Court Opinion

ID: 9633140
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 11:35:04.995173+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:09:21.154177
License: Public Domain

*105LEE ANN DAUPHINOT, Justice,
dissenting.
The majority opinion correctly points out that the presentence investigation report (PSI) statute is in direct conflict with the Constitution of the United States.1 By statute, a PSI is an ex parte communication providing hearsay evidence to the trial court, denying a defendant the right to confront witnesses against him in open court.2 As the majority provides, requiring the trial court to comply with the Confrontation Clause before considering the PSI would “obliterate the statutory PSI purposes and procedure.”3
The PSI statute not only violates the Confrontation Clause; its ex parte nature undermines our system of public trials. Nothing in our law prevents the State’s offering a PSI into evidence through a sponsoring witness. Nothing prevents the State’s offering a defendant’s criminal history through a sponsoring witness. A jury assessing punishment does not require a PSI. A jury hears witnesses and examines evidence in open court to determine the appropriate sentence.
In a jury trial, a jury must be instructed that they may not consider extraneous offenses or acts of misconduct unless they believe beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant committed those acts and offenses.4 The State, then, bears a burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt when it seeks to prove extraneous offenses at the punishment phase of a jury trial.5 The State is not relieved of its burden of proof merely because the trial judge assesses punishment.
Additionally, the protections of the Confrontation Clause apply to the punishment phase of trial.6 In addressing reports admitted at the punishment phase, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals held in Russeau v. State,
The Sixth Amendment’s Confrontation Clause provides that, “[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right ... to be confronted with the witnesses against him.” This procedural guarantee is applicable in both federal and state prosecutions and bars the admission of testimonial statements of a witness who does not appear at trial unless he is unavailable to testify and the defendant had a prior opportunity to cross-examine him. Generally speaking, a statement is “testimonial” if it is a solemn declaration made for the purpose of establishing some fact.
The reports in question contained testimonial statements which were inadmissible under the Confrontation Clause, because the State did not show that the declarants were unavailable to testify and appellant never had an opportunity to cross-examine any of them. Indeed, the statements in the reports amounted to unsworn, ex parte affidavits of government employees and were the very type of evidence the Clause was intended to prohibit. The trial court erred in admitting those portions of the reports *106that contained the testimonial statements.7
Similarly, in the case now before this court, the statements in the PSI were clearly testimonial. The State did not show that the declarants were unavailable to testify, and Appellant never had an opportunity to cross-examine any of them. Appellant preserved his confrontation objection in the trial court. The portion of the PSI accusing Appellant of extraneous acts of misconduct was properly objected to, and the trial court should have sustained Appellant’s objections.
The majority suggests that Appellant could have subpoenaed the witnesses with personal knowledge of the hearsay contained in the PSI in order to invoke his confrontation rights.8 In the context of article 38.071 of the code of criminal procedure, which governs the admission of out of court statements of a child complainant in certain circumstances,9 the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has discussed this approach much more eloquently than I can:
Due process does not lend itself to simple, concise definitions. In its most basic sense due process is the impediment that is constitutionally imposed on governmental conduct that offends our fundamental rights. Relative to the protection of one’s liberty: “[t]he essential guarantee of the due process clauses is that the government may not imprison or otherwise physically restrain a person except in accordance with fair procedures.” In other words, due process is in itself essentially the same as fairness. Or, at the very least, due process is the vehicle used to arrive at fairness thereby protecting our fundamental rights. Accordingly, “a fair trial in a fair tribunal is a basic requirement of due process.” If legislation alters the essential fairness of a trial then a due process violation is necessarily implicated. In Estelle v. Williams, it was specifically stated that “[t]he right to a fair trial is a fundamental liberty secured by the Fourteenth Amendment.” ...
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The opinion continues with guidelines for determining whether a particular procedure diminishes fairness and is thus violative of due process. The court commented:
But this Court has left no doubt that the probability of deleterious effects on fundamental rights calls for close scrutiny.... Courts must do the best they can to evaluate the likely effects of a particular procedure, based on reason, principle, and common human experience.
Consequently, in a criminal prosecution, when viewing legislatively authorized procedures that could be detrimental to one’s fundamental rights, i.e., “a fair trial in a fair tribunal ...,” the legislation must be closely scrutinized. Such an examination must be “based on reason, principle, and common human experience.”
Scrutinizing Art. 38.071, § 2, and applying the predicates of consideration as suggested in Estelle v. Williams, it is evident that on its face Art. 38.071, § 2 imposes upon the defendant a constitutionally unacceptable burden. The courts of this state and country have never had to confront and review a trial procedure that requires the defendant to call as a witness his accuser if he wants to question the witness. Doing so places *107the defendant in the proverbial Catch-22: call the complainant and be able to question the witness; or alternatively, decline to do so and thereby waive the opportunity to cross-examine the witness. Either way the defendant is placed at a distinct and undue disadvantage. Conversely, the prosecution is placed in the unique and substantially advantageous position of being able to in essence present its evidence, then wait for the defendant to call the complainant, thereby allowing the State to repeat the videotaped statement. Or, by not calling the witness fail to controvert the videotape statement....
