Court Opinion

ID: 9645832
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 21:36:32.942774+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:32.122069
License: Public Domain

BAIRD, Judge,
concurring.
In his ninth point of error, appellant contends Tex.Code Crim.Proc.Ann. art. 37.071, as applied, violated the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution, in failing to provide a vehicle for the jury to give effect to appellant’s mitigating evidence. The State responds:
Appellant failed to identify the mitigating evidence and to argue how the special issues failed to allow consideration of the mitigating evidence. Therefore, nothing is presented for review. His ninth point of error should be overruled for its failure to meet the requirements of Tex.R.App.P. 74(d).
State’s brief, pg. 66.
I agree. Appellant’s brief wholly fails to identify what he believes to be mitigating evidence. Further, appellant fails to show how such evidence, if any, was “not relevant to” and/or “beyond the scope” of the punishment issues as required by Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U.S. 302, 320, 109 S.Ct. 2934, 2948, 106 L.Ed.2d 256 (1989) (Quoting Franklin v. Lynaugh, 487 U.S. 164, 184, 108 S.Ct. 2320, 2333, 101 L.Ed.2d 155 (1988)). Clearly, not all mitigating evidence requires a vehicle; some mitigating evidence can be given full effect within the issues submitted under art. 37.071. See Boyd v. State, 811 S.W.2d 105, 112 (Tex.Cr.App.1991) (“Appellant’s evidence, which does not rise to the level of anything more than common courtesy, was given full effect within the second special issue [footnote omitted]”). Accordingly, I would summarily overrule the ninth point of error.
However, I write separately to briefly address the majority’s incorrect application Penry. The majority states:
... Nor do we think it is necessary to submit the question of extra-statutory moral culpability without a substantial showing that some significant circumstance has actually disabled the conscience of a defendant to a degree recognized as mitigating by a representative segment of our society, [citations omitted]
* * * * * *
... Without some further evidence of significant moral dysfunction attributable to the experience, we are unwilling to conclude that an isolated and unexplained event producing irrational hatred for a whole class of people is quite the kind of mitigating circumstance envisaged by the United States Supreme Court in Penry.1
Maj. op. at 137.
Simply stated, such statements are erroneous. There is no requirement under the Eighth Amendment of a “substantial showing” of a “disabled conscience.” Moreover, Penry should not be limited to situations of a “significant moral dysfunction attributable to [a childhood] experience.” Because the majority continues to read Penry far too narrowly, I concur in the result only.

. Unless otherwise indicated, all emphasis herein is supplied.