Court Opinion

ID: 9679715
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 07:03:27.419507+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:18.764265
License: Public Domain

OVERSTREET, Judge,
dissenting.
The majority overrules the State’s first ground for review, primarily because it found that the application paragraph of the jury charge ambiguously applied the burden of proof with regard to insanity. It then concludes that the court of appeals’ harmless error analysis was conscientious and impartial, and thus dismisses the State’s second ground for review as having been improvidently granted. Because I disagree with the majority’s conclusion regarding ground for review number one, I must respectfully dissent.
As the majority well details, the issue in dispute is the interpretation of the trial *588court’s jury charge instructions dealing with insanity. The jury charge’s abstract instruction that “[i]t is an affirmative defense to prosecution that, at the time of the conduct charged, the defendant, as a result of severe mental disease or defect, did not know that his conduct was wrong” was a correct statement of the law, at least in the abstract. See Y.T.C.A.Penal Code, § 8.01(a). The jury charge then proceeded to define “mental disease or defect” per V.T.C.A.Penal Code, § 8.01(b). The jury was next instructed that it was the State’s burden to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that at the time of the alleged offense appellant was sane; i.e. “was not suffering from a severe mental disease or defect rendering him unable to know that his conduct was wrong.” Then, the application paragraph required acquittal if the jury found, or had a reasonable doubt thereof, that appellant at the time of the alleged offense “as a result of a severe mental disease or defect, did not know that his conduct was wrong[;]” i.e. was insane.
Saying that there is a significant distinction between requiring the State to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that an accused “is sane” as opposed to “is not insane” would seem to be an exercise in semantic gymnastics. Clearly, both properly require the State to prove the requisite fact under the requisite burden of proof. While it would certainly be more prudent, and perhaps more grammatically pleasing, for instructions to use the precise same wording consistently throughout the jury charge with respect to the State’s requirement of proof regarding sanity/insanity, I do not consider the challenged instructions in the instant cause to be in the least bit ambiguous. The instructions, both abstractly and in specific application, properly instructed the jury without any shifting or confusion of the burden of proof.
Thus, I do not believe that there was any error in submitting the challenged jury charge instructions. Therefore, the State’s ground for review number one should be sustained and the cause remanded to the court of appeals for consideration of appellant’s unaddressed point of error. Because the majority does not do so, I respectfully dissent.
WHITE, J., joins.