Court Opinion

ID: 9765530
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 04:05:20.838609+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:08.447431
License: Public Domain

O’CONNOR, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from the majority opinion.
I. THE BATSON INQUIRY
The majority concedes that the prosecutor’s explanations for the State’s strikes were “weak.” The majority, however, overrules appellant’s first point of error because appellant did not “raise the argument in the trial court.” The majority then says, “Rebuttal evidence will not be considered for the first time on appeal.” (Emphasis added.) I do not understand. Was appellant required to articulate another objection to the prosecutor’s excuses or was appellant required to introduce evidence?
*362If the majority means that appellant had to articulate another objection, I disagree. The record shows the State did not offer race-neutral explanations. Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 96, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 1723, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986), does not require appellant to restate the obvious to the trial court.
If the majority means that appellant had to introduce additional evidence, again I disagree. The prosecutor’s excuses for challenging the black members of the venire violated the holding of Whitsey v. State, No. 1121-87 (Tex.Crim.App., May 10, 1989) (not yet reported).
To object to the State’s use of peremptory challenges to exclude members of defendant’s racial group from the petit jury, defendant must show he is a member of a cognizable racial group; and the prosecutor exercised peremptory challenges to remove members of defendant’s racial group from the venire. Batson, 476 U.S. at 96, 106 S.Ct. at 1723. These facts, and any other relevant circumstances, raise an inference the prosecutor used the peremptory strikes to exclude members of defendant’s race from the jury. Id.
Once a defendant makes a prima facie showing, the burden shifts to the State to offer race-neutral explanations that relate to defendant’s case. Batson, 476 U.S. at 98, 106 S.Ct. at 1724. Once the State comes forward with its explanations, the Supreme Court said:
The trial court then will have the duty to determine if the defendant has established purposeful discrimination.

Id.

