Court Opinion

ID: 9666407
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:13:59.659079+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:28.392018
License: Public Domain

CLINTON, Judge,
concurring.
Distilling from Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967), and a host of its followings — none concerning a confession by an appealing defendant — the court of appeals concluded that admitting an uncounseled confession of appellant was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt and did not contribute to his conviction or punishment. Higginbotham v. State, 769 S.W.2d 265, at 272-274 (Tex.App. — Houston [14th] 1989).
Today, the majority explores “the methodology employed by the court of appeals’’ and attributes any deficiencies to the fact that “[ujnfortunately, neither the parties nor the court of appeals had the benefit of this Court’s opinion in Harris v. State, 790 S.W.2d 568 (Tex.Cr.App.1989).” At 734. Doubtful that want of the Harris opinion necessarily brings misfortune to an appellate court, my purpose in writing is to suggest that this Court still has “failed to articulate a coherent standard for determining when an error is harmless,” Id., at 584.
Introducing its examination of Tex.R. App.Pro. 81(b)(2), the Harris court mentions a prior opinion of this Court recognizing that the rule is “the rhetorical and semantic equivalent of the harmless error standard announced by the Supreme Court in Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967),” and pointing out that “the rule is a ternary standard of review in which reversal of a conviction is mandated unless the appellate court concludes beyond a reasonable doubt that the error did not contribute to the conviction or the punishment assessed.” Id., at 584.
In Chapman v. California, supra, the Supreme Court held that “before a federal constitutional error can be held harmless, the court must be able to declare a belief that it was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt,” id., at 24, 87 S.Ct. at 828, 17 L.Ed.2d at 710-11, and it was most sanguine about application of its holding, viz:
“... While appellate courts do not ordinarily have the original task of applying such a test, it is a familiar standard to all courts, and we believe its adoption will provide a more workable standard, although achieving the same result as that aimed at in our Fahy case.” 1
*739Rather than accept for analytical purposes those explications of the rule, the Harris opinion lays down a premise that the rule is “expressed in conclusory terms that implicate subjective concerns [without] the objective standards that must be explored to reach a legally correct result,” id., at 585, and after engaging in a discussion of perceived ambivalences in the literature and cases, attributes its “difficulty in reconciling [them]” to “a natural reflection of an inherently subjective process,” id., at 585-587, and comes to an unhappy conclusion, viz:
“... Thus, the most this Court can do in guiding future harmless error analysis is to state a general formulation of what 81(b)(2) requires, set out general considerations which may be relevant, and trust individual judges to use these observations in their personal calculus.”
Id., at 587. Surely, we must do better than that.
Those “general considerations” and the summaries thereof, id., at 587-588, are such a melange of unrelated or inapposite propositions that a reviewing court is left free to place one or more on the “skeleton” and then make its determination on unprincipled and irrational grounds. In my view, most are at odds with an identifiable narrow body of appellate law that provides definitive and protective constraints against mere subjective evaluation. See and compare Harris, supra (Clinton, J., dissenting at 594 and 603-604).
First and foremost, those parts of the Harris opinion are permeated with a fixation over process: “Instead [of focusing on propriety of outcome of trial], an appellate court should be concerned with the integrity of the process leading to conviction [;]” among other determinations suggested are “whether declaring the error harmless would encourage the State to repeat it with impunity.” Id., at 587-588. But, like other similar provisions, the concern of Rule 81(b)(2) is to secure valued rights of an accused rather than to deter prosecutorial mistakes and preserve integrity of the trial process.
The rule was designed and intended to protect and implement due process rights to a fair and impartial trial. Its command is that for error of record an appellate court SHALL reverse the judgment under review UNLESS the court determines beyond a reasonable doubt that the error made no contribution to conviction or to punishment. That presumptive reversal is to ensure that an accused has a trial free from prejudicial errors. To preserve judicial integrity and to scotch egregious conduct, courts may exercise other powers, separate and apart from their appellate and reviewing authority. See, e.g., United States v. Hastings, 461 U.S. 499, at 505-510, 103 S.Ct. 1974, at 1978-191, 76 L.Ed.2d 96, at 103-107 (1983).
