Court Opinion

ID: 9654088
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 18:05:43.818512+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:05.799056
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Wilson
joined by Justice Garwood, dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. At the scene of the accident defendant had told the officers he was driving thirty five miles per hour. During the trial he contended that in this he was mistaken. The most damaging portion of the defendant’s argument was an effort to explain the defendant’s statement to the officers. It follows:
. «* * * an(j they say ‘Oh but he says something else, and he does, now we have got to decide which is the truth, and we know that those skid marks were six feet long and we know that you can’t stop a car in six feet if you are going 35 miles an hour or if you are going 30 miles an hour. We know it and so do the officers who were there looking at it at the time and regardless of what you told them Leon, regardless of what you told the officers when they saw these skid marks they gave you no ticket, they charge you with- no offense, they were there for the sole purpose of investigating that and making an arrest if there was a violation,' the skid marks were on your side of the highway, they. were such that we as officers know that you *452could not have been exceeding the speed limit. Now is that unreasonable? Am I trying to trick you? Am I being unfair with you? I don’t believe so.”
Here the lawyer testifies:
1. The officers knew that you can’t stop a car in six feet going 30 or 35 miles per hour.
2. Although Goforth told the officers he was going thirty five miles per hour, the officers could see the skid marks and therefore did not give Goforth a ticket since from the skid marks “we as officers know that you could not have been exceeding the speed limit.”
3. The officers were there for the sole purpose of investigating and making an arrest if there had been a violation.
The testimony that defendant did not receive a police ticket was first injected into the trial by defendant himself while under cross-examination. Although that error may not have been preserved, defendant’s attorney proceeded to argue it to the jury. The issuance of a ticket in lieu of arrest is but the method of initiating a criminal proceeding. Except possibly for impeachment, even a judgment entered in a criminal proceeding after a full trial (not based on a plea of guilt) is not relevant to the same issue in a civil case. Sherwood v. Murray, Texas Civ. App., El Paso, 1950, 233 S.W. 2d 879.
So this amounts to a lawyer discussing facts not in evidence (the officers’ deductions and opinions about speed) and then arguing that since there was no arrest (because of their deductions) the defendant was not speeding. I believe this to be argument which need not be objected to in order to preserve the error. Wade v. Texas Employers Insurance Association, 150 Texas 557, 244 S.W. 2d 197; Ramirez v. Acker, 134 Texas 647, 138 S.W. 2d 1054. I would affirm the Court of Civil Appeals in holding that this argument probably caused the rendition of an improper verdict and reverse.
Opinion delivered June 30, 1954.