Court Opinion

ID: 9767480
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 05:20:23.434332+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:31.403077
License: Public Domain

CLINTON, Judge,
concurring.
Several points pressed by appellant warrant deeper examination and more consideration, in my judgment, though they may not require reversal.
Early on in Texas, as a republic and then a state, without guidance of legislatively enacted specific challenges for cause, judges were left to work with judicial gloss on common law rules as they understood *265them from available sources.1 Even without supporting authority we may surmise that appellate courts were inclined to defer to discretion exercised by trial judges in ruling on objections to particular venireper-sons.
Of course, first the Congress and then the Legislature passed substantive and procedural laws governing criminal law matters. See generally contemporaneous volumes of Gammel’s Laws of Texas. To provide easier access and understanding, the Constitution of 1845 mandated that the Legislature cause to be revised, digested, arranged and published, all civil and criminal laws. One result is the Old Code, which later served as a pattern for subsequent revisions.2
That provisions of civil and criminal statutes are independent of each other in treating challenges for cause, as discerned by Judge W.L. Davidson in Hunter v. State, supra, was acknowledged by the Court as late as Shelby v. State, 479 S.W.2d 31, at 37 (Tex.Cr.App.1972). But three years later, in Moore v. State, 542 S.W.2d 664 (Tex.Cr.App.1976), the Court resorted to decisions in civil cases as a rule of decision, viz:
“Article 35.16(a), supra, provides that, ‘(a) A challenge for cause is an objection made to a particular juror alleging some fact which renders him incapable or unfit to serve on the jury ...’ * * * * We find nothing in the statute which renders these lists an exclusive basis for challenges for cause. Challenges for cause not based on any ground mentioned in the statute are ordinarily addressed to the sound discretion of the trial judge. See and cf. Texas Power and Light Company v. Adams, 404 S.W.2d 930 (Tex. Civ. App., Tyler 1966 — no writ); City of Hawkins v. E.B. Germany and Sons, 425 S.W.2d 23 (Tex.Civ.App., Tyler 1968, writ ref, n.r.e.).”
Id., at 669. Moore begat progeny such as Nichols v. State, 754 S.W.2d 185, at 193 (Tex.Cr.App.1988), relied on by the Court in this cause. Opinion, at 253-254.
Therefore, despite best efforts by our Legislature to particularize grounds for challenging venirepersons for cause, as the opinion of the Court demonstrates, ultimately the ruling is still a matter of discretion in the trial court. Here again then, as the maxim goes, “The more things change, the more they remain the same.”
Thus here though not a specified cause, a personal “hardship” renders prospective juror Sherry Haskin “unfit,” and amounts to *266something akin to an “excuse sufficient” for the trial judge to uphold State’s challenge. Opinion, Part III, at 253-254. That is to say, the Legislature really did not intend to require a qualified person to perform one’s civic duty to serve as a juror where the judge is willing to let “excuse” serve as “cause.”
Jacquelyn Joy Scott “could never vote to assess as little as five years for the offense of murder,” and she withstood “confusion” engendered by exploratory interrogation sufficiently to support a reasonable inference that she adhered to her position stoutly enough to warrant the trial judge in sustaining a challenge for cause made by the prosecution, opinion, Part IV, at 254-255, who never would have so much as suggested the minimum punishment, for a killing the State alleged constituted capital murder of a peace officer. Sophistry, thy name is now discretion.3
Regarding the eighth point of error, the problem is meaning of the last sentence in Article 37.071, § (a); viz:
“The state and the defendant or his counsel shall be permitted to present *267argument for or against sentence of death.”
Given that jurors are charged to resolve two or three specific issues, the question naturally arises as to the legislative intendment in mandating that parties be allowed to argue for or against a sentence of death and life imprisonment.
