Court Opinion

ID: 9683019
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 13:20:53.368827+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:44.030241
License: Public Domain

OVERSTREET, Judge,
concurring and dissenting.
I dissent to the majority’s holding on appellant’s first point of error. Appellant claims error in not allowing him to discuss the mandatory 40-year parole eligibility law during voir dire. He points out that since he was 48 years of age, he would not have become eligible for parole on a life sentence until he was 88 years old. The fact that he would not be eligible for parole until such elderly age is unquestionably relevant to his future dangerousness. Surely no one would dispute that being incarcerated until such an advanced age is certainly a legitimate consideration in answering the future dangerousness special issue.
I continue to dissent to the majority’s treatment of this issue. See, e.g., Smith v. State, 898 S.W.2d 838 (Tex.Cr.App.1995)(plu-rality opinion), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 116 S.Ct. 131, 133 L.Ed.2d 80 (1995); Morris v. State, 940 S.W.2d 610 (Tex.Cr.App.1996), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 117 S.Ct. 2461, 138 L.Ed.2d 218 (1997). As I discussed in some detail in my dissent to Rhoades v. State, 934 S:W.2d 113, 131-44 (Tex.Cr.App.1996), in light of the United States Supreme Court’s holding in Simmons v. South Carolina, 512 U.S. 154, 114 S.Ct. 2187, 129 L.Ed.2d 133 (1994) and appellant’s advanced age upon parole eligibility, I believe that the United States Constitution’s guarantees of due process required appellant’s jury be informed of the forty year parole eligibility law.
I also note that four members of the United States Supreme Court have recently corn-*627merited upon the “[p]erverse[ness]” of our death penalty scheme not letting the jury know when the defendant will become eligible for parole if he is not sentenced to death. Brown v. Texas, — U.S. -, 118 S.Ct. 355, 189 L.Ed.2d 276 (1997). I likewise find rather perverse this Court’s continued approval of keeping jurors ignorant and uninformed of such a critical legal fact when making life and death decisions as to whether the death penalty will be assessed. Capital jurors deserve to be so informed so that they can make an informed decision. Hopefully a majority of this Court will soon realize this; before the Supreme Court explicitly informs us via a myriad of our opinions being reversed.
I respectfully dissent to the majority’s discussion and holding as to point of error one. Otherwise, I concur in the disposition of all the other points.