Court Opinion

ID: 9761331
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 01:39:15.109933+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:22.391647
License: Public Domain

WOODLEY, Presiding Judge
(dissenting)-
While I have some doubt as to other grounds of error, I am unable to agree that reversible error is shown in ground of error Nos. 4 or 5.
Appellant objected to the refusal of the court to grant his request to excise the *938portions of the confessions of the principals which referred to either Mair Schepps or the House of Tobacco.
Smith v. State, 91 Tex.Cr.R. 15, 237 S.W. 265, 267, holds: “Statements in the confession which might relate solely to the guilt of the accomplice, and which throw no light on the principal’s actions, should be excluded.”
The Smith case is also authority for the proposition that elimination which would render the confession incomplete and fragmentary is not required and that all of the confession necessary to connect the principal in an orderly way with the transaction could he used.
The Smith case further holds:
“The fact that interwoven in the confession were expressions connecting appellant (the defendant on trial for being an accomplice) with the acts of the principal (who made the confession) would not render the statement nonavailable to the state. The same would be ■ true though the statement tended to corroborate the testimony of some witness. These hurtful matters must be controlled by proper instructions to the jury limiting the purpose of the confession to establishing the principal’s guilt.”
As may be seen from the above, the admissibility of the entire confession of the principal does not depend upon whether all of the statements therein are necessary to show the guilt of the principal.