Court Opinion

ID: 9772920
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 17:33:20.468358+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:49.376543
License: Public Domain

CLINTON, Judge,
concurring.
Article V, § 6 of the Constitution of the State of Texas has long contained a proviso that “the decision of [courts of appeals] shall be conclusive on all questions of fact brought before them ...” Whatever our *916final resolution of meaning and impact of that proviso vis a vis review by this Court of fact findings by a court of appeals to base “the reason for such decision” rendered by the latter, see, e.g., Laday v. State, 685 S.W.2d 651, 652-653 (Tex.Cr.App.1985) (Concurring Opinion), here the Houston (1st) Court of Appeals seems to have based its decision on a conclusion of law that “the evidence is insufficient to support a finding that the appellant knew the content and character of the magazine in question.” See Combs v. State, 643 S.W.2d 709, 716-717 (Tex.Cr.App.1982).
In this instance I agree with the result reached by this Court because the trial court was permitted to infer knowledge on the part of appellant from all the facts and circumstances proved by the State, especially the undisputed fact that after the magazine in question had been sealed in a wrapper by Peveto, appellant placed it “on display with other magazines and films of the same ilk” shown in the photographs, on a shelf from which Officer Wong took it and then made his purchase.
Accordingly, I join the judgment of the Court.1

. Although from the record Judge Teague plausibly argues that “appellant was nothing more than a delivery person, who, after picking up merchandise addressed to him at United Parcel Service, then delivered same to The Palace Bookstore, and thereafter assisted another person in making the magazines available to those members of the general public ..,” the case was neither tried nor presented to the court of appeals — nor, for that matter, to this Court — on that theory. Therefore, for this Court to review sufficiency of the evidence in that light would not be "a proper function of this Court in its new constitutional role,” Turner v. State, 662 S.W.2d 357, 358 (Tex.Cr.App.1984) (Dissenting Opinion).