Court Opinion

ID: 9684067
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 13:45:51.192473+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:52.589707
License: Public Domain

TEAGUE, Judge,
dissenting.
The record clearly reflects that before jury arguments were heard at the punishment stage of the trial and, of course, before the jury had retired to deliberate on the special issues that they were going to have to answer, see Art. 37.071, V.A.C. C.P., Dennis Potter, the foreman of the jury that sat in this cause, without authority, telephoned and had a conversation about the case with Raymond L. Allison, a defense witness who had testified at the punishment stage of the trial of Randy Dale Mayo hereinafter referred to as the appellant.
The conversation that Potter had with Allison was clearly a violation of Art. 36.22, Y.A.C.C.P., which provides: “No person shall be permitted to converse with a juror about the case on trial except in the presence and by the permission of the court.”
This Court has long strictly construed and applied this statute. In Chappell v. State, 121 Tex.Cr.R. 293, 50 S.W.2d 327, 328 (1932) (On motion for rehearing), this Court, quoting from Mauney v. State, 85 Tex.Cr.R. 184, 192, 210 S.W. 959, 962 (1919), stated the following:
“Not only should the appearance of evil be avoided by strict observance of this statutory rule forbidding communications with the jury (or a juror with an outsider) when the court is not present, but the further fact is true that human nature is frail and prone to excuse itself; and it is easily possible to conceive a case where the party conversing with a juror, as well as the juror himself, fearful of punishment for contempt, might not remember all that passed at such conversation (or what affect the conversation might have had on the juror), and might deny mention of the case between them by virtue of a convenient memory. We think the rule in cases of a violation of the provisions of article 728 ought to be that injury in such case is presumed unless the contrary is made to appear to the satisfaction of the court, and ultimately this court. Any presumption can be overcome by evidence, and in such case of presumptive injury the burden ought to be on the state to satisfy the court that no injury has resulted from such violation of the statute.” (My emphasis.)
In Pearson v. State, 145 Tex.Cr.R. 87, 165 S.W.2d 725 (1942), (On appellant’s motion for rehearing), this Court also stated the following:
*859Touching the question of conversing with the jury, or a conversation indulged in by a juror ... it is now the settled rule that, where it is made to appear that a conversation has occurred between a member of the jury and some person other than as authorized under the provisions of [the] statute, the State must show that the accused was not injured or prejudiced thereby. Such showing, however, is not accomplished by the testimony of the juror alone. There must be testimony other than that of the juror showing that the accused was not injured or prejudiced by the conversation so had. The authorities supporting the rule are cited in the prior opinions herein. (My emphasis.)
Also see Romo v. State, 631 S.W.2d 504 (Tex.Cr.App.1982). Cf. Chambliss v. State, 647 S.W.2d 257 (Tex.Cr.App.1983).
Thus, if the defendant establishes a violation of the statute, the existence of harm is assumed as a fact, and the assumed fact, in this instance harm, operates as a legal presumption, and, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, the presumption remains in effect and controls. See 23 Tex. Jur. 2d Evidence Section 76 (1961). To overcome the presumption of harm that arises because a juror has an unauthorized communication with an outsider, the State has the burden to prove, if it can, that the evidence establishes the non-existence of harm. Ray, 1 Texas Practice, Law of Evidence, Section 53. Thus, as applied to this cause, the above rules of law required the State to establish at the hearing on the appellant’s motion for new trial, without the testimony of Potter, that there was not a reasonable possibility that his conversation with Allison affected his decision on punishment. E.g. Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 21-24, 87 S.Ct. 824, 826-828, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967); Clemons v. State, 605 S.W.2d 567, 571 (Tex.Cr.App.1980).
The majority opinion states: “The testimony at the motion for new trial hearing indicates that the conversation on the telephone was substantially the same in content as Allison’s testimony at the punishment phase of appellant’s trial.”
However, in making this statement, the majority opinion overlooks that part of the unauthorized conversation in which Allison related new facts to Potter about the appellant’s natural mother which had not been brought out at the punishment hearing, particularly, the part where Allison told Potter that the appellant’s natural mother “appeared to be full of demons.”