That drafters of the committee substitute the Senate sent to conference drew heavily on related provisions of the Model Penal Code written by the American Law Institute, just as legislators in Florida obviously, and in Georgia to some degree, had done in enacting statutes then extant, has been chronicled in, e.g., Beets v. State, 767 S.W.2d 711 (Tex.Cr.App.1988). (Clinton, J., dissenting); see and compare its appendices with Proffitt v. Florida, 428 U.S. 242, at 248, 96 S.Ct. 2960, at 2964-2965, 49 L.Ed.2d 913 (1976); Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, at 160, 163-164, 193, 96 S.Ct. 2909, at 2919, 2920-2921, 2935, 49 L.Ed.2d 859 (1976); see also State v. Dixon, 283 So.2d 1 (Fla.1973), and Coley v. State, 231 Ga. 829, 204 S.E.2d 612 (1974).
Thus in Florida: “Both the prosecution and the defense may present argument on whether the death penalty shall be imposed.” 4 In Georgia: “The judge [or jury] shall also hear argument by the defendant or his counsel and the prosecuting attorney ... regarding the punishment to be imposed.” 5
In Florida the verdict is only advisory; the actual sentence is decided by the judge. Id., at 248-249, S.Ct., at 2965. In Georgia the judge is bound by the sentence recommended by the jury, id., at 166, S.Ct., at 2922, including a binding recommendation of mercy, id., at 197, S.Ct., at 2936.
In context of statutory provisions crafted by legislators in Florida, patently arguments for and against a sentence of death or regarding punishment to be imposed must be related to aggravating and mitigating circumstances that the jury is charged to consider, determine and weigh in making its recommendation. Indeed, the statute expressly provides the jury shall base its recommended sentence to life or death upon considerations of whether sufficient mitigating circumstances outweigh aggravating circumstances. State v. Dixon, supra, at 5; see Senate Committee Substitute, § 1(E). General argument on the abstract proposition that capital punishment is or is not a deterrent to crime does not tend to make more or less probable existence of a prescribed aggravating or mitigating circumstance.
Acts 1973, 63rd Leg., Ch. 426, p. 1122, is the product of the Conference Committee on House Bill 200. Concerning the issue being investigated, the conference committee believed it resolved differences between the Senate amendment to the Code of Criminal Procedure to provide “standards for jury consideration of penalty,” on one *268hand, and House provision making death penalty mandatory, on the other, by “re-duc[ing] number of standards from Senate version.” See Analysis of Conference Committee Report appended to my dissenting opinion in Beets v. State, supra.6
Senate conferees may well have contemplated, and persuaded House conferees, that a relevancy relationship would be still obtain under the “reduced number of standards” as they intended it be between “argument for or against sentence of death” and specific aggravating and mitigating circumstances under their committee substitute. However, we cannot be reasonably confident that the conference committee devised and recommended, and the Legislature adopted, a scheme which bars a deterrence argument.
Replicating that certain unsettled tension between mandatory and discretionary imposition of the death penalty, reflected in e.g., McGautha v. California, 402 U.S. 183, 91 5.Ct. 1454, 28 L.Ed.2d 711 (1971), and Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 92 S.Ct. 2726, 33 L.Ed.2d 346 (1972), representatives of respective legislative bodies brought to conference table two diametrical solutions: from the House a bill that called for mandatory sentence of death; from the Senate a committee substitute providing for discretionary assessment of punishment based on weighing aggravating and mitigating circumstances attending the' offense and the offender. To resolve their differences conferees ultimately settled on a hybrid form of modified discretionary determination, viz: jurors would receive evidence as to “any matter [deemed] relevant to sentence,” hear argument for and against sentence of death and then answer two or three special issues “yes” and “no.” Article 37.071(a), (b) and (c).
On first impression the Court found that proceeding “limits the standardless imposition of the death penalty,” viz:
. It limits the jury’s discretion on the range of punishment to life imprisonment of death_ These questions direct and guide their deliberations. They channel the jury’s consideration on punishment and effectively insure against the arbitrary and wanton imposition of the death penalty.”
Jurek v. State, 522 S.W.2d 934, 939 (Tex.Cr.App.1975).
