Court Opinion

ID: 9779387
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 21:48:59.734852+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:33:26.006391
License: Public Domain

*811W.C. DAVIS, Judge,
dissenting.
The majority substitutes its own interpretation of given facts for another rational interpretation presented by the facts and embraced by the jury. By its view the majority finds part of appellant’s confession to be exculpatory, when the confession on its face supports the jury's verdict and is not exculpatory. For this usurpation of the jury’s role I dissent.
In his confession appellant said he got angry with the deceased when the deceased tried to get appellant to commit sodomy on the deceased. Appellant refused to do so and started to get dressed. He said:
E: ... I sat down on the bed looking for my pants and he grabbed my arm and wanted to, and well drunk as I was, I got angry.
M: Okay, but what I want to know more or less if he wanted to force you into a sexual act that wasn’t ... that's sodomy, when he wanted to suck you or for you to suck him, do the same for him. You got angry, and you got your shirt, okay, and you wrapped it around him from the front or from behind?
E: From in front.
M: In the front and what did he do, did he turn around?
E: No, he didn’t try to defend himself.
M: He didn’t try to defend himself and you tightened the shirt around him until when? Until you knew what?
E: I thought that he ... I heard him still breathing.
M: When you let go of him?
E: Yes and I quickly left.
M: Okay and then.
E: And then I covered him with a blanket.
M: You covered him, what position was he in, face down or face up ... I mean facing up, turned towards the ceiling, or ...
E: He was falling off the bed and I turned him around, I got him like this and I turned him around.
M: In other words, when you strangled him with your shirt, he was facing up and you turned him face down, upside down, and then you covered him?
E: Yes sir.
M: You got dressed, okay, when you got dressed, what did you do?
E: I got the keys.
M: Where did he have the keys?
E: In his pants pockets.
M: Where were the pants?
E: What was it that was there ... I don’t know it was a bundle or something ... I don’t remember.
M: A bundle of clothing?
E: I think so.
M: And you just threw them.
E: I just left them like that and got his keys, those were the only things I got.
The majority characterizes this as exculpatory because it shows that “[i]n fear, and wanting to get out of the apartment, appellant grabbed the car keys and fled.” I disagree. The facts shown by appellant’s confession are that appellant got angry, strangled the deceased, specifically searched for and found the keys he knew were for the car, and left, taking the car. Contrary to the majority’s conclusion, this evidence is not exculpatory. The confession shows a murder and an immediate taking of the deceased’s keys and automobile. These facts are no different than those in Fierro v. State, 706 S.W.2d 310 (Tex.Cr.App.1986) in which a coldblooded murder and somewhat belated theft were found sufficient to support the jury’s verdict. In Fierro the defendant shot a taxi driver as the driver drove the defendant to a requested location. The defendant then drove the cab to a park, dragged the taxi driver from the car, and took several items from him.
Appellant may argue that the facts permit an inference that the murder and immediate theft of the automobile were unrelated in the sense that he did not murder with an intent to obtain or maintain control of the property. However, the facts themselves, as related by appellant, also support an inference that appellant’s actions were that he murdered the deceased with intent *812to obtain and maintain control of the property. The facts show a murder and a very specific and immediate taking of property. Where two inferences are possible from a set of facts, it is the jury, not this Court, who decides which inference the facts support.
The role of the jury is “ ‘to resolve conflicts in the testimony, to weigh the evidence, and to draw reasonable inferences from basic facts to ultimate facts. Once a defendant has been found guilty of the crime charged, the factfinder’s role as weighter (sic) of the evidence is preserved through a legal conclusion that upon judicial review all of the evidence is to be considered in the light most favorable to the prosecution.’ ” Combs v. State, 643 S.W.2d 709, 717 (Tex.Cr.App.1982) quoting Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 318-319, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 2788-2789, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979) (emphasis in original).
The pertinent part of appellant’s confession at best permits two inferences: (1) that appellant committed murder in the course of committing robbery, cf. Fierro, supra; and (2) appellant’s theft of the automobile was unrelated to the murder.1 The former inference is not exculpatory. Since the confession supports exactly this non-exculpatory interpretation, the “Palafox rule” is not applicable. The State did not need to disprove portions of the confession.
We note further that this “voucher rule” set forth in Palafox v. State, 608 S.W.2d 177 (Tex.Cr.App.1980), “widely condemned as archaic, irrational, and destructive of the truth-gathering process”, seems to be abolished by the soon-to-be-effective Texas Rules of Criminal Evidence. See rule 607. The rationale behind the voucher rule is effectively destroyed by Rule 607. See also Palafox, supra, at 183-184, Dally, J., dissenting.
Because the majority imposes its own view to find the confession exculpatory when an equally plausible inference supports a non-exculpatory view of the confession, and in so doing usurps the jury’s role as trier of fact and weigher of the evidence, I dissent.
ONION, P.J., and TOM G. DAVIS and WHITE, JJ., join this dissent.

. The majority tries to make much of the fact that appellant later abandoned the automobile. We do not find it unusual or uncommon for a criminal to rid himself of things which link him to a murder. The subsequent abandonment does not strengthen the majority’s erroneous conclusion.