Court Opinion

ID: 9748115
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 15:52:39.541558+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:31.743938
License: Public Domain

LEE ANN DAUPHINOT, Justice,
dissenting and concurring.
I write separately because I cannot agree with the majority that Officer Fletcher’s opinion that Maggie “had just had the crap beat out of her” was properly admitted as “based on and derived from her cumulative personal knowledge.”1 The majority’s statement that there is a “plethora,” that is, an “extreme excess[,] ‘an embarrassment,’”2 of “undisputed facts demonstrating that Officer Fletcher’s responsive lay opinion was rationally based on events that she personally perceived during both visits to Maggie’s residence”3 is both confusing and, perhaps, a bit hyperbolic. I think the majority is suggest*729ing that because they conclude that the evidence is sufficient to support conviction, we impute knowledge of all the evidence in the case to Officer Fletcher at the moment she decided to call for an ambulance. Respectfully, if we examine, without emotion, the evidence objectively known to Officer Fletcher at that moment, we see that
1. Officer Fletcher was not present when any assault occurred and could not, therefore, have had any personal knowledge of what occurred because it did not occur in her presence.
2. The first time Officer Fletcher arrived at the house in question, Appellant was standing outside, and Maggie was inside sitting on the couch or a chair, intoxicated and upset. Officer Fletcher thought that Maggie had been crying. Appellant said that Maggie was intoxicated and accusing him of sleeping with the girl who lived next door. Officer Fletcher detected alcohol on both Appellant and Maggie, but Maggie was the more intoxicated. Appellant was calm and had a couple of scratches on his face. Maggie’s injuries were not apparent to Officer Fletcher until Maggie pointed them out. Officer Fletcher saw no severe injuries on either' person. Although Maggie claimed that Appellant had choked her, Officer Fletcher observed nothing on Maggie’s neck. Officer Fletcher saw a small cut on Maggie’s leg and a small mark of a finger or thumb on one arm. It appeared to Officer Fletcher that both were aggressors. It appeared to be mutual combat, and both were at fault.
8. The second time that Officer Fletcher was called to the house, she first heard a sound like someone or something being thrown around inside the house. She also heard yelling and screaming. She testified that she just had “that gut feeling that something [was] going to — something [was] not right.” Maggie opened the door, and Appellant was right behind her. Officer Fletcher described Maggie’s face as “covered in blood”; “her left eye was completely bruised and swollen shut”; she “had blood coming out her eye down her cheeks”; “she had a cut here”; and “some of her teeth were loose.” Maggie was “bawling” and “holding her face.” Officer Fletcher testified, “[Maggie] said something along the lines, he did this to me, you know. I told you — you know, I told you the first time. And, you know, she was just very upset.”
Looking at the record objectively rather than emotionally, the “plethora of undisputed facts” regarding the cause of Maggie’s black eye and bloody face being that “she had just had the crap beat out of her” by Appellant is that (1) Maggie was drunk and angry; (2) Officer Fletcher saw no one in the house other than Appellant and Maggie (although there is no evidence that Officer Fletcher searched the house); and (3) Maggie said, “[Something along the lines, he did this to me.” Despite what the majority refers to as the “plethora of undisputed facts,” we are still left with very little objective evidence to form the basis of Officer Fletcher’s opinion of the cause of the injuries when she called for the ambulance.
The majority speculates that only two possible explanations for Maggie’s injuries exist: either she harmed herself, or Appellant harmed her. Respectfully, the majority falls into the same trap as Officer Fletcher in leaping to a determination of credibility instead of relying on the record. Officer Fletcher heard sounds of someone or something “getting thrown around” in*730side the house, but she could not see what was happening. Did the mutual combat continue, causing something to fall on Maggie? Was she pushed into something that caused her injuries? Was something thrown that hit her? Did she fall against something in her intoxicated and angry state? I do not know, the majority does not know, and Officer Fletcher did not know at the time she called for the ambulance. She had no personal knowledge of what had caused Maggie’s injuries.
The cause of Maggie’s injuries was an element of the offense that the State was obligated to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. Officer Fletcher’s statement was nothing more than her personal opinion regarding that element of proof, but it was not based on her personal knowledge. It was nothing more than a guess, based on what she “interpreted Maggie’s statement” to mean, and her conclusion that someone she did not know was a truth-teller. Moreover, her statement was not responsive to the question. She was asked why she called for an ambulance, not what caused Maggie’s injuries.
The majority relies on Fairow v. State4 in holding that Officer Fletcher was allowed to offer a lay opinion based on her personal knowledge under rule 701.5 But the Fairow court explained that
[wjhen conducting a Rule 701 evaluation, the trial court must decide (1) whether the opinion is rationally based on perceptions of the witness and (2) whether it is helpful to a clear understanding of the witness’s testimony or to determination of a fact in issue. The initial requirement that an opinion be rationally based on the perceptions of the witness is itself composed of two parts. First, the witness must establish personal knowledge of the events from which his opinion is drawn and, second, the opinion drawn must be rationally based on that knowledge.6
Officer Fletcher, however, was not stating an opinion. She was stating, as a fact, her guess. She had no personal knowledge of the cause of Maggie’s injuries, only speculation. She did not state that she was expressing an opinion, but, rather, couched her guess as a fact. And that fact was an essential element of the offense about which she had no personal knowledge.
Nor can I agree that Appellant did not object to the testimony. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has explained that
[t]o properly preserve an issue concerning the admission of evidence for appeal, “a party’s objection must inform the trial court why or on what basis the otherwise admissible evidence should be excluded.” However, a party need not spout “magic words” or recite a specific statute to make a valid objection. References to a rule, statute, or specific case help to clarify an objection that might otherwise be obscure, but an objection is not defective merely because it does not cite a rule, statute, or specific case. As this Court stated in Lankston v. State,
Straightforward communication in plain English will always suffice .... (A)ll a party has to do to avoid the forfeiture of a complaint on appeal is to let the trial judge know what he wants, why he thinks himself entitled to it, and to do so clearly enough for the judge to understand him at a time when the trial court is in a proper position to do something about it.
*731The objection must merely be sufficiently clear to provide the trial judge and opposing counsel an opportunity to address and, if necessary, correct the purported error. In making this determination, Lankston states that an appellate court should consider the context in which the complaint was made and the parties’ understanding of the complaint at the time.7
Appellant’s objection was precisely that Officer Fletcher was couching an opinion as a fact. Any trial judge would understand his objection: Officer Fletcher is offering a nonresponsive statement of fact when she was qualified only to admit that she was expressing an opinion that Maggie needed medical attention, not to state as a fact her guess as to the cause of the injuries when she was not asked what she guessed caused the injuries.
I do not understand the majority’s statement that Ford v. State is inapposite. Officer Fletcher was qualified to testify that in her opinion, Maggie needed medical attention, Appellant conceded that Officer Fletcher was qualified to express that opinion and to make that determination on the occasion in question, and Appellant did not object to that testimony. However, Officer Fletcher was not qualified to state that she knew the cause of Maggie’s injuries at the time she called the ambulance, Appellant did object to the statement that “[Maggie] had just had the crap beat out of her,” and that objection was improperly overruled by a trial court who understood the objection. Ford is directly on point as authority that Appellant properly objected to the admission of Officer Fletcher’s testimony about the causation of Maggie’s injuries.
Maggie, however, testified at trial. She testified that Appellant had caused her injuