Court Opinion

ID: 9665372
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 00:46:19.924469+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:15.133363
License: Public Domain

CLINTON, Judge,
concurring.
Without any doubt two witnesses violated “the rule” since they conversed with each other about the case without permission of the court. Article 36.06, Y.A.C.C.P. Nevertheless the majority is “unable to state that appellant was unduly prejudiced and harmed ... in that the mother’s testimony did not contradict the testimony of the police officer witness.... ” With deference, though it does indeed appear in the opinion relied on, what the majority calls a “second criteria” is not the one to be applied here. However, because the implicit finding of the majority is that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in the premises,11 join the judgment of the Court.
The purpose of the rule is “to prevent the testimony of one witness from influencing the testimony of another,” Cook v. State, 30 Tex.App. 607, 18 S.W. 412 (1892). So the inquiry is whether the challenged testimony “was or could ... have been influenced by the other witnesses whose testimony he had heard before giving his own,” Cook v. State, supra, to the injury or prejudice to the accused, Perry v. State, 160 Tex.Cr.R. 8, 266 S.W.2d 171, 173 (1954).
Assuming the State’s witness to whose testimony objection is made did hear testimony of one or more other witnesses, consequential injury or prejudice flows from testimony that corroborates another witness for the prosecution or contradicts defensive testimony on an issue of fact bearing upon guilt or innocence. Perry v. State, supra, 266 S.W.2d at 173; Crawford v. State, 165 Tex.Cr.R. 147, 305 S.W.2d 362, 364-365 (1957) and Wilson v. State, 158 Tex.Cr.R. 334, 255 S.W.2d 520 (1953) established that proposition, and Judge Douglas reiterated it without attribution when writing for the *415Court in Day v. State, 451 S.W.2d 508 (Tex. Cr.App.1970), viz:
“There has been no showing that the trial court abused its discretion in permitting Campbell to testify. His testimony did not coincide with any material testimony of the other witnesses for the State and did not contradict the testimony of any defense witness that he heard.” Id., at 509-510.
In Murphy v. State, 496 S.W.2d 608 (Tex. Cr.App.1973) the State called a rebuttal witness to testify adversely on a defensive matter which the accused had advanced through his own testimony, as the State’s witness sat in the courtroom and listened. Admitting testimony of the rebuttal witness over proper objection was held to be error, but not reversible error. It was during the course of inquiring as to the injury that the Court correctly stated:
“Two relevant criteria are: (1) did the witness actually hear the appellant’s testimony and (2) did the witness’s testimony contradict the testimony of appellant or any other defense witnesses that he heard. Schneider v. State, 392 S.W.2d 130 (Tex.Cr.App.1965); Day v. State, 451 S.W.2d 508 (Tex.Cr.App.1970).” Id., at 610.
That statement of the “second criteria” is based on and comports with the situation presented in the case. That is to say, the rebuttal witness had not undertaken to corroborate any other testimony from a witness for the prosecution, only to contradict testimony of the accused and his witnesses. Thus, there was no occasion for the Court to allude to the other part of the proposition established by Wilson v. State and its progeny, supra. Accordingly, the “second criteria” of Murphy v. State, supra, is inapposite to the situation in Haas v. State, 498 S.W.2d 206, 210 (Tex.Cr.App.1973), for there the problem was really whether testimony of a crime lab technician, that he found a fingerprint of appellant on a tape binding legs of a deceased, corroborated or coincided with that of an investigating officer who had not detected any fingerprints on it. Obviously it did not, so the ultimate decision of the Court was right — injury had not been shown. Haas v. State, supra, at 211.
Reduced to reality all that is shown in the instant case is that two witnesses conversed somewhat “about the case,” but not about the testimony of either. Limited to identifying a photograph as portraying her deceased daughter, testimony of the mother simply could not have been influenced by her conversation with the peace officer. She had not heard his testimony and, according to the majority opinion, he did not recount any of it to her. No discernible harm, injury or prejudice was suffered by appellant or sanctioned by the trial court in permitting the testimony.
For these reasons I join the judgment of the Court.
ONION, P.J., joins.

. The cases cited in support of overruling the ground of error seem to have only one common element: that in the particular circumstances of each an abuse of discretion was not shown. That standard must be derived from the last sentence of Article 36.04, V.A.C.C.P. — “The enforcement of the rule is in the discretion of the court,” — and is used to test a challenged ruling by the court on an objection to testimony of one who has allegedly violated the rule. Laird v. State, 160 Tex.Cr.R. 264, 268 S.W.2d 158, 160 (1954). The final part of Article 36.06, supra, “... and the party violating [its instructions] shall be punished for contempt of court,” affords the trial court an additional remedy, presumably reserved for a flagrant violation of the rule.