Court Opinion

ID: 9777833
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 20:25:35.083061+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:33:01.983100
License: Public Domain

*613McCORMICK, Judge,
dissenting.
Once again the majority has seen fit to enter an erroneous order of reversal and acquittal when the evidence presented at trial clearly satisfies the allegations of the indictment. The indictment alleged that appellant did then and there:
“with intent to commit theft, enter a building not then open to the public, owned by JACK THOMASOM, hereafter styled the Complainant, without the effective consent of the Complainant.”
After hearing the evidence, the jury found appellant guilty. On appeal, appellant argued that the evidence was insufficient to sustain the conviction because the testimony of the accomplice witness was uncorroborated. The El Paso Court of Appeals reviewed the case and correctly found that the trial court had erroneously charged the jury that witness Margaret Lynn Wilson was an accomplice witness as a matter of law. The Court of Appeals held that, since there was no evidence to show that Ms. Wilson was an accomplice, appellant’s argument that the evidence was insufficient to corroborate Wilson’s accomplice witness testimony was without merit.
As I wrote in Benson v. State, 661 S.W.2d 708 (Tex.Cr.App.1982) (Dissenting Opinion on State’s Second Motion for Rehearing):
“... the majority is in error when it asserts that a reviewing court is to judge the sufficiency of the evidence by looking at how the court charged the jury. This erroneous assertion is based on the false premise that when an appellate court is reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence it is looking to determine whether this particular jury was correct in the verdict it reached. That is not the premise on which sufficiency of the evidence is to be determined. The purpose of an examination as to sufficiency of the evidence is not to determine whether this particular jury erred in their verdict, but whether ‘a rational trier of fact’ could have found the essential elements of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560. In other words, has the State met the burden of proving the allegations made in their indictment against the defendant?” Benson v. State, supra at 717-718. (footnote omitted)
An error such as the one presented to us today is not of the type envisioned in the law to mandate a judgment of acquittal. Rather, it is what has become known as “trial error”, that is, error which renders a case reversible and ripe for a new trial. The United States Supreme Court in Burks v. United States, 437 U.S. 1, 16, 98 S.Ct. 2141, 2150, 57 L.Ed.2d 1 (1978), recognized this distinction and included incorrect jury instructions under the category of trial error.
“In short, reversal for trial error, as distinguished from evidentiary insufficiency, does not constitute a decision to the effect that the government has failed to prove its case. As such, it implies nothing with respect to the guilt or innocence of the defendant. Rather, it is a determination that a defendant has been convicted through a judicial process which is defective in some fundamental respect, e.g., incorrect receipt or rejection of evidence, incorrect instructions, or prosecutorial misconduct....” 437 U.S. at 15, 98 S.Ct. at 2149. (emphasis added)
The error which the majority finds in this case today certainly has nothing to do with the guilt or innocence of appellant. Clearly the State proved every allegation of the indictment. Only the trial court was in error when it gave the faulty instructions to the jury. Upon retrial, no change is required in the State’s proof. Only the court’s erroneous charge that Margaret Lynn Wilson was an accomplice witness as a matter of law need be eliminated. In a situation such as this, the only proper remedy is to reverse and remand for a new trial. Until the majority sees fit to do just that, I must dissent.
ONION, P.J., and W.C. DAVIS and CAMPBELL, JJ., join in this dissent.