Court Opinion

ID: 9675673
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 05:01:39.96851+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:36.908586
License: Public Domain

CLINTON, Judge,
concurring.
In overruling the third ground of error the Court gives continuing vitality to a notion that creates what some would call a “Catch-22.” The Reverend is asked what the Court says is an improper question, but the asking does not constitute reversible error because “the answer of Adams did not reflect what effect the robbery offense referred to in the question had upon appellant’s reputation in the community.”1
No, it most certainly did not for the simple reason the Reverend was not asked that question. The inquiry was limited to “do you know,” not “have you heard.” The rather straightforward answer to the ques*701tion was he did not know “no more” than what he had read in the paper — presumably a newspaper report of trial testimony and proceedings.
Now, just how can it come about that “the answer of the witness” may reflect “what effect” the offense on trial has on the reputation of the accused? Unless the witness is to be briefed by counsel to volunteer a nonresponsive answer — surely an improper act — someone must frame and put to the witness a question designed to draw from him an answer as to his view of whatever the effect on reputation of the accused.2 Who is to put the question?
Therein lies, in my judgment, the Catch-22. Is the prosecutor to be permitted to press on into an area improperly entered in the first place? 3 Or must defense counsel, to show reversible error, pursue the matter? Since he will be asking about whether what the witness had heard concerning the accused’s mugging a 75 year old lady in a parking lot “had been good or bad,” King v. State, supra, the answer seems selfevi-dent — and even more harmful to the accused than the improper question initially posed by the State.4 On the other hand, should the witness answer with a straight face, “good,” who on the jury that has just said “guilty” is going to believe him? Catch-22.
King v. State claims no authority for saying the bill of exception failed to reflect error and does not explicate its terse nega-five observation. Boone v. State, cited in n. 3, ultimately followed it because the application for suspended sentence “would let the jury take into consideration appellant’s reputation up to the time of trial,” and it would surely consider the facts of the offense with respect to which the sentence was sought to be suspended, and Wright v. State, 491 S.W.2d 936, 938 (Tex.Cr.App.1973) quoted from King in giving a third reason why the question and answer there did not show reversible error. Thus, King concocted strange medicine that is rarely prescribed. I would make it unavailable by completely withdrawing it from the supply of judicial precedent.
An “obviously harmful” have-you-heard question does not need the company of an additionally harmful answer to constitute the asking reversible error. See McNaulty v. State, 138 Tex.Cr.R. 317, 135 S.W.2d 987, 988-98 (1939). If the question violates a rule of law, by definition it is harmful to some degree or the mere asking would not be deemed “improper.” When the trial court demonstrably errs in overruling a valid objection, to determine whether reversible error is shown I believe the Court should look to all the circumstances surrounding the query, including the broad setting, the particular context, its calculated nature, the likely reaction of rational jurors and whatever other objective factors and subjective inferences characterize the question.
*702In my judgment, though, given the exchange quoted in the majority opinion, none of the rules for testing error in overruling a good objection to an improper have-you-heard question is called into play, for as I have already emphasized the question here was did the witness “know” the bare facts of the case. If, as the objection stated, the prosecutor was “using the particular offense” on trial for “the basis of have you heard questions” to the character witness, the majority opinion fails to reveal the content of such a question.
When squarely presented I am prepared to overrule King — insofar as it failed to find error in Bill of Exception No. 3 because “the witness did not advise whether what he had heard had been good or bad” — and to disapprove of the few followers of King. For now I am content to concur in the judgment of the Court.5

. Or, as worded in King v. State, 133 Tex.Cr.R. 496, 113 S.W.2d 181 (1938), “whether what he had heard had been good or bad.” (All emphasis is mine unless otherwise indicated.)

. Quite frankly, I am unable to perceive how a newspaper account of trial in progress may contemporaneously affect the reputation of the accused, considering that it is “the collective opinion of the community,” Ray, Law of Evidence § 1324, 1A Texas Practice 500, which hardly has had time to form, much less be disseminated throughout and discussed in the community.

. In Boone v. State, 149 Tex.Cr.R. 476, 196 S.W.2d 638, 639 (1945) the Court entertained a line of reasoning that I believe now is sound. That is, for the State to utilize the offense on trial as a contributing factor of reputation “would be bringing into the case the judgment of the people regarding the very case for which the party was on trial ... [and] ... would be a means by which the State would be able to prove that the people of the community generally viewed the offense with disapproval,” whereas, insisted the Court, “The judgment of the people relative to the merits of a transaction is not proper evidence for the consideration of the jury.” On second rehearing Presiding Judge Hawkins reiterated that “it is not permissible to parade before the jury the opinion of the public relative to the offense for which he is being tried.” It seems to me that is exactly what the Court in the case at bar would not only permit but, indeed, require in order to find reversible error.

. As the Court remarked in Stephens v. State, 128 Tex.Cr.R. 311, 80 S.W.2d 980, 982 (1935):
“.. . If the discussion of the charge contained in the indictment could be used as a basis for showing that a man’s reputation as a law-abiding citizen was bad, then no man who was on trial could successfully show a good reputation as a law-abiding citizen.”

. This case typifies once again a certitude that the have-you-heard question is an anachronism that creates more trouble than it is worth. The theory allowing the question is “that if the witness is truly familiar with the reputation of the defendant, he will have also heard of adverse reports which are circulating in the community,” Brown v. State, 477 S.W.2d 617, 620 (Tex.Cr.App.1972); Ward v. State, 591 S.W.2d 810, 817 (Tex.Cr.App.1979). In an earlier Wright v. State, 98 Tex.Cr.R. 513, 266 S.W. 783, 784 (1924) the Court noted that “[m]uch confusion had arisen” about this matter; the instant case indicates it has not yet abated. Because experience has demonstrated that nowadays the witness who comes to court to give reputation testimony rarely is “truly familiar” with community reports of the reputation of the accused, learning sometime just before trial enough to express an “opinion” on the subject from one or more persons closely associated with the case, that the witness may be expected to have heard reports adverse to his stated opinion is an utter fallacy. The whole exercise has become a charade; whatever value it once had is gone. Therefore, in my opinion, continued efforts to abate the confusion are not worth the candle.