Court Opinion

ID: 9758407
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 23:29:28.683387+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:51.254014
License: Public Domain

TOM GRAY, Chief Justice
concurring.
The majority’s holding that the confrontation clause applies to a suppression hearing is not necessary for the disposition of this appeal. Unless an author is simply trying to create the law as they want it to be, there is no reason to address that aspect of the case in this appeal. It is, therefore, dicta. The majority’s holding that the statements were not testimonial in nature is the only holding that is necessary because that holding makes it entirely unnecessary to decide the issue of whether *300the confrontation clause applies to a suppression hearing.1
Additionally, the majority’s effort to make their unnecessary holding economically sound is Enron Economics.2 The majority’s argument goes as follows:
In part as a matter of judicial economy, Texas law allows a defendant to appeal the denial of a motion to suppress after a guilty plea. If confrontation rights are not guaranteed at a pretrial suppression hearing and may only be exercised at a trial on the merits, the purpose of this law may be undone.
Maj. op. at 298 (emphasis added).
Whatever judicial economy has been achieved by this law has been achieved under the existing law, and not the law that the majority wants to now write. So to suggest that the new law they are trying to impose upon the system is more economical than the existing law poses two problems. First, the economics of the law regarding the appeal of a suppression hearing is the result of a legislative debate, not from within the mind of one person.3 And second, even if maintaining the law as it was when that law was written becomes less economical for some reason, it should be a legislative act to modify the procedure as needed to accomplish the competing objectives after debate in the legislative process, not this Court’s.4
Furthermore, in their economic analysis, the majority has failed to place upon the scale all of the costs to be considered. The study which would need to be made to support their conclusion is a comparison of:
1. The cost of the trials which result only from a defendant who does not plead guilty after a motion to suppress is denied because of the absence of a right of confrontation at the suppression hearing so that the defendant can reliti-gate the propriety of that decision during the trial at which the defendant can confront the witnesses relevant to the suppression issue; versus
2. The cost of bringing to every suppression hearing every witness who has personal knowledge of any evidence necessary or helpful to determine the suppression issue.
Because there are many thousands of suppression hearings across this State in any year and only a small fraction of those are challenged, I cannot conclude that the first alternative is more economical than the later as proffered by the majority. Further, that analysis and weighing is much more relevant to a legislative analysis and resolution of the issue than a judicial one.
Ultimately, the question is whether the constitutionally guaranteed right of confrontation applies in a pre-trial suppression hearing. I find the majority’s analysis unpersuasive that it is a constitutionally required floor at a suppression hearing. *301It is certainly something that could be required, but as long as the defendant has the right to confrontation at trial, at which the defendant can relitigate the suppression ruling in front of the fact finder, like many other constraints upon when constitutional guarantees are available, I do not believe that the right of confrontation is constitutionally required at a suppression hearing. In this regard, I agree with the thoughtful and well-reasoned opinion of retired Justice Sue Lagarde (the panel also included Justices Francis and Lang) in Vanmeter v. State, 165 S.W.3d 68 (Tex.App.-Dallas 2005, pet. refd). While the majority’s purported holding in this appeal is dicta, it is in direct conflict with Vanmeter. I do not join the Court’s opinion as noted above, but concur in the Court’s judgment.

. For a discussion of the methodology of addressing Crawford issues, including whether a statement is testimonial in nature, see Cathy Cochran, Criminal Law Case Update; Thirtieth Annual Baylor General Practice Institute, April 20, 2007.

. By this I mean it is based on nothing more than what the majority wants it to be and is not based upon the reality or a study of any kind.

. The lengthy description in footnote 2 of the majority opinion adequately describes the legislative history of the development and current version of the rule, first through the legislature and more recently through the Court of Criminal Appeals' legislative process under its rule-making authority.

. This legislative process would now be under the rule-making authority of the Court of Criminal Appeals. See FN3.