To suggest in argument that, because it does not deter crime jurors ought not to answer the issues in such a way as to preclude imposition of the death penalty, conceivably might invite an exercise of discretion several Justices seemed to deplore in Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 92 S.Ct. 2726, 33 L.Ed.2d 346 (1972). Yet, having studied State v. Dixon, supra, and Coley v. State, 231 Ga. 829, 204 S.E.2d 612 (1974), in Jurek the late Judge Morrison wrote for the Court that “mere presence of discretion in the sentencing process” is not violative of Furman v. Georgia, viz:
“... To eliminate all discretion on the part of the jury would be to risk elimination that valuable element which permits individualization based on consideration of all extenuating circumstances and would eliminate the element of mercy, one of the fundamental traditions of our system of criminal jurisprudence.”
Id., at 940.
Moreover, in Jurek v. Texas, 428 U.S. 262, 96 S.Ct. 2950, 49 L.Ed.2d 929 (1976), while the plurality opinion did not address that “element of mercy” in upholding constitutionality of our capital murder statutes, it did reject contentions that “arbitrariness still pervades the entire criminal justice system in Texas,” by reference to “the reasons set out in our opinion today in *269Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S., at 199, 96 S.Ct., at 2937.” Id., at 274, S.Ct., at 2957. Therein, preliminarily the plurality pointed out, “The existence of these discretionary stages [including exercise of discretion by a jury] is not determinative of the issues before us,” contrasted Furman, and confirmed, “Nothing in any of our cases suggests that the decision to afford an individual defendant mercy violates the Constitution.” Gregg v. Georgia, supra.
In the instant cause appellant began to expound on “two theories of deterrence,” specific and general; explaining first that execution of an offender will deter him from crime, but that may also be done by locking him in the penitentiary for his lifetime, counsel urged, “You don’t have to be barbaric. You don’t have to decide that you will kill to obtain that result.” When he turned to “general deterrent,” nearly every remark caught an objection which the court sustained. Set out in the margin is the final colloquy in the court below that reveals more clearly the nature and rationale of argument counsel for appellant was precluded from making.7
The majority appears to agree the parties may argue for and against sentence of death in the particular case on trial, by asserting how jurors should answer special issues under extant factual circumstances. But, opining that the matter of deterrence is “an empirical question and beyond the factfinding powers [of courts and trial juries],” immaterial and “necessarily means an argument against affirmative answers to the special jury issues,” the majority ends its analysis by saying:
“... A juror is not at liberty to answer any of the special issues in the negative based in whole or on part upon the argument appellant wanted to make in this case. Accordingly, there is no basis for concluding that he was entitled to make it.”
Opinion at 256-257.
We may grant that such an argument does not directly invoke evidentiary circumstances. However, discretion of jurors in a capital case is not so circumscribed as to exclude the element of mercy, recognized and acknowledged by the Court in Jurek to be a fundamental tradition in our criminal justice system. See also Gregg v. Georgia, supra, at 197, S.Ct., at 2936 (while authorized to consider aggravating and mitigating circumstances, jury need not find any mitigating circumstance in order to recommend mercy). Thus, like Florida and Georgia, Texas “plainly made an effort to guide the jury in the exercise of its discretion, while at the same time permitting the jury to dispense mercy on the basis of factors too intangible to write into a statute,” Gregg v. Georgia, supra, (Justice White, concurring in the judgment, id., at 222, S.Ct., at 2947). It seems to me, therefore, that either side may construct a plausible argument that at least alludes to the subject, particularly when in a context of reasonable doubt it is related to the element of mercy.
Nevertheless, the argument being made by appellant is not so subtle. We cannot know whether he was leading the jury to some such point because after the trial court ruled out the notion that capital pun*270ishment is not a “general deterrent” he failed to favor the record with any indication of where his argument was going.
With those observations and reservations, I join the judgment of the Court.

