Court Opinion

ID: 9679539
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 06:55:24.201817+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:14.608444
License: Public Domain

BURGESS, Justice,
concurring.
I concur in the result. The majority holds there was no error in introducing evidence of the traffic citation or that the truck driver pleaded guilty. I believe it was error, but agree it was harmless. The general rule is evidence that a party to an automobile collision was given a citation is inadmissible in a civil suit arising out of the incident. Isaacs v. Plains Transport Co., 367 S.W.2d 152, 153 (Tex.1963). A guilty plea is admissible as an admission against interest, Barrios v. Davis, 415 S.W.2d 714, 716 (Tex.Civ.App. — Houston 1967, no writ). However, it is the burden of the proponent of the evidence to prove that a guilty plea was made in open court. Cox v. Bohman, 683 S.W.2d 757, 758 (Tex.App. — Corpus Christi 1984, writ ref’d n.r.e.). The majority does not require the proponent to prove this, only to produce some evidence and then views this as a factual dispute going to the weight to be given the evidence. I analyze it differently. I would hold the proponent must properly prove the guilty plea occurred in open court as a prerequisite to the admission of the evidence. Here, the proponent did not and it was error to admit evidence of a guilty plea. If it was error to admit evidence of the “guilty” plea, it certainly was error to admit evidence of the citation. With these slight disagreements, I concur in the result.