Court Opinion

ID: 9764139
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 03:11:45.87584+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:54.014278
License: Public Domain

CLINTON, Judge,
dissenting.
On original submission a panel of the Court affirmed judgment of conviction for the offense of rape of a child in a per curiam opinion delivered on January 17, 1979, overruling, inter alia, the contention that the prosecutor commented on the failure of appellant to testify at trial. This per curiam affirmance was later withdrawn, appellant’s motion for rehearing granted, and the judgment reversed on the grounds that the prosecutor’s comments during final argument constituted a necessary reference to appellant’s failure to take the stand. The cause is now under consideration for the third time, I understood, because of the State’s vigorous contention that the prosecutor’s comment was invited by earlier defense argument.1 For reasons more fully developed below, I remain convinced that this conviction must be reversed in light of the prosecutor’s comments.2
The complainant, appellant’s 13 year old daughter, testified that she went to live with appellant and his second wife, Jeannie, in July of 1976. On or about July 31 of that year, Jeannie came to the complainant’s bedroom and told her to go to appellant’s bedroom. She complied with the request, got into bed with appellant and, after he began to “bother” her, appellant had sexual intercourse with her. Neither Jeannie, who did not enter the bedroom, nor appellant testified.
Aside from the testimony of the complainant, the State called only two other witnesses, Dallas Police Officer Dana Franklin, who arrested appellant, and Antoinette Hernandez, a Deputy District Clerk, who indicated when the indictment in this cause was filed.
The four specific excerpts from appellant’s argument that the State contends invited its comments are:
“Ladies and Gentlemen, where is the mother ? She told her mother about it; where is the mother? Do you think this little girl drove up here from Kilgore by herself? Her mother could have come in and said, ‘Yes, she told me back in November.’ Did we have any corroboration there? Did her mother come in Court and say, ‘Yes, she sure did tell me about it. Yes, she sure did tell me about it’.”
⅜: ⅝5 ⅜{ ‡ 5⅜ ⅜
“There is no physical evidence. I talked to you about physical evidence. There is no doctor’s report, no medical report to show that, yes, in fact, she was not a virgin, or yes, in fact, it could not have occurred. There is nothing on that, the only evidence that you heard is one person, one person and that is a 14-year old girl.”

