Court Opinion

ID: 9637011
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 14:52:38.880661+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:52.091626
License: Public Domain

TOM GRAY, Chief Justice,
concurring.
I concur with the majority’s decision to affirm the trial court’s judgment. I write separately because I disagree that the trial court erred in excluding the evidence of the victim’s motive. The victim’s testimony about having been punished was proper testimony to introduce to impeach the victim regarding a possible motive to testify against Thomas. The reason for the punishment was irrelevant. Thus, Thomas improperly offered admissible evidence blended with inadmissible evidence.
When a trial court is presented with a proffer of evidence containing both admissible and inadmissible statements, and the proponent of the evidence fails to segregate and specifically offer the admissible statements, the court may properly exclude all of the evidence. Willover v. State, 70 S.W.3d 841, 847 (Tex.Crim.App.2002). The trial court need never sort through challenged evidence in order to segregate the admissible from the inadmissible. Jones v. State, 843 S.W.2d 487, 492 (Tex.Crim.App.l992)(overruled on other grounds). If evidence is offered and challenged which contains some of each, the trial court may safely admit it all or exclude it all, and the losing party, no matter who he is, will be made to suffer on appeal the consequences of his insufficiently specific offer or objection. Id.
By finding error, the majority faults the trial court for not sifting through the evidence. I find no fault. But because the majority ultimately determines that the error, a conclusion with which I do not agree, is harmless, I concur in the result reached by the majority.