“[R]eason, principle, and common human experience” dictate that a jury will respond negatively to a defendant compelling a child witness to testify after they have already seen the videotape of the child’s allegations. The possible, if not probable, reaction of the jury to a trial incident of this nature would be unduly prejudicial to the defendant. Prejudice, to this extent, will create a risk that the entire proceedings were fundamentally unfair. A risk of this nature does not comport with the concept of due process.
In Lee v. Illinois, the Supreme Court was concerned with both due process and confrontation violations by an infringement upon the right of confrontation when a non-testifying co-defendant’s confession was admitted into evidence and considered as substantive evidence of the defendant’s guilt. Noting initially the historical unanimity of the court in its commitment to the defendant’s right of confrontation and cross-examination, the Court recognized the overlapping due process issue when it observed that the right of confrontation and cross-examination “ ‘is an essential and fundamental requirement for the kind of fair trial which is this country’s constitutional goal.’ ”
The Court continues and pertinently states:
On one level, the right to confront and cross-examine adverse witnesses contributes to the establishment of a system of criminal justice in which the perception as well as the reality of fairness prevails. To foster such a system, the Constitution provides certain safeguards to promote to the greatest possible degree society’s interest in having the accused and the accuser engage in an open and even contest in a public trial.
Under Art. 38.071 § 2, the essential state’s witness, the complainant, will be what due process and the confrontation clause endeavor to prevent: “unseen” and “unchallengeable” witnesses. Unless, of course the defendant takes the step of calling to testify the essential prosecution witnesses [ ]. Nowhere and at no time in Anglo-American jurisprudence has an accused ever been required to call as a witness the accuser in order to enjoy the fundamental right of cross-examination. That is, until Art. 38.071 § 2. It is an illogical as well as unconstitutional scheme to place a defendant, who, again must be presumed innocent in the untenable position of either requiring the child to testify and thereby run the very real risk of incurring the wrath of the jury or forgo the right to invoke “ ‘the greatest legal engine ever invented for the discovery of truth.’ ”10
Even though Long discusses the right of confrontation at the guilt phase of trial, *108Russeau makes clear that the right of confrontation applies equally at punishment, and therefore Long’s lessons also equally apply to the punishment phase of Appellant’s trial for the offense of possessing child pornography. The trial court as fact finder is, like a jury, also capable of an emotional reaction.
The majority also finds waiver, forfeiture, or estoppel.11 The majority has established a new rule: when a defendant files an application for community supervision, he waives or forfeits his right to assert a Confrontation Clause objection to the PSI or is estopped from asserting it. That is, a defendant must trade his right to confrontation of witnesses against him for his right to apply for community supervision. Nowhere in our jurisprudence is there any suggestion that a person requesting community supervision must give up his constitutional right to a fair trial. This is the very issue addressed in Carroll v. State.12 Carroll had filed an application for community supervision. The trial judge said that he would be hard pressed to give her probation if she did not give up her right to remain silent by testifying in the punishment phase of the bench trial. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals held that Carroll’s “guilty plea to the offense charged did not waive her right against self-incrimination as to sentencing.”13 The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals relied on the U.S. Supreme Court’s holding in Mitchell v. United States that the right against self-incrimination does not disappear with an adjudication of guilt because “[wjhere the sentence has not yet been imposed a defendant may have a legitimate fear of adverse consequences from further testimony.”14 Analogously, an appellant’s right to confront witnesses against him does not disappear with an application for community supervision because until sentence is imposed, he too may have a legitimate fear of unfavorable information submitted for the fact finder’s consideration.
The majority also found that Appellant waived or forfeited his right of confrontation or was estopped from asserting it because he accepted the benefits of the favorable portions of the PSI.15 A defendant is not required to abandon his objections to inadmissible evidence because he does not object to the admissible portions of the evidence. That is, a Confrontation Clause objection lies only when the evidence is unfavorable, not when it is favorable.
The majority further holds that because Appellant accepted the benefits of the order requiring a PSI and the order requiring psychosexual testing as part of the PSI, he was estopped from asserting a Confrontation Clause objection and limited to the statutory remedy of objecting to factual inaccuracies. Essentially, the majority holds that the constitutional right to due process as expressed in the Confrontation Clause must bow to the PSI statute.
To summarize the majority’s new rule: When a defendant in a criminal case pleads guilty and applies for community supervision from the judge, he gives up his constitutional due process rights to confront and cross-examine the witnesses against him, his right to have the evidence against him presented under oath, his right to challenge the admissibility of the *109evidence against him, and his right to have the evidence against him presented in open court. Essentially, the majority holds that when the PSI statute conflicts with the Constitution, the statute prevails over the Constitution. I cannot agree.
The trial court erred by denying Appellant his constitutional rights to confront and cross-examine witnesses accusing him of crimes. Additionally, the State emphasized the extraneous acts of misconduct in its closing argument to the trial court, harming Appellant. Because the majority holds that Appellant forfeited his constitutional right to due process guarantees by applying for community supervision, I must respectfully dissent.

