Court Opinion

ID: 9644507
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 20:58:03.666357+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:47:59.923286
License: Public Domain

OPINION TO THE DENIAL OF THE STATE’S MOTION FOR REHEARING
WHITE, Judge.
I dissent to the denial of the State’s motion for rehearing, with my gravest concerns revolving around the mitigating evidence issue. I disagree with the way the majority deals with this question for two reasons, both of which are based upon factual distinctions clearly in the record, yet ignored in the majority opinion.
First, the majority recognizes that counsel did not ask the trial court to reopen the evidence; however, they do not consider whether appellant has properly preserved any error. The State urges that the appellant waived error by not further examining the witness, by not developing the relevancy of the proffered question and by not reurging that the evidence be admitted after perfecting his bill.
The record reflects that defense counsel never attempted to develop or argue the relevancy of the excluded questions, but instead acquiesced in the court’s ruling. Further, counsel argued on appeal that such evidence was offered to show his troubled childhood and his capability to be gainfully employed. Counsel was never precluded from asking questions concerning these topics, yet he failed to do so. Additionally, following the perfection of his bill of exception, wherein the relevancy of the proffered questions should have presumably been developed, counsel never asked to reopen or requestion the witness nor did he secure any ruling from the court. At the very least, these viable waiver issues should be addressed by the majority.
Second, I dissent to the majority’s harm analysis. The majority found that, because the evidence of future dangerousness was minimally sufficient, the trial court’s exclusion of mitigating evidence was harmful. Not only do I factually disagree with the statement that “[w]e would not say on this quantum of evidence that appellant has been proven beyond peradventure to be completely incorrigible,” but I am also at a loss to discover when this Court adopted such a standard for sufficiency review of future dangerousness.
This semantical problem aside, the most troublesome error in the majority opinion is the omission of facts and speculation as to evidence in the context of its harm analysis. Once error is found, this Court has codified in Tex.R.App.Proc., Rule 81(b)(2) the Chapman “no contribution to the punishment” standard of review to assess harm. Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967). Granted, this is appropriately the harshest harmless error standard of which very few cases will meet. Yet, I find “beyond peradventure” that in the instant case, when the totality of the evidence is given an objective assessment, this standard has been met.
Four facts were excluded: that appellant had worked (1) at a church, (2) at a wood preserving plant, and (3) at a hospital, and (4) that appellant’s mother and her husband had been separated for two years. At the outset, the majority fails to acknowledge that some of these facts were already in evidence. The fact that appellant worked at a church and a wood preserving plant were specifically before the jury in detailed fashion. The record at guilt-innocence reflects that appellant worked at the Texar-kana Wood Preserving Company for six months and that he also worked at the Central Christian Church mowing lawns. Thus, we are left with only two facts excluded from the jury’s consideration: appellant’s hospital employment and the two year separation of his parents.
*360As to appellant’s employment at the hospital, this bare fact is of minimal importance. We do not know when and for how long the employment took place. Further, since appellant now argues harm in that exclusion of this fact precluded proof of his capability for gainful employment, this evidence is merely cumulative of his other employment experiences already before the jury.
Concerning the two year separation of appellant’s mother and her husband, the single fact that this occurred is all we know. We have no idea at what time in appellant’s life this separation occurred nor do we know whether appellant was even aware of the separation. For the majority to conclude that this testimony was probative of a “troubled childhood” constitutes more than mere speculation, but a reweighing of unknown facts in appellant’s absolute favor. Such action I simply cannot countenance. The real and most glaring problem in this case is that there is no record evidence before this Court which authorizes the majority’s conclusion that the “proffered evidence” was in fact mitigating in nature.
If this Court is going to independently adopt a per se reversible rule for this type of error, it should announce such a rule. Until such a time, I will follow 81(b)(2), the ostensible rule of this Court to assess harm. Based upon the totality of the record, I can freely state beyond a reasonable doubt and without “trepidation” that had the court admitted these two minimally probative facts, they would have made no contribution to the jury’s affirmative answers to the special issues.
Probably the only issue with which I could agree with the majority is with the basic rule of law that the exclusion of mitigating evidence at the punishment phase of a capital case could be error. If the majority opinion serves any purpose at all, I hope it stands as a warning that mitigative evidence should be admitted and where excluded, a majority of this Court will obviously strain to find such error to be harmful. It is to this straining to find harm and the majority’s failure to contemplate and give fair weight to the totality of the issues and facts of this case that I am forced to respectfully dissent.
ONION, P.J., and DAVIS and McCORMICK, JJ., join this opinion.