Court Opinion

ID: 9773602
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 17:51:15.933806+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:55.495752
License: Public Domain

OPINION
ON APPELLANT’S MOTION FOR REHEARING
WOODLEY, Presiding Judge.
Appellant urges that we consider as unassigned error his complaint that certain remarks of counsel for the state were comments upon his failure to testify.
Deprivation of a constitutional right will be reviewed in the interest of justice, though unassigned. McClellan v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 413 S.W.2d 391.
The claim of error advanced for the first time by supplemental brief filed in this court related to three remarks of counsel for the state in his opening argument: (1) “I would like to point out first of all the difference between the words justice and mercy. Is a person entitled to mercy unless he asks for it?” (2) “There wasn’t any testimony brought to you to’ determine the guilt or innocence of this defendant from that side of the table,” and (3) “Let me ask you if Velta Robinson wasn’t in that person’s office, why wasn’t she here to testify?”
We do not agree that either of the above quoted remarks of counsel for the state necessarily constituted a direct or indirect reference to appellant’s failure to testify.
As to the first complained of remark, it is observed that persons other than the accused, including his counsel, may ask for mercy for him and he himself may ask for mercy by means other than taking the stand as a witness.
The second remark can be reasonably applied to the failure of the defense to produce the witness Velta Robinson or other testimony than that of the defendant.
The third remark complained of clearly reflects that the reference was not to the failure of the defendant to téstify but to the failure to produce Velta Robinson, an available witness.
“For the argument to come within the mandatory prohibition of Art. 710, supra, (now Art. 38.08 V.A.C.C.P.) it must be such as cannot be reasonably applied to the failure of the accused to produce other testimony than his own.” Clark v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 362 S.W.2d 647. See also Ramos v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 419 S.W.2d 359, 367; Costilla v. State, 168 Tex.Cr.R. 335, 327 S.W.2d 593; Alford v. State, 158 Tex.Cr.R. 311, 255 S.W.2d 519; and cases cited under Art. 38.08 V.A.C.C.P., Note 77.
In Barrera v. State, 165 Tex.Cr.R. 387, 307 S.W.2d 948, there was no witness to refute the testimony of the state’s witness other than the defendant Barrera.
We find no violation of Art. 38.08 V.A.C.C.P. or of appellant’s rights under the self-incrimination provision of the 5th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States as construed by the Supreme Court in Griffin v. State of California, 380 U.S. 609, 85 S.Ct. 1229, 14 L.Ed.2d 106; and Chapman v. State of California, 386 U.S. 18, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705.
Remaining convinced that the appeal was properly disposed of on original submission, appellant’s motion for rehearing is overruled.