Court Opinion

ID: 9683431
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 13:28:21.80624+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:47.784246
License: Public Domain

MEYERS, Judge,
concurring.
The resolution of the issue presented in this case turns largely upon the interpretation of the “personal knowledge” requirement. Under the common law rule, as reiterated by this Court in Arnold v. State, 853 S.W.2d 543, 547 (Tex.Crim.App.1993), the testimony of a witness as to another’s mental state was inadmissible on the ground that one can never possess personal knowledge of another’s mental state. The majority departs from this rule, concluding that the personal knowledge requirement simply goes to the facts upon which the lay witness opinion is based — not to the subject of the opinion itself. The majority holds that while a lay witness cannot testify that he knows “the actual subjective mental state” of another person, he can state his opinion of the mental state of another person, based upon his “personal knowledge of the facts underlying the opinion.” This holding is consistent with a plain language reading of the rules, the way we interpreted those rules in Bigby v. State, 892 S.W.2d 864 (Tex.Crim.App.1994), and with a common sense understanding of the term “opinion.” Arnold should be disavowed.
Rule of Criminal Evidence 701, Opinion Testimony by Lay Witness, provides:
If the witness is not testifying as an expert, his testimony in the form of opinions or inferences is limited to those opinions or inferences which are (a) rationally based on the perception of the witness and (b) helpful to a clear understanding of his testimony or determination of a fact in issue.
In Bigby, we interpreted Rule 701 as incorporating the personal knowledge requirement of Criminal Rule of Evidence 602:
By requiring the [lay witness opinion] testimony to be based on the “perception of the witness,” the rule presumes the underlying facts were observed or experienced by the witness. This portion of the rule incorporates the personal knowledge requirement of Criminal Rule 602.
892 S.W.2d at 889 (emphasis added). Rule 701 permits an opinion based on the perception of the witness. Bigby further explained that this component went to the personal knowledge of the witness such that the facts “underlying” the opinion were personally observed or experienced by the witness. So, as the majority correctly concludes, personal knowledge just means that the witness must have personally observed or experienced the facts giving rise to his opinion about the mental state of another, not that he has to have personal knowledge of the other’s mental state.
Arnold reasons that an opinion about another’s mental state should not be permitted because it is based on conjecture and can never be known for certain. This reasoning is at odds with what an “opinion” is. An opinion is one’s view of something that cannot be known for certain, based on facts that can be known. Webster defines “opinion” as “a view, judgment, or appraisal formed in the mind about a particular matter.” Webster’s *905New Collegiate Dictionary at 798 (1980 ed.) Black’s Law Dictionary explains “opinion evidence or testimony” in part as follows:
Evidence of what the witness thinks, believes, or infers in regard to facts in dispute, as distinguished from his personal knowledge of the facts themselves.
An opinion is simply the beliefs of the witness or inferences he has drawn; for this reason, it is important to ensure that the opinion is based upon identifiable facts within the personal knowledge of the witness.1
The majority says its holding is “in accord” with Arnold because “we agree that one cannot possess personal knowledge of another’s mental state.” Majority op. at 899 n. 10. But that does not approach the crux of the holding in Arnold. In Arnold, the defendants were convicted of disruptive activity on a university campus (participation in a “sit-in”). The State was required to prove the defendants “willfully” engaged in the prohibited conduct. The trial court ruled inadmissible testimony from several witnesses who were-not present at the scene of the sit-in. This Court explained the nature of the excluded testimony:
The excluded testimony would have described various events involving apartheid that had occurred on the University of Texas campus, and the relationship of these events to state, national, and international events that transpired before this sit-in. The testimony was also offered to give the jury “greater insight” into each appellants’ mental state immediately prior to and at the time of the incident in question.
Arnold, 853 S.W.2d at 546 (emphasis added). The defendants complained on appeal the excluded evidence was relevant to whether they “willfully” committed the alleged offense. The Court of Appeals upheld the exclusion of the evidence, stating, “these witnesses could not have testified as to each appellant’s state of mind — each appellant’s testimony was necessary for that.” We agreed with the Court of Appeals, quoting as follows from Ray’s Texas Law of Evidence:
“In general our courts permit a witness to testify as to hi? own intention or other state of mind where the same is material. * * * On the other hand decisions purporting to apply the opinion rule, uniformly exclude the testimony of a witness as to another person’s state of mind. It is said that since one person cannot possibly know another’s state of mind, his testimony is necessarily based on conjecture. This argument really invokes the rule requiring the witness to have personal knowledge of the matter about which he is to testify.”
Id. at 547. From the Court’s own recitation of the facts, the witnesses in Arnold were simply offering testimony about “events” that would bear on or give insight into each appellant’s state of mind. Therefore, Arnold stands for the proposition that a lay witness cannot even testify to events that give insight to another person’s mental state, or give opinion testimony that even bears on mental state. Today the Court holds that a lay witness can give his opinion as to another’s mental state if the opinion is “an interpretation of the witness’s objective perception of events.” Arnold cannot be reconciled with the holding of the majority and ought to be disavowed. The majority’s declaration that the two opinions are consistent does not make them so, and leads to confusion as to the state of the law.
With these comments, I concur in the judgment of the Court.
MANSFIELD, J., joins.

. That the witness is testifying as to his opinion based upon his interpretation of personally observed events can be made clear by the questions propounded. As reflected in Judge Baird’s concurring opinion, many of the questions asked in this case were prefaced in such a way as to indicate that the witness was testifying to his interpretation of what he saw, rather than his subjective personal knowledge of the actor’s mental state: "did it look like to you that [the third person] was intending to kill”, "did it appear to you from the actions of [the third person] did he intend to kill”, "from the actions that you saw [the third person] make ... did it appear that he intentionally shot”, "from the actions that you saw [the third person] take ... did you formulate in your mind an opinion ...”