Indeed, here the majority treatment of what it calls “Repetition of the Error With Impunity,” At 738, demonstrates that principled application of the rule to facts of the case and evidence adduced at trial to find reversible error renders this soealled “factor” superfluous in the analysis. No rational appellate court would refuse to reverse the judgment on the specious notion that “the State was not attempting to taint the trial process in offering as evidence the [confession],” Harris, at 588.
The fixation with process has inflicted the majority here in dealing with other “factors” identified in Harris. Thus it introduces its treatment of “The Source and Nature of the Error” by pointing out: “In Harris, the Court analyzed this factor in terms of whether the State intended to taint the trial in offering inadmissible evidence.” At 735. Then it comes face to face with a practically invariable certainty, 1.e., “... it is unclear whether the State intended to taint the process in the instant case.” Id.2 Whether “unclear” or “appar*740ent,” however, in my judgment such an intent on the part of the prosecutor is not germane to a harm analysis. While one can only surmise what Harris means by “the source of the error,” id., at 587, surely it does not include subjective intent of the prosecutor in the case. The harmless error rule is not an exclusionary device to deter prosecutorial overreaching or police misconduct.
Finding the record barren of a revelation of intent of the State, personified by the prosecuting attorney, the majority extends the “process” by going to the “source” of the constitutionally impermissibly tainted evidence — two peace officers who conducted the interrogation and obtained the confession — to conclude that “the nature of this error weighs particularly in favor of a finding of harm.” Id., at 735.
A harmless error analysis is not a balancing test; the analyst does not review a checklist of prospective “pro-con factors” to which more or less weight is assigned to one or another “factor” to determine whether an error contributed to conviction or punishment. In the instant cause our ultimate inquiry is whether, considering whatever consequential adverse ramifications to defendant are found from an examination of the facts of the case, erroneous admission of the tainted confession might have affected normal rational jurors. Harris, supra (Clinton, J., dissenting at 594).
Apart from its examination of the “source of error” and “repetition with impunity,” At 735 and 738, in my view that is essentially what the majority does in considering and discussing “Error Emphasized by the State,” At 735-736; “Probable Collateral Implications of the Error,” id., at 737-738; “Probable Weight Placed on the Error By the Jury,” id., at 737.3
Accordingly, there is not a satisfactory basis within contemplation of Rule 81(b)(2) for an appellate court to determine beyond a reasonable doubt that erroneous admission of appellant’s confession made no contribution to the conviction or the punishment.
For those reasons I concur in the judgment of the Court.

. Fahy v. State of Connecticut, 375 U.S. 85, 84 S.Ct. 229, 11 L.Ed.2d 171 (1963):
"... We are not concerned here with whether there was sufficient evidence on which the petitioner could have been convicted without the evidence complained of. The question is whether there is a possibility that the evidence complained of might have contributed to the conviction. To decide this question, it is nec*739essary to review the facts of the case and the evidence adduced at trial.”
Id., at 86-87, 84 S.Ct. at 230, 11 L.Ed.2d at 173 (emphasis added here and throughout is mine unless otherwise indicated).

. Compare Harris, at 588: "In reviewing the record it is apparent that the State was not attempting to taint the trial process in offering as evidence the extraneous offenses.” The opin*740ion makes no effort to demonstrate the appar-entness of that negative proposition.

. That the record here reveals a germane jury request and reflective comments by the trial judge is an unusual fortuitous circumstance, not be regarded as meeting some overt kind of requisite showing of "probable weight.” In most cases there is none, but an appellate court must still make an "intelligent judgment about whether the [error] might have affected [an average rational] jury," Satterwhite v. State, 486 U.S. 249, at 258, 108 S.Ct. 1792, at 1798, 100 L.Ed.2d 284, at 295 (1988).