Court Opinion

ID: 9649153
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 14:43:27.688319+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:08.280905
License: Public Domain

KELLER, J.,
delivered a dissenting opinion
in which McCORMICK, P.J. and KEASLER, J. joined.
I would not remand this case for the Court of Appeals to articulate what seems to be fairly obvious: the extraneous offenses posed the danger of unfair prejudice because they convey the impression that the victim in this case is a criminal, who perhaps deserved what he received. The law, however, does not permit private individuals to resort to self-help except under narrowly prescribed circumstances, nor does it permit a vigilante justice, in which private individuals impose their own punishments upon suspected lawbreakers. That the victim in the present case may have been a “bad” person, a criminal, and a violent lawbreaker is not itself a consideration that the law permits a jury to take into account. Introducing such evidence, however, may encourage a jury to ignore appellant’s illegal behavior on the ground that the victim deserved what he received.
If appellant had possessed a legitimate claim of self-defense, she may have been entitled to produce evidence of her knowledge of the victim’s past behavior to show that she reasonably perceived that she was in danger. See Hamel v. State, 916 S.W.2d 491, 493 (Tex.Crim.App.1996). But appellant had no valid claim of self-defense.1 She failed to raise evidence of at least two required elements for self-defense involving the use of deadly force. To justify the use of deadly force in self-defense, the defendant must show, among other things, that (1) a reasonable person in the actor’s situation would not have retreated, and (2) he reasonably believed that the deadly force was immediately necessary to protect himself against the other’s use of attempted use of unlawful deadly force. Texas Penal Code § 9.32(a)(2) & (3)(A). Appellant was in a cafeteria filled with people when she set the victim on fire. While there was some evidence in the record to suggest that appellant could have reasonably perceived that she was in imminent danger of being subjected to unlawful force, nothing in the record suggests that she was in imminent danger of being subjected to unlawful deadly force. And even if there were such evidence, the only rational conclusion from the evidence presented is that a reasonable person in appellant’s position could have and would have retreated rather than escalate the confrontation.
Hence, appellant was not entitled to an instruction on self-defense. Because self-defense was not a proper issue in the case, the extraneous offenses had little if any probative value. Given the danger of unfair prejudice that would occur if evidence of those offenses were admitted, the trial court did not err in excluding the evidence under Rule 403, and the Court of Appeals did not err in affirming the trial court’s decision.
I would affirm the Court of Appeals.

. Although appellant received an instruction concerning self-defense in the jury charge, that does not change the analysis. Appellant is not entitled to relief simply because she received a windfall in the jury instructions. See Malik v. State, 953 S.W.2d 234, 239 (Tex.Crim.App.1997).