Court Opinion

ID: 9642078
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:47:52.639979+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:42.746815
License: Public Domain

DALLY, Judge,
dissenting.
I have grave doubt whether Art. 38.14, V.A.C.C.P. requires the testimony of an accomplice witness concerning an extraneous offense be corroborated before it is admissible in evidence, but without deciding whether an accomplice witness testifying about an extraneous offense need be corroborated, the evidence in this case is suffi-dent to corroborate the accomplice testimony about the extraneous offense. The flaw in the majority opinion lies in the apparent belief that the extraneous offense was arson, with independent proof of the corpus delicti requiring independent proof of an unlawful burning. The offense charged was not arson, but was conspiracy to commit a theft from the insurance company. The extraneous offense was not admitted to show a prior arson, but was admitted to show a common scheme or design to defraud the insurance company.1 At trial appellant placed his specific intent to commit theft in issue, so the State sought to show a previous conspiracy with the similar intent of unlawfully obtaining money from the same insurance company.
The relevance of the extraneous offense was that it was a prior conspiracy, not a prior arson. This is obvious since the prior arson was supposedly committed quite differently from the arson in this case and thus the prior arson, standing alone, might not have been admissible in evidence. Proof of the relevant extraneous offense, the conspiracy, would have been complete without ever showing that the arson occurred. See V.T.C.A. Penal Code, Sec. 15.-02. The majority argues that corroboration of the accomplice was inadequate because there was no corroboration of the essential corpus delicti. The corpus delicti in a conspiracy is the agreement to commit a crime. Brown v. State, 576 S.W.2d 36, 42 (Tex.Cr.App.1979). The agreement can almost never be directly corroborated by nonaccompl-ice evidence unless the conspirators were unwise enough to reduce their agreement to *902writing. Conspiracy can generally be corroborated only by facts or circumstances showing the concert of action by the conspirators toward the unlawful goal. The accomplice in this ease, Marshall, testified to the unlawful agreement and to a series of overt acts taken to realize the goal of the conspiracy. The correct viewpoint for determining whether Marshall’s testimony was sufficiently corroborated is to examine whether appellant’s conduct shows any parallel overt acts taken to effectuate the shared goal of defrauding the insurance company from a burning of appellant’s barn.
The facts are correctly stated in the majority opinion. Marshall said he burned appellant’s barn on October 10, 1975. On October 10 appellant’s barn was burned. Marshall testified that he was to be paid with $3,000 of the insurance proceeds received by appellant, and that he was so paid in November of 1975. Independent evidence showed that on November 7,1975, appellant deposited an $11,000 cheek from the insurance company for his loss, retaining $3,000 in cash. Finally, and most significantly, independent evidence showed that a mortgagee, Marlin Gibbs, was fraudulently deleted from the insurance policy covering the barn only one month prior to the fire. This deletion allowed appellant to collect proceeds from the fire insurance which rightfully belonged to the mortgagee. This is significant because the essential aspect of this extraneous offense is an agreement to defraud the insurance company and the wrongful deletion of the mortgagee from the policy one month before the fire is strong evidence of appellant’s felonious intent. There is independent evidence to show overt acts that mesh with Marshall’s actions in joint pursuit of the unlawful goal.
To be sufficient, corroborating evidence does not need to directly link the accused to the crime or independently establish guilt; it need only make the accomplice’s testimony, which does connect the accused with the crime, more likely than not, James v. State, 538 S.W.2d 414 (Tex.Cr.App.1976); Bentley v. State, 520 S.W.2d 390 (Tex.Cr.App.1975), because this will then strengthen the connection between the accused and the crime. Art. 38.14, V.A.C.C.P. There is no set standard for deciding what corroboration is required; each case must be considered on its own facts. Etheredge v. State, 542 S.W.2d 148 (Tex.Cr.App.1976).
Given a proper understanding of the extraneous offense being proved and with due deference to the unusual nature of criminal conspiracy as an offense, there is more than enough evidence to corroborate Marshall’s testimony about the agreement with appellant to defraud the insurance company by burning the barn. The correlation between Marshall’s testimony on how he was to be paid and the independent evidence of how appellant utilized the insurance proceeds is analogous to the correlation between various checks and deposits which was considered sufficient to provide corroboration for an accomplice witness in Carrillo v. State, 566 S.W.2d 902 (Tex.Cr.App.1978). Appellant’s deletion of the mortgagee from the insurance policy is further corroboration on the issue of appellant’s illegal intentions. Taken together, the evidence certainly tends to make the accomplice testimony “more likely than not.” Since this test was met, the extraneous offense was properly introduced before the jury. The evidence about the insurance adjuster’s view of the barn burning, which is not conclusive, goes to the weight of the evidence of the extraneous offense, not to its admissibility.
No error was committed. I dissent.
Before the court en banc.

. In footnote 2 of the majority opinion, the majority essentially takes the position that if the same evidence proves the existence of several extraneous offenses, all these offenses must be corroborated for any of them to be admissible. This is plainly incorrect. Assuming arguendo that proof of extraneous offenses must be corroborated, if the same evidence proves several extraneous offenses, one of which is corroborated and relevant, the evidence is admissible absent a showing of prejudice. If evidence of an extraneous offense is corroborated and relevant, it is admissible. The majority argument must thus be that admission of this relevant evidence is barred because its relevance is outweighed by the prejudicial effect of bringing in other uncorroborated offenses. The balancing of relevance against prejudice has always been left within the broad discretion of the trial court deciding admissibility. No abuse of this discretion is presented here, particularly since the defense was allowed to introduce substantial evidence bearing on the weight to be given the uncorroborated aspects of Marshall’s testimony on this matter.