Court Opinion

ID: 9666033
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:02:59.590512+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:22.798284
License: Public Domain

ROBERTS, Judge
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent from the affirmance of the conviction in this cause.
Officer Hersom testified that he searched Eaton. “We stripped him of everything he had in his pockets.” He further testified he has been a policeman for ten years and has searched people before and received instructions in so doing. Eaton drove him to appellant’s house and he heard Eaton say, “Do you have stuff?” He did not hear the reply. He saw appellant go into the house and return to the car with a “little silver bundle” in his hand. He did not see the bundle passed to Eaton; that he searched Eaton when he returned to the police pound but there is no testimony that he examined the body openings either before going to appellant’s house or after returning from appellant’s house.
Officer Jones and his partner testified that they searched the car that Eaton drove. They searched everywhere that heroin is usually hidden.
They further testified that they saw an “exchange” between appellant and Eaton but do not say what was exchanged as they did not see any object. It looked like an “exchange.”
The record shows that Willie Eaton is dead. There is no testimony that the packet handed by Eaton to Officer Hersom was a packet that he received from the appellant. There being no direct evidence that the packet containing the heroin was ever in possession of the appellant, the court should have charged on circumstantial evidence.
The majority herein, by the use of the magic verbage, “close juxtaposition” is destroying a well-established rule in this State. It has long been held that a charge on circumstantial evidence must be given in any criminal prosecution where: (1) any constituent element of the offense is proved by the circumstances, (2) the guilt of the accused is not testified to directly by any witness but as a matter of inference from other evidence offered. See Er-isman’s Manual of Reversible Errors, Sec. 435, and cases there cited.
The vital link in this case that demands a charge on circumstantial evidence is that no person has testified that the appellant handed Eaton any package or that the package delivered by Eaton to Officer Hersom was a packet that he received from the appellant. These two vital fac*224tors make a charge on circumstantial evidence mandatory.
For the reasons stated in my dissenting opinion in Riggins v. State, 468 S.W.2d 841, 843 (Tex.Crim.App.1971), I would reverse and remand.