Court Opinion

ID: 9672535
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:56:40.690434+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:16.382064
License: Public Domain

CLINTON, Judge,
dissenting.
A recognized privilege is highly valued and scrupulously protected in our own rules of criminal evidence and elsewhere in the Rule of Law. In my judgment testimony erroneously obtained by breach of the spousal privilege may not then be used to render the error harmless. Beyond that the majority falls back on a harm analysis it disapproved in Harris v. State, 790 S.W.2d 568, at 587 (Tex.Cr.App.1989): “[A]n appellate court should not determine the harmfulness of an error simply by examining whether there was overwhelming evidence to support the defendant’s guilt.” Certainly, the majority fails to direct its focus on the factors emphasized in the methodology outlined in Harris, at 587-588.
To diminishing the guarantee of our spousal privilege by overruling the second point of error, I respectfully dissent.