. The Constitution of the Republic enjoined Congress to introduce by statute the common law of England, modified as required by circumstances, and declared that "in all criminal cases the common law shall be the rule of decision," article IV, § 13; it further directed Congress to make laws to exclude from serving on juries persons thereafter convicted of ‘bribery, perjury, or other high crimes and misdemeanors," General Provisions, § 1. By Act of December 20, 1836, Congress adopted &e common law of England insofar as it applied to juries and evidence, and by Act of January 20, 1840, Congress made the common law the rule of decision where not inconsistent with the Constitution and other acts of Congress. Introduction to Constitution of Texas, 3 Vernon’s Constitution of the State of Texas 503, at 507.

. Old Code articles 575 and 576, C.C.P., codified certain common law rules, most of which are extant today. There were “principle causes,” e.g., prior conviction, unlisted, not qualified, insane, et cetera; "other causes" included relationships, prior grand jury and petit jury service, bias or prejudice regarding accused and preconceived opinion.
Pursuant to Article XVI, § 19, by Acts 1876, p. 83, § 26, the Legislature blended in a general statute reasons that “shall be a good cause for challenge" alike in civil and criminal actions; the 1879 code revision, however, reinstated particular causes for civil and criminal actions, respectively, making "each independent of the other [regarding] qualifications and causes of challenge." Hunter v. State, 30 Tex.App. 314, 17 S.W. 414, at 415 (1891). As to causes, compare definitional statement in article 636, C.C.P. 1879 (challenge for cause is objection alleging fact rendering juror incapable or unfit to serve), with article 3080, R.C.S.1879 (challenge for cause is objection alleging fact disqualifying juror from service “or which in the opinion of the court, renders him an unfit person to sit on the jury”) (my emphasis here and throughout this opinion unless otherwise noted). See, e.g., Galveston H. & S.A Ry. Co. v. Thomsberry, 17 S.W. 521, at 522 (1891) (judge "necessarily clothed with large discretion in this respect”). Same distinction appears in successor articles of revised codes and rules through Article 35.16, V.A.C.C.P., and Tex.R.Civ.P. 228.

. From Old Code articles 575 and 576 through article 616, C.C.P.1925, the dozen or so prescribed challenges for cause, including a conscientiously scrupled venireperson, were available to either side. Prewitt v. State, 145 Tex.Cr.R. 202, 167 S.W.2d 194, at 196 (1943); Taylor v. State, 131 Tex.Cr.R. 350, 99 S.W.2d 609, at 610 (1936). Not until the 1965 revision of the Code of Criminal Procedure was the Legislature persuaded to recast the format by assigning to the State and accused, respectively, certain challenges for cause; it deliberately took from accused and reserved to the State the cause of conscientious scruples because "no accused could conceivably be injured by having to take such a juror.” See Historical Note and Interpretative Commentary following Article 35.16.
Among other allowable causes for which only the State may challenge, the Legislature created a new ground viz: a prospective juror who has "a bias or prejudice against any phase of the law upon which the State is entitled to rely for conviction or punishment.” Article 35.16, § (b)3. When the Court found that a trial judge did not err in sustaining a State’s challenge for cause to a venireperson who opposes minimum punishment for murder as a lesser included offense of capital murder, Moore v. State, 542 S.W.2d 664 (Tex.Cr.App.1976), it confessed that "it is difficult to see why the State would challenge the prospective juror on that basis,” id, at 669-670). Nevertheless, without resolving the "difficulty,” the Court followed Moore in e.g., Bodde v. State, 568 S.W.2d 344, at 349-350 (Tex. Cr.App.1978); Chambers v. State, 568 S.W.2d 313, at 318 (Tex.Cr.App.1978), both also citing Cherry v. State, 488 S.W.2d 744, at 751 (Tex.Cr. App.1972).
In Cherry v. State, supra, the Court said: "Even though the State was seeking the death penalty, the jurors were properly excused on the State's motion for cause under the provisions of Article 35.16. V.A.C.C.P. Huffman v. State, 450 S.W.2d 858 (Tex.Cr.App. 1970).” Id., at 751.
Both Cherry and Huffman were prosecutions for murder with malice aforethought under former penal code provisions. Only in the latter and sans authority did the Court express some semblance of rationale, viz:
“The reason given by the state for challenging [the venireperson] may seem hard to believe in that notice had been given that the state would seek the death penalty. Yet, that reason may be valid in fact when it is considered that the jury is the sole judge of the credibility of the witnesses and the weight to be given to their testimony; and it is upon this testimony that the jury must assess the punishment if they find the defendant guilty. It is evidence [sic] that a two-year term is a definite phase of the law which is authorized by the plain provisions of the statute. In our adversary system either a prosecutor or a defendant may, at the close of the evidence in the case be willing to settle for a two-year term rather than a mistrial because of a hung jury. The defendant and the state as is shown by the provisions of two sections of the statutes which refer to punishment have the right to have the punishment assessed within the limits prescribed by law after a finding of guilty."
Id., at 861-862. Today that reasoning is inappo-site.
Under the late murder statutes there was but one offense, so the Court uniformly held that a verdict finding accused guilty of murder without malice could not be deemed an acquittal of murder with malice and, therefore, no bar to a retrial. Beckham v. State, 141 Tex.Cr.R. 438, 148 S.W.2d 1104, at 1106 (1941). Now an acquittal for the higher offense of capital murder would allow a second trial for a lesser offense of which he was convicted or an included inferi- or offense. Article 37.14, V.A.C.C.P.
Article 35.16 contemplates that the phase of the law in question must be applicable to the case, and no party is "entitled to rely " on minimum punishment prescribed for a lesser included offense on sheer speculation that it might become implicated only by risk of mistrial should a venireperson prove to be so steadfastly inflexible in his abstract position. See and compare Santana v. State, 714 S.W.2d 1, at 10 (Tex. Cr.App.1986) (no reversible error in restricting voir dire examination as to views on punishment for lesser included offense of murder where evidence failed to raise the issue).

