Court Opinion

ID: 9659595
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 21:50:21.890562+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:03:40.438815
License: Public Domain

LEVY, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent.
Where a prosecutor deliberately pollutes the factfinding process by questions which he knows are improper, seeking to elicit evidence that he knows is inadmissible, an appellate court should carefully, if not meticulously, scrutinize the record to see that the harm thereby inflicted on the accused is not of reversible dimensions.
Specific objections were timely made by defense counsel in the case at bar, and the issue of prosecutorial misconduct is squarely before this court, as disclosed by the quotations from the trial in the majority opinion. Two instances that are especially grievous — but not exclusive — are as follows:
(1) Q: Were you in court the day that Mr. Russell testified as to what happened out there?
A: No, sir.
Q: Would it surprise you if he said that you were the one that pulled the gun?
MR. DOWELL: I object again, Your Honor.
THE COURT: Sustained.
MR. DOWELL: I ask that the jury be instructed to disregard the last statement.
THE COURT: Don’t consider it for any purpose.
MR. DOWELL: It is outside the record and it is hearsay and the prosecutor is testifying and we move for a mistrial.
THE COURT: It’s overruled.
(2) Q: Do you understand that Randy never said anything about a sale of marijuana going on in this transaction?
MR. DOWELL: Your Honor, I object to this last statement. The prosecutor is testifying to facts outside the record.
MR. RAWLINGS: Your Honor, I am asking him if he knows.
THE COURT: That will be overruled.
THE WITNESS: I don’t know.
This mode of interrogation, calculated to suggest — impermissibly, if not falsely — to the jury that events about which the prosecutor inquired had actually occurred, to the discredit of the accused, has been thoroughly and consistently condemned by the Court of Criminal Appeals. See Washburn *440v. State, 299 S.W.2d 706, 708 (Tex.Crim.App.1956), and the cases cited therein.
It is almost a platitude to observe that the primary function of the prosecutor, as an officer of the State, is not to win a case, but to see that justice is done. See Taylor v. State, 653 S.W.2d 295, 302 (Tex.Crim.App.1983); Lackey v. State, 148 Tex.Crim. 623, 624, 190 S.W.2d 364, 365 (1945); Short v. State, 79 Tex.Crim. 426, 187 S.W. 955 (1916). All prosecutors may take comfort in the sure knowledge that the State wins its point, not necessarily when the prosecution triumphs, but when justice is done in the courts. This distinction is sometimes crucial.
I cannot safely say that the cumulative misconduct of the prosecutor was harmless to the appellant or that deterrence of such misconduct will likely result from its passive acceptance by this court.
I would sustain the appellant’s second, third, and fourth grounds of error, reverse the judgment of the trial court, and remand for a new trial.