“So that leaves one witness. Ms. Holden [the prosecutor], you know, went over with you, could you convict on that and you said you could, but I think, ladies and gentlemen, that one witness has to be a believable witness. That witness has to be a believable witness, you have to look to the reason that she testified the way she did. We have shown you ample reason for her to testify the way she did when she came down here.”
⅜ * * * * *
“I want you to go back there and I want you to vote your conscience. I want you to vote the way you see or think. I can’t see you vote any other way than the not guilty. The State has simply not proven the case. They haven’t brought you any *107of these people to show you that these events actually happened.”3
The comments the State contends were thus invited, again, are:
“. . . Now ask yourself that, what does that little girl have to gain or lose by coming in here and telling you a lie? Now, she didn’t have to do it. What does she have to gain or lose? Can you think of anything? She is no longer staying with her father any more. She wants to go back to her mother and she is already there. What reason did she have to tell this jury anything but the truth?
“I said I’d ask for a little understanding. Now, ladies and gentlemen, there are only two witnesses to this case. The little girl came in here and told you what happened. There is no other witness to it. Either you believe her-”
The well settled doctrine of “invited argument” is that if appellant, through his lawyer, goes outside the record in his argument the prosecutor is also permitted to respond dehors the record. Franks v. State, 574 S.W.2d 124 (Tex.Cr.App.1978); Kincaid v. State, 534 S.W.2d 340 (Tex.Cr.App.1976); cf. Wyatt v. State, 566 S.W.2d 597 (Tex.Cr.App.1978). It is, however, equally beyond argument that, while such defense argument invites the State to reply in kind, the invitation does not grant the prosecutor a license to stray beyond the scope of the invitation. Franks v. State, supra; Kincaid v. State, supra. But the State may not go outside the record to respond to defense argument which is not itself objectionable for that reason. Reynolds v. State, 505 S.W.2d 265 (Tex.Cr.App.1974).
An examination of the above quoted argument evidences that there was nothing objectionable about it which would have supported an “invited argument.” The first segment merely pointed out that the State had not produced the mother of the complainant to corroborate her testimony about making belated outcries-a point that appellant developed in cross examining complaint. The second line of argument criticized the State for failing to produce some medical testimony as to the chaste condition of complainant-again a matter, he argued, that weakened the case presented by the State. The third excerpt argued that even a single witness must be believable and claimed that “ample reason” was shown that complainant was not. Finally, counsel insisted that “the State has simply not proven the case” because it had not presented any of the other persons to whom counsel had alluded to show the jury “that these events actually happened.” In sum, appellant pleaded with the jury not to convict on the uncorroborated testimony of an interested witness. And we observe from the record that the State did not object to any of the quoted arguments.
The argument of appellant, therefore, was outside the record only in the sense that it questioned why corroborative testimony was not presented;4 nor was it objectionable. Then, did it invite from the State the contested statements made by its prosecutor?
The State would have us conclude that Wyatt v. State, supra, controls the disposition of the instant case. In Wyatt, supra, defense counsel had initially injected in issue the subject of whether the testimony of one witness was sufficient to justify a conviction and why the State only relied upon one witness when accused, himself, had produced another. The record in that case revealed that the accused robbed a convenience store manager at gunpoint and forced a customer to lie on the floor; the accused presented the latter as a witness. In responding to defense argument alluded to above, the prosecutor argued, inter alia, “there was only two people that could testify to anything in this case and one of them is Greg Johanson [the customer on the floor].” The prosecutor also asked the jury not to be misled by the lack of any physical
*108evidence, stating that a conviction could be secured on the testimony of just one witness. The distinction between Wyatt and the case at bar is clear: In the former case there were two witnesses to the offense, other than the accused, who could have testified as to what happened; in this cause there was but one witness, other than appellant, who could have testified as to the actual commission of the offense.
The lesson to be learned from Wyatt is plain. If the subject of securing a conviction on the testimony of one witness is brought into issue by defense counsel, the proper reply to that argument is that the State has talked to other witnesses and they could not add anything to its ease. See Wyatt v. State, supra, at 603-04. Consistent with Article 38,03, V.A.C.C.P., however, a response is objectionable when it constitutes a direct comment on the failure of the accused to take the stand and otherwise contradict the State’s case. The defense argument which the State would have us believe invited its own response in essence points to the failure of the State to produce corroborative evidence relating to either outcry of the victim or evidence of a medical nature. The eventual reply by the prosecutor was not calculated fairly to respond to any of the arguments set forth above; it was, instead, the most direct reference to the failure of this appellant to take the stand and tell the jury what happened. In so commenting, rather than merely pointing out that calling Jeannie or a doctor would have added nothing to their case, the State clearly strayed from the scope of its “invitation,” assuming there was one. Franks v. State, supra; Kincaid v. State, supra.
For the reasons above stated, the State’s motion for rehearing should be overruled-if the Court is to flout its own rule in entertaining it.

. Yet, even our entertaining a motion for rehearing by the State would seem precluded by Rule 12(d) promulgated by the Court.

. A nearly unanimous Court that granted appellant’s motion for rehearing has now come full circle and, notwithstanding irregularity of the procedure, like the panel opinion on original submission, affirms. My own inquiry focuses on the point of invited argument raised now by the State, though I adhere to the late En Banc determination that the prosecutor made an unconstitutional comment on failure of appellant to testify.

. All emphasis is supplied throughout by the writer of this opinion unless otherwise indicated.

. To that invitation, if it be so considered, the State responded in full to each asserted instance of evidence that had not been adduced.