. Majority op. at 100-01.

. See Tex.Code Crim. Proc. Ann. arts. 37.07, § 3(d), 42.12, § 9 (Vernon Supp.2008).

. Majority op. at 100-01.

. Huizar v. State, 12 S.W.3d 479, 484 (Tex.Crim.App.2000).

. See Tex.Code Crim. Proc. Ann. art. 37.07, § 3(a) (Vernon Supp.2008).

. See Russeau v. State, 171 S.W.3d 871, 880-81 (Tex.Crim.App.2005), cert. denied, 548 U.S. 926, 126 S.Ct. 2982, 165 L.Ed.2d 989 (2006).

. Id. (citations omitted).

. Majority op. at 102-30.

. Tex.Code Crim. Proc. Ann. art. 38.071 (Vernon Supp.2008).

. Long v. State, 742 S.W.2d 302, 320-21 (Tex.Crim.App.1987) (citations omitted), 485 U.S. 993, 108 S.Ct. 1301, 99 L.Ed.2d 511 (1988), overruled on other grounds, Briggs v. State, 789 S.W.2d 918, 924 (Tex.Crim.App.1990).

. See majority op. at 103-04, 105.

. Carroll v. State (Carroll V), 42 S.W.3d 129 (Tex.Crim.App.2001).

. Id. at 132.

. 526 U.S. 314, 326, 119 S.Ct. 1307, 1314, 143 L.Ed.2d 424(1999).

. See majority op. at 104.