Court Opinion

ID: 9777338
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 20:07:48.400617+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:14:31.909279
License: Public Domain

CLINTON, Judge,
concurring.
That evidence of escape tendered by the prosecution was relevant under the circumstances does riot necessarily mean it was admissible. The various and varied views expressed by members of a divided Court in Hodge v. State, 506 S.W.2d 870 (Tex.Cr.App.1973-1974) indicated that the real problem in such case is the matter of admissibility. I am enough inclined to agree that the trial court properly admitted the testimony here, but I am troubled that the Court seems in the past to have turned burden of producing testimony into a burden of persuasion,1 and created a procedural difficulty as to admissibility of evidence of escape that is not addressed today.
In Hodge v. State, supra, the opinion on rehearing states:
“... In order to have such evidence excluded, the burden then shifts to the defendant to show affirmatively that the escape and flight is directly connected to some other transaction and further show that it is not connected with the offense on trial.” Id., at 873.2
I take it that some kind of hearing outside the presence of the jury is contemplated to resolve the question of admissibility, although of that one is not certain from a close reading of the Hodge opinion on rehearing. Thus, it was further written:
“... If the defendant offers evidence that the escape and flight may have sprung from some other cause, but its connection to the offense on trial remains a logical one, the evidence would still be admissible, the defensive evidence going only to the weight of the evidence.” Id., at 873.
Since weight of the evidence is a matter for the jury, the supposition in Hodge must be that “defensive evidence” is to be adduced in front of the jury. But see the contrary suggestion a year later in Wockenfuss v. State, 521 S.W.2d 630, 6323 (Tex.Cr.App.1975).
The opinion of the Court in the instant cause concludes on this point that, given the State established appellant escaped from custody while awaiting trial on the charge in this cause, “[ajbsent showing by appellant that escape was related to circumstanc*757es unrelated to the charged offense, evidence of escape is admissible,” citing Wock-enfuss4 As already indicated, Wockenfuss suggested how an issue regarding admissibility of evidence of escape could be raised, and if this Court is reiterating that suggestion we would edify the bench and the bar by saying so, and also by clarifying the uncertainty in this respect one may sense from Hodge. Once that is done we could then sort out the respective burdens imposed on the parties.
Still, I concur in overruling the fourth ground of error and join in the judgment of the Court.

. See generally Ray, Law of Evidence §§ 41-47, 1 Texas Practice 47 ff.

. All emphasis is mine unless otherwise indicated.

. “An issue could have been raised in the present case; for example, if appellant had taken the stand outside the presence of the jury for the limited purpose of testifying that the flight occurred because of circumstances surrounding the prior rape conviction or else those relating to another currently pending charge, rather than the present offense. Absent such a showing ... evidence of flight is admissible as to all of the offenses.”

. In Wockenfuss the Court applied the reasoning in Damron v. State, 58 Tex.Cr.R. 255, 125 S.W. 396 (1910). Damron took the stand in his own defense and while being crossexamined was compelled to testify “as to other charges of theft and flight,” ibid. However, apparently he was not allowed to tell the jury that which was incorporated in a bill of exception — that he “had not sought to escape arrest for the crime here involved...” Thus, the privilege against self-incrimination was not implicated in Dam-ron ; though it looms large in some of the later cases and in the one at bar, its implications are not taken into account.