. The Supreme Court paraphrased the pertinent part of the statute in Florida as follows:
“... [I]f a defendant is found guilty of a capital offense, a separate evidentiary hearing is held before the trial judge and jury to determine his sentence [of life imprisonment or death]. Evidence may be presented on any matter the judge deems relevant to sentencing and must include matter relating to certain legislatively specified aggravating and mitigating circumstances. Both the prosecution and the defense may present argument on whether the death penalty shall be imposed.”
Id., at 249, S.Ct., at 2964-2965; see more specifically State v. Dixon, supra, and compare with Senate Committee Substitute, § 1(C)-(H).

. The germane part of the Georgia statute read:
"[T]he judge [or jury] shall hear additional evidence in extenuation, mitigation, and aggravation of punishment, including the record of any prior convictions and pleas of guilty or nolo contendere of the defendant or the absence of any prior conviction and pleas.... The judge [or jury] shall also hear argument by the defendant or his counsel and the prosecuting attorney ... regarding the punishment to be imposed.”
The jury is instructed to consider “any mitigating circumstances or aggravating circumstances otherwise authorized by law,” the scope of which is not delineated in the statute, as well as any of ten statutory aggravating circumstances which may be supported by evidence. Id., at 163-164, S.Ct., at 2920-2921. Remarking that neither side offered additional evidence on punishment, the Supreme Court noticed, “Both counsel, however, made lengthy argument dealing generally with the propriety of capital punishment under the circumstances and with the weight of the evidence of guilt." Id., at 160, S.Ct., at 2919.

. Actually that "compromise" reworked § 1(D) (general provisions for "separate sentencing proceeding"), retaining, however, its last sentence allowing “argument for or against sentence of death; " then it stripped away all specifically identified aggravating and mitigating circumstances, and replaced them with three unique special issues bearing little resemblance to former circumstances, either aggravating or mitigating. Compare Senate Committee Substitute, § 1(D), (H) and (I), with added Article 37.071, §§ (a) and (b); see and cf. Gregg v. Georgia, supra, n. 4, at 162, S.Ct., at 2920 (express malice is “deliberate intention" to take life, and shall be implied "where no considerable provocation appears,” and n. 9, at 164, S.Ct., at 2921 (aggravated where defendant has “substantial history of serious assaultive criminal convictions").

. COUNSEL: Your Honor, we are attempting to make an argument under the Code of Criminal Procedure, 37.071, which says counsel for the defense shall have the right to argue against the imposition of the death penalty.
******
THE COURT: You may argue but you may not argue whether it’s a deterrent or not a deterrent. The way the court construes the statute is that the legislature has determined that it is an appropriate sentence in those cases where the jury answers yes to the questions submitted and that ends it.
COUNSEL: We are arguing that they are not — that the jury should not answer these questions arbitrarily.
THE COURT: You may argue that, but you may not argue that it is not a deterrent.
COUNSEL: But if we argue that and they think it is a deterrent, how do we get by that, if they say we are going to do it because it’s a deterrent?
THE COURT: They are entitled to think that. The legislature has made the decision that it is an appropriate punishment if the facts warrant the answering of those issues 'yes.' And whether it is or is not a deterrent is not a question for the jury.
COUNSEL: But it’s something that will be considered by the jury.
THE COURT: No, not considered by the jury.