Court Opinion

ID: 9641337
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:29:27.727781+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:36.080386
License: Public Domain

ONION, Presiding Judge
(concurring).
The majority apparently misconstrues appellant’s ground of error as to the admissibility of his confession, over objection, without the proper predicate being laid. The majority construes the same as a request for a second Jackson v. Denno hearing before the jury.1 This was not the basis of the objection. Following a separate hearing, in absence of the jury, the court concluded as a matter of law and as a matter of fact that the confession was voluntary and admissible. Upon the return of the jury, the District Attorney, without more, began to read from the confession. The appellant objected stating no predicate had been laid in the presence of the jury to show that the proper warnings, required by Article 38.22, Vernon’s Ann.C.C.P., and the decision in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), had been given, and no showing that the appellant had signed and executed the confession. After a conference in chambers the trial judge overruled the objection and permitted the prosecutor to immediately read the confession without any prima facie predicate being laid for its admissibility in the presence of the jury.
The appellant contends he subsequently offered no evidence challenging the volun-tariness of the confession in the presence of the jury because he was relying upon the error of the court in permitting the jury to consider the extra-judicial confession without any prima facie predicate showing that he had executed the same or had received prior to giving the confession the statutory and constitutional warnings.
It appears to be appellant’s contention that if there had been no separate Jackson v. Denno hearing the State would have been required to lay a proper predicate for the introduction of the confession, and that the existence of a separate hearing did not *350relieve the State of this burden as the jury, by virtue of Article 38.22, supra, is not to be informed of the court’s findings in regard to a separate hearing to determine the voluntariness of the confession.
The State appears to argue that, in the circumstances of the instant case, no predicate in the presence of the jury was required as the court, in the jury’s absence, had already determined the voluntariness and admissibility of the confession and that after the confession was read to the jury the appellant was free to raise the issue of voluntariness, and then, and only then, would the State be required to prove before the jury that the warnings required by the statute and the Miranda decision were given and that the appellant executed the same.
In 24 Tex.Jur.2d Evidence § 671, pp. 274-276, it is written:
“The prosecution has the burden of proving that a confession of the accused is admissible in evidence. More specifically, before a confession can be admitted in evidence, the prosecution must lay a proper predicate for its admission by showing that the accused made it voluntarily in the absence of force or improper inducement. Furthermore, if the confession was made while the accused was under arrest or in confinement, the prosecution must show that the provisions of the statute governing the admissibility of confessions made under arrest or in confinement have been complied with or that the confession is admissible under an exception to such provisions.”
Further, it has been held that the admissibility of a written confession is controlled by the general rule relative to admission of documents by showing execution thereof by the party charged to have executed it. Beltran v. State, 144 Tex.Cr.R. 338, 163 S.W.2d 211 (1942); Richardson v. State, 92 Tex.Cr.R. 526, 244 S.W. 1021 (Tex.Cr.App.1922).
Nothing in Article 38.22, supra, as amended in 1967, in my opinion, changes the foregoing rules.
In my opinion, the court erred in failing to require the State to lay a prima facie predicate so that the jury would have evidence that the appellant did, in fact, sign the confession after he had been administered the proper warnings. I conclude, however, the error to be harmless error. After the admission of the confession before the jury, subsequent testimony did reflect that the appellant was properly warned. Further, while no evidence was offered before the jury that appellant signed the confession, the testimony offered before the court showed that he did execute it and appellant makes no claim that he did not sign the confession but only claims he was improperly induced to sign it. Under these circumstances, I cannot conclude that failure to lay the proper predicate calls for a new trial in this case. Cf. Richardson v. State, supra.
In concurring I must further point out my disagreement with the majority’s view that since the appellant offered no testimony on the confession’s voluntariness that “ . . . our only concern must necessarily be the admissibility of the confession as a matter of law. Morris v. State,” (488 S.W.2d 768 (Tex.Cr.App.1973)). If Morris, in which this writer did not participate, stands for the proposition that an accused waives any question of the voluntariness of a confession as a matter of fact by not offering evidence thereon in the jury’s presence following an adverse ruling by the court in a separate hearing, then Morris is wrongly decided.
Further, I would note that nothing in Scott v. State, 434 S.W.2d 678 (Tex.Cr.App.1968), cert. den. 395 U.S. 925, 89 S.Ct. 1781, 23 L.Ed.2d 242, cited by the majority, supports the theory that no predicate need be laid in the jury’s presence if there has been a separate Jackson v. Denno hearing.
For the reason stated, I concur.

. Under tlie Massachusetts rule adopted by this court in Lopez v. State, 384 S.W".2d 345 (Tex.Cr.App.1964), and by the enactment of Article 38.22, Ternon’s Ann.C.C.P., by the Legislature following the decision in Jackson v. Denno, 378 U.S. 368, 84 S.Ct. 1774, 12 L.Ed.2d 908 (1964), an accused is entitled to raise the issue of voluntariness and present evidence thereon and have the issue of voluntariness and admissibility submitted ' to the jury under appropriate instructions. The jury may still disregard the confession and by its own deliberation, under instruction, find it to have been involuntarily given despite the fact of a separate hearing before the court finding the confession voluntary. Cf. Harris v. State, 457 S.W.2d 903, 916 (Tex.Cr.App.1970), reversed on other grounds, 403 U.S. 947, 91 S.Ct. 2291, 29 L.Ed.2d 859 (1971).