Court Opinion

ID: 9647257
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 13:29:09.537157+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:05:56.479826
License: Public Domain

ROBERTS, Judge
(dissenting).
There is a clear distinction between this case and Lolmaugh v. State, 514 S.W.2d 758 (Tex.Cr.App.1974), upon which the majority so heavily relies.
In Lolmaugh, the appellant was convicted of the murder of his wife’s current lover. There the appellant took the stand and by his testimony raised the issue of self-defense, and hence of motive. The State then introduced a portion of appellant’s confession in which the appellant admitted shooting another man who had also been his wife’s lover. This Court held that the extraneous offense was admissible since:
“[Pjroof that [appellant] had shot another of his wife’s lovers would tend to prove his motive in the present case. This would tend to show his state of mind toward a class, lovers of his wife, and this state of mind or motive was such that he would shoot members of that class.” Lolmaugh v. State, supra, at 759. (Emphasis added)
In Lolmaugh, the Court relied on Dillard v. State, 477 S.W.2d 547, 551 (Tex.Cr.App.1972), where we said:
“Where the accused has threatened or shown a feeling of ill-will or animosity towards all parties of one class then these threats or offenses may be admitted into evidence even though they show extraneous offenses. (Emphasis added.)”1
In the instant case, appellant was convicted for the murder of her common-law husband, Willie Lee Scott. The extraneous *219offense involved the shooting of Morris Myers some five weeks later. Myers testified that he had known appellant for “about four years.” 2 At trial Myers specifically denied having lived with appellant during the five-week period after the death of Scott, although he admitted spending time at her house both before and after the death of Scott. According to Myers’s testimony, appellant shot him after he encountered her on the street and refused to pay her the money he owed her. In no way does Myers’s testimony reflect that he and the appellant were lovers or that they had any relationship comparable to that of husband and wife, or that any “intimate” relationship between them in any way brought about the extraneous offense.
On these facts, there is simply no “one class” of individuals into which both Scott and Myers fit, unless we consign them to the “class” of male human beings generally. Compare Ford v. State, 484 S.W.2d 727 (Tex.Cr.App.1972).
I would hold as we did on original submission in Alvarez v. State, 511 S.W.2d 493, 495 (Tex.Cr.App.1974), that:
“While the record does indicate that appellant offered some evidence to raise an issue of self defense, proof of an extraneous offense is in no way probative of appellant’s state of mind at the time of the killing in the instant case. Cf. Ford v. State, supra; Rodriguez v. State, [486 S.W.2d 355 (Tex.Cr.App.1972)].”
See also Jackel v. State, 506 S.W.2d 229 (Tex.Cr.App.1974).
The effect of the majority opinion is to destroy the well-established rule that “before extraneous offenses may be properly admitted into evidence, there must be some common distinguishing characteristics, or a series of distinguishing characteristics between the offense charged and the extraneous offense. In the absence of such a rule, remote and completely unrelated offenses might be recited to the court in order to show that defendant is simply a bad character, or a criminal generally.” Newman v. State, 485 S.W.2d 576, 577-578 (Tex.Cr.App.1972). See also Ford v. State, supra.
The judgment should be reversed.

. The extraneous offense in Dillard was admitted to show appellant’s hostility to blacks as a class.

. Myers later testified that he had known appellant for “a year or more.”