Court Opinion

ID: 9653629
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 17:50:30.763822+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:00.511535
License: Public Domain

W. C. DAVIS, Judge,
dissenting.
I am in agreement with the majority holding that appellant’s objections to the court’s charge, dictated to the court reporter, are reviewable on appeal. Walton v. State, 575 S.W.2d 25 (Tex.Cr.App.1978); Art. 36.14, Vernon’s Ann.C.C.P. However, I must take a path separate from the majority on the issue of provoking difficulties. The majority finds “several” reversible grounds connected with the charge of the trial court on provoking difficulties. Much of this reasoning is not necessary to the disposition given this cause by the majority and therefore is clearly dicta. Nevertheless, I will respond to all of the “several” reversible grounds discussed by the majority.
The majority holds that the trial court committed error in giving a charge on provoking difficulties. Such a charge should not have been given because the record shows “only a conflict as to who made the first attack.”1 Jones v. State, 149 Tex. Cr.R. 119, 192 S.W.2d 155 (1946). Howie v. State, 119 Tex.Cr.R. 17, 43 S.W.2d 594 (1931). The appellant argues that he was attacked by deceased and deceased’s son while the State’s evidence shows appellant to be the attacker; however, the recobd does not reflect such a simple conflict.
The starting point is a quotation from Jones, supra:
“The right of ‘imperfect self-defense’ arises where accused provokes a difficulty, not with intent to kill, but merely to make an assault to whip the assaulted party, but that by reason of his own acts he was driven to resort to extreme measures in killing a party he had provoked into a difficulty in order to protect himself from death or serious bodily injury.”
To my mind, the record before us presents a fact situation wherein appellant’s right to self-defense was properly limited by a charge on provoking difficulties. The appellant had been informed by his wife of her abduction by deceased, who took her to Kansas City. The appellant placed a loaded pistol in his wrecker truck on Thanksgiving, hoping to sell it to an acquaintance. While driving down a street, appellant sees deceased and deceased’s son walking. Appellant turns around and confronts the pair and in the following argument deceased is shot to death.
Appellant sought a confrontation on a public road with a man he believed had abducted his wife, knowing that he had a loaded pistol to use if the need arose. Appellant, by his own words and deeds caused the situation to exist, and when the situation worsened, appellant had to use the pistol to protect himself. Clearly, appellant’s conduct and words caused this volatile situation to exist and, therefore, the charge on provoking difficulties was required.
*205“Even if,” says the majority, a “provok-ings” charge should have been given, the charge in the record before us is erroneous. Here, the majority has skipped from the holding that the unwarranted limitation of appellant’s self-defense theory was alone sufficient to reverse, and now discuss the merits of the charge which by their own holding is unnecessary.
In examining the charge, the majority holds that an essential element of provoking difficulties is omitted. The charge, according to the majority, fails to require the jury to find that words or conduct of the appellant must be the cause of the attack by deceased.
The relevant portion of the charge states:
“. . . did some act with intent to produce an occasion to bring on the difficulty and that the same under the circumstances was reasonably calculated to provoke the difficulty, and appellant on such acts killed deceased ... in pursuance of his original design.” (Emphasis added.)
The State readily concedes that this charge improperly related the law of provoking difficulties. However, the State claims that the misstatement worked to appellant’s advantage by narrowing the circumstances under which appellant could be convicted. Under the charge given, the jury had to find that the very act designed to provoke deceased was also the act by which deceased was killed. In other words, the charge limited the jury’s consideration of provocating acts. Instead of considering any act as the act of provocation, the jury had to find that the act of provocation and the act resulting in death were in fact the same act. This limitation could work only to appellant’s advantage, because it restricted consideration by the jury of acts of provocation exclusive of the act which resulted in the death of deceased.
How can appellant be harmed by such a charge? Appellant benefited by an error on the part of the State and received a charge which narrowly defined provoking difficulties. The majority, by ignoring this, has fashioned a new test for reversal in cases where the court’s charge is in issue. Previously, we have looked for harm to an appellant, traceable to the charge of the court, but following today’s decision, a charge that bestows benefits to an appellant may also be the basis for reversal. Brewer v. State, 572 S.W.2d 940 at 943 (Tex.Cr.App.1978).
Finally, the majority argues that the charge on the converse of provoking difficulties was in error because it omitted the reasonable doubt standard.
The court charged as to reasonable doubt in the first sentence of the charge on provoking difficulties. However, in charging the converse the charge stated:
“But if the defendant had no such purpose in seeking the aforesaid meeting, if he did . . .” (Emphasis added.)
While the better practice is to charge reasonable doubt in connection with each defensive theory, failure to do so is not necessarily reversible error. Cain v. State, 154 Tex.Cr.R. 284, 226 S.W.2d 640 (1950). When the charge given by the court adequately presents the defense proposed, the appellant suffers no harm. Thomas v. State, 578 S.W.2d 691 (Tex.Cr.App.1979).
In Prescott v. State, 54 Tex.Cr.R. 481, 113 S.W. 530 (1908), a charge on the converse was phrased, “but, if the defendant had no such purpose.” When viewed as a whole, the charge in Prescott presented no reversible error.
I would affirm the judgment, holding that the charge on provoking difficulties was required and that appellant was not harmed by the errors contained in the charge.
DOUGLAS, J., joins in this dissent.

. This is a most reasonable rule of law. If a conflict is presented, the jury may decide the conflict without a “provokings” charge, if the appellant is the attacker, he is guilty; if the appellant was attacked, he has available the self-defense theory.