The transcription of the hearing on the appellant’s motion for new trial reflects that Allison testified that after Potter telephoned him, he then commenced “talking (to Potter) about the Bible and told (Potter) that God had given chances to people in the Bible — Paul, for instance — and I talked quite a bit about the Bible. And then— Then we talked about his — Right before we ended, we talked about the boy’s mother and how old she looked and it looked like she had ... demons in her and looked like she was over sixty years old.” Allison later changed the appellant’s mother’s age to sixty-five years. Allison further testified: “And then we talked about him (Potter) being the Jury, and he said that he would — he’d already had his mind (made) up (on the punishment issues even though the jury had not then deliberated to decide the punishment issues, see Art. 37.071, supra,) but, he said, hearing my testimony about Randy and my son’s testimony, that this changed a different outlook on him toward the trial. And then I thanked him — for calling.”
On cross-examination, Allison testified that the last words he uttered to Potter were: “Praise the Lord,” which was in response to Potter’s apparently last statement that “he was going to reconsider his position.”
In deciding whether the evidence is sufficient to sustain the jury’s affirmative answer to special issue number 2, the probability question, see Art. 37.071, supra, this Court has held that damaging testimony going to the accused’s personal background, i.e., that the accused had a terrible family environment when growing up, is evidence that can be used to support the jury’s affirmative finding. See Brock v. *860State, 556 S.W.2d 309, 317 (Tex.Cr.App.1977).
Obviously, no one can guess what effect the unauthorized injection of the new facts into the case had on Potter, and that is the reason why I find this Court has placed a presumption of harm on any unauthorized conversations with or by jurors in a case-to eliminate guesswork as to what effect such a conversation might have had.
All of Potter’s testimony demonstrates to me that he is a very religious person. Because of this, I am confident that he is familiar with stories about women who were filled with “Daemons” because they had had familiarity with the Devil, to the extent of frequently permitting the Devil having carnal knowledge of their bodies. See, for example, Increase Mather, Remarkable Providences Illustrative of the Earlier Days of the American Colonialism, G. Offor, ed., London, 1856, 1890.
It is also possible that Potter reads literally the following passage from the Bible: “The Lord is long-suffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no means cleansing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the father’s [or mother’s] upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.” Numbers 14:18 (King James).
Given Allison’s testimony that he and Potter “talked quite a bit about the Bible,” and taking into consideration the various interpretations to which the Bible has been subjected, it is quite possible that their discussion convinced Potter that the right thing to do, in order to prevent the demons that might have inhabited the appellant’s body from being transmitted any further, was to answer the special issues in the affirmative, thereby ensuring the appellant’s death and perhaps eternal demise of the demons. I cannot say that this actually happened; however, without Potter’s testimony, the majority opinion cannot state that it did not happen. Perhaps, however, after his conversation with Allison, Potter became convinced that making sure that the appellant received the sentence of death was the only reliable means of exorcizing any demons that appellant might then have had in his body. I cannot state that this actually happened; however, without Potter’s testimony, the majority also cannot state that it did not happen. Perhaps, however, after his conversation with Allison, Potter then believed that the demons were only inhabiting the body of appellant’s natural mother, and had not yet passed on to the appellent, and, based upon this belief, he believed that by making sure that the appellant received the death sentence this would ensure that the appellant would not suffer from the fate of demon possession suffered by his natural mother, and would thus allow the appellant’s entrance into eternal glory. I cannot state that this actually happened; however, without Potter’s testimony, the majority opinion also cannot state that it did not happen.
What I have tried to make obvious by the above is that if conjecture over what effect the new information about the appellant’s natural mother might have had on Potter is inappropriate, which it is, that is the point, and because no one can guess what effect the unauthorized injection of new facts about the case might have had on Potter that is why there is a presumption of harm. In this case, without Potter’s testimony, we are left with conjecture, which causes an irrebutable presumption of harm to exist.
The majority opinion, by summarily and erroneously concluding that no new or different facts had been related during the conversation that Potter had with Allison, completely nullifies both the spirit and the letter of the well-settled law on this issue.
Because I do not believe that the State rebutted the presumption of harm that came into existence as a result of the unauthorized telephone conversation that Potter had with Allison, I am compelled to dissent to the majority opinion’s contrary holding. In short, I cannot state that there is not a reasonable possibility that the unauthorized conversation that Potter had with Allison affected Potter’s decision to answer the special issues in the affirmative, thus assuring that the appellant received the sentence of death. Believing that the State *861failed to rebut the presumption of harm, injury, or prejudice to the appellant, I would sustain the appellant’s first ground of error and grant him a new trial. To the majority opinion’s failure to do this, I respectfully dissent.