In Tompkins v. State, 774 S.W.2d 195 (Tex.Crim.App.1987), the Court of Criminal Appeals explained that if a defendant establishes a prima facie case of purposeful discrimination, the State’s exercise of peremptory strikes violates defendant’s right to equal protection of the law. Id. at 201. If, however, the State offers race-neutral explanations for the challenges, the State can rebut the prima facie case of purposeful discrimination. Id.
The question here hinges on one issue: What is a race-neutral explanation? The Supreme Court said the State may not simply deny a discriminatory motive. Batson, 476 U.S. at 98, 106 S.Ct. at 1724. Nor may the State claim it struck jurors of defendant’s race because they might be partial to defendant. Id. at 97, 106 S.Ct. at 1723; Rodgers v. State, 725 S.W.2d 477, 479 (Tex.App.-Houston [1st Dist.] 1987, pet. ref’d).
In Whitsey, the Court of Criminal Appeals held a race-neutral explanation was not enough; the explanation must be supported by the record. Slip op. at 8-9. If the record shows the State did not apply the race-neutral objection to members of the venire who did not belong to defendant’s racial group, the explanation is not neutral to race. Slip op. at 13. That is, the State cannot claim an objection is race-neutral if the State selectively applied it to members of defendant’s racial group.
Appellant is a black man of Cuban descent. Four of the six blacks on the venire were excused on peremptory challenges by the State. I believe Batson and Whitsey require us to review the rationale for each seemingly neutral rationale offered by the prosecutor. Whitsey, slip op. at 8. Although the prosecutor’s explanations for his challenges are neutral on their face, if we also consider the voir dire testimony and the information on the juror forms, the explanations are not neutral.
A. The black venire members who were struck.
Here are the prosecutor’s explanations for striking three of the blacks on the panel:
Ms. Clark
The prosecutor said he struck Ms. Clark because she is a legal assistant. In his opinion, members of the legal community are the “toughest.” Presumably, he meant they were the toughest on the State, although he did not explain his remark.
The prosecutor did not have the same objection to whites who had ties with the legal profession. The prosecutor did not *363strike three white venire members who seemed to fall into the category of persons in the legal community: a lawyer, a paralegal, and the wife of a lawyer.
Ms. Porter and Mr. Martin
The prosecutor said he struck Ms. Porter because she had a family member who had been convicted of public intoxication; and he struck Mr. Martin because he had been arrested for DWI 10 years before.
The prosecutor did not have the same objections to whites with criminal convictions. One white venire member had been convicted of a DWI five years before. One had been convicted of a weapons charge, and another had been convicted of possession of marijuana.
B. The Whitsey holding.
The Whitsey court said the State’s disparate exercise of preferential strikes against persons with similar characteristics but of different races, is impermissible. The prosecutor’s peremptory challenges exercised against certain black venire members were based on reasons equally applicable to white venire members who were not challenged by the prosecutor.
As the court said in Whitsey, the exclusion of even one member of appellant’s race from the jury panel for racial reasons invalidates the entire jury selection process. Slip op. at 15. Having been denied due process in the selection of the jury, appellant is, therefore, entitled to a new trial.
C. Appellant’s burden.
The majority says appellant did not prove his allegations that the State exercised its challenges in a discriminatory manner because he did not cross-examine the prosecutor, introduce documentary evidence, offer any testimony, or attempt to compare the challenged black venire members with any of those venire members who were not challenged.
I do not see how the cross-examination of the prosecutor would have helped. The prosecutor was not likely to be so overwhelmed by the skill of appellant’s cross-examination to confess to racial bias.
I do not know what documentary evidence or testimony appellant could have offered. The entire inquiry was to the prosecutor’s state of mind.
I do not see how the appellant’s articulation of objections to the prosecutor’s excuses could add anything. The judge was present in the courtroom and was a witness to the voir dire. He heard the examination of the venire members, he saw which ve-nire members were excluded, and he heard the prosecutor’s explanations.
The majority relies on footnote 6A in Tompkins as authority for overruling appellant’s point of error. In the text to that footnote, the Court of Criminal Appeals noted that the defendant did not compare the blacks who were struck with the whites on the panel. In footnote 6A, the court said Batson does not require the judge to consider the possibility that the State’s explanations are not neutral to race unless the defendant asks the court to do so. The Court of Criminal Appeals does not place any burden on the trial court, as the fact finder, to evaluate the State’s explanations in light of the voir dire and the State’s strikes.
I respectfully suggest that, once a defendant objects to the jury panel and raises a prima facie case of discrimination, Batson requires the trial court to evaluate the State’s strikes in light of the information elicited during voir dire. The trial judge cannot merely be present in the courtroom. The trial judge is charged with all the information in this record.
I would hold that appellant made a prima facie showing of racial discrimination in the striking of black venire members. Further, I would hold the State did not rebut that inference because its explanations were not, on this record, race-neutral.
II. PERJURED TESTIMONY
In his second point of error, appellant claims he was convicted on perjured testimony. Upon orders of this Court, the trial court held an evidentiary hearing to take evidence on this issue.
*364The standard we should apply in reviewing the trial court’s ruling at the post-appeal hearing is the same standard we apply to the ruling on a motion for new trial. Rule 30, Tex.R.App.P., states that the trial court should grant a defendant a new trial:
(5) Where ... any evidence tending to establish the innocence of the accused has been intentionally destroyed or withheld preventing its production at trial;
(6) Where new evidence favorable to the accused has been discovered since trial; ...
The trial court’s ruling on the motion for new trial based on newly discovered evidence is within the court’s sound discretion. We will not disturb the court’s ruling unless the trial court abused its discretion. Bolden v. State, 634 S.W.2d 710, 711 (Tex.Crim.App. [Panel Op.] 1982).
To show that the court abused its discretion, the record must show: (1) that there is new evidence, both competent and material, which was not known to the movant at trial; (2) that movant’s failure to discover it was not due to his lack of diligence. Once a defendant establishes these two factors, he has made a prima facie case for a new trial. Jones v. State, 711 S.W.2d 35, 36 (Tex.Crim.App.1986). The burden then shifts to the State to show that a different result would probably not be reached if the new testimony is produced upon another trial. Id.
Appellant, who did not testify at the trial, testified at the evidentiary hearing. He testified he was in his apartment, which he shared with another person, when the police arrested him. He said officers DeAle-jandro and Villoutreux handcuffed him and beat him to get him to tell them where the cocaine was. Appellant said the officers emptied his pockets and searched the apartment but did not find anything. The next day, when he was being arraigned, he found out he had been charged with possession of one gram of cocaine.
Appellant also called Michael Grant, a confidential informant, and the three officers who arrested him to testify at the hearing. Grant was an informant for the Southeast Tactical Response Unit for about two and a half years, which included the time of appellant’s arrest. Grant testified he participated in about two hundred “busts” with members of the Southeast Unit, including officers DeAlejandro, Vil-loutreux, and Katz. Grant testified it was routine practice among the officers of the unit, including DeAlejandro and Villou-treux, to falsify offense reports, manufacture evidence, and commit perjury. Grant testified the officers routinely arrested all persons at the scene regardless of their involvement. Grant testified the officers always found a way to justify the arrest. He said 95% of the arrest reports were falsified.
Grant testified that most of the officers in the Tactical Unit could not make buys. The reason was, they were not “cool” enough; they looked too much like police officers. Grant said DeAlejandro and Vil-loutreux never bought dope. Grant said a dope dealer would have to be stupid to sell dope to DeAlejandro or Villoutreux, because they look like cops. Grant said a blind person could tell the two were cops.
Officer Villoutreux testified he “vaguely” recalled his testimony. He claimed no independent recollection of events other than his review of the trial transcript. Officers DeAlejandro and Katz invoked the fifth amendment.
The majority says that there was no evidence that either officer lied under oath in this trial. I disagree. The officers falsified evidence in 95% of their cases to obtain convictions, neither officer ever made buys of drugs, and the officers always found a way to justify an arrest.
The majority cites Tex.R.Crim.Evid. 513(a), to support its statement that the trial court was not permitted to draw any inference from the officers’ invocation of the privilege against self-incrimination. Again I disagree. The majority cites no case that supports the use of rule 513(a). When a defendant’s due process rights are in conflict with the rights of the testifying officers to invoke the fifth amendment, I believe the trial court should order a new trial. In a clash between rule 513(a) and a *365defendant’s constitutionally protected right to a fair trial, I think rule 513(a) must yield.
I believe the testimony presented by appellant established a prima facie case for a new trial. The State did not meet its burden to show a different result would not have been reached on retrial. Jones, 711 S.W.2d at 36; Henson v. State, 150 Tex.Crim. 344, 200 S.W.2d 1007, 1014 (1947). We must resolve any doubts in this case as to whether the new evidence would produce a different result in favor of appellant. Henson, 200 S.W.2d at 1014; Simon v. State, 630 S.W.2d 681, 686 (Tex.App.-Houston [1st Dist.] 1981, no pet.).
This case, as the recent case of Ex parte Adams, 768 S.W.2d 281, 289 (Tex.Crim.App.1989), involves the corruption of the truth-seeking function of the trial process. We should reverse for a new trial.