects?
A: Yes, sir.
I find that this was the first real injection into the case of any possible extraneous offenses.
Tandy, on further redirect examination, closed out the questioning on the subject by asking Foster the following questions and receiving the following answers:
Q: Have you charged somebody in that?
A: No, sir.
Q: In murder?
A: No, sir.
During final argument, Matkin argued as follows:
What about Clara Turnbough? Well, he began talking about our investigator talking to Clara about two murders. And he said, ‘Yeah, they asked her if they had suspects and then we ended the question — the State ended the question.’ Well, if you will remember, we ended the questions because there are only certain questions we can ask. You know, we have legal questions. You have heard people making objections. We asked all the questions that we legally could ask. And then you heard Mr. Tandy stand up and object, that’s why we quit asking the questions, because we asked all the questions we legally could. Clara knew something about them. Remember, Clara was not the suspect. Clara was not a suspect in those two murders, but she knew something about them. Of course, you know, she had been running around with Jimmy Hightower for the last six months.3
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*929I find that Matkin’s argument fell outside the boundaries of proper jury argument, as enunciated by this Court in Alejandro v. State, 493 S.W.2d 230 (Tex.Cr.App.1973), see also Campbell v. State, 610 S.W.2d 754 (Tex.Cr.App.1981); Todd v. State, 598 S.W.2d 286 (Tex.Cr.App.1980); Dunbar v. State, 551 S.W.2d 382 (Tex.Cr.App.1977). By first stating that, “we quit asking the questions, because we asked all the questions we legally could,” then juxtaposing the fact that Turnbough was questioned about two extraneous offenses, of murder, for which she was not a suspect, and thereafter closing with the statement, “she had been running around with Jimmy Hightower [the appellant] for the last six months,” the probable effect of this argument on the minds of the jurors was to strongly suggest to the jury that the appellant was a primary suspect in the two extraneous offenses of murder. Cf. Albrecht v. State, 486 S.W.2d 97, 100 (Tex.Cr.App.1972).
Though a prosecutor may in argument draw from the facts in evidence all inferences that are reasonable, fair and legitimate, see Alejandro, supra, he may not use jury argument to get before the jury, either directly or indirectly, evidence which may be outside the record. Jackson v. State, 529 S.W.2d 544, 546 (Tex.Cr.App.1975). Matkin was free and at liberty to strike hard blows, but she was not at liberty to strike foul ones, either directly or indirectly. A prosecutor may not make argument that invites speculation by the jurors, and this Court has held that that type argument is even more dangerous than injecting before the jury matters not in evidence, which is clearly improper. By the argument Matkin made, I find that the jurors were left to speculate on whether or not the appellant was under suspicion for committing or being involved in the commission of two unidentified extraneous murder offenses.
In Berryhill v. State, 501 S.W.2d 86 (Tex.Cr.App.1973), the prosecutor’s argument focused upon questions he had asked the defendant in that cause, which questions were answered in the negative by the defendant. Nevertheless, the prosecutor argued:
Now I can’t tell you how I got the things that I was cross-examining him about because here again, I’m on this old tight rope, but stop and think a bit about how his initial response was—
I find the prosecutor’s argument in this cause to be analogous to that made in Ber-ryhill. In each argument, statements were made to the jury that implied the existence of incriminating evidence which was not presented to the jury by the prosecution.
In Berryhill, this Court stated:
* * * * * *
It is our conclusion that the state’s reference to matters upon which cross-examination of appellant was based, and its statement that it could not bring those matters to the jury, followed by the invitation to the jury to speculate on what those matters were, constituted an improper representation that there was other evidence of the guilt of appellant not introduced before the jury, but which nevertheless should be speculated upon. The argument in the instant case implied the existence of incriminating evidence which could not be presented. Cf. Stearn v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 487 S.W.2d 734.
Argument injecting matters not in the record is clearly improper; but argument inviting speculation is even more dangerous because it leaves to the imagination of each juror whatever extraneous ‘facts’ may be needed to support a conviction. Logical deductions from evidence do not permit within the rule logical deductions from non-evidence. Id. at 87
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This Court has often stated that the purpose and objective of arguments by counsel are to discuss the evidence and to assist the jury in arriving at a proper conclusion of the case from all the facts and circumstances proved and admitted in evidence. Improper implications made in argument are not conducive to the attainment of that objective. Stearn v. State, Id. The jury in this cause could have surmised from the complained of argument that the appellant was implicated in two extraneous murder *930offenses. The argument complained of was unwarranted and was of such manifest harmful character that it requires this Court to reverse the conviction.
For the above reasons, the appellant’s motion for rehearing should be granted by this Court and not overruled without written opinion.
ROBERTS, ODOM and CLINTON, JJ., join.

. On original submission, a panel of this Court affirmed appellant’s conviction. For a more detailed recitation of the facts of this cause, the reader is directed to the panel opinion. Because the opinion implies there was only one prosecutor, Lynn Malone, in this cause, when in fact there were two prosecutors, I have taken the liberty of putting in this opinion the name of the other prosecutor, Karen Matkin, who made the complained of jury argument, which argument I will address in this opinion. A majority of the panel in its opinion rejected the appellant’s complaint, holding that the argument of Matkin neither directly nor indirectly indicated that appellant was someway implicated in two extraneous murder offenses, and it was also held that the argument was based upon the evidence adduced at trial. Odom, J. filed a dissenting opinion to the majority’s opinion by Davis T., J.

. The record reflects, through Foster’s testimony not shown here, that when he had his conversation with Turnbough about the King robbery, that conversation occurred at a location other than the county jail.

. Though appellant objected to the argument, his objection was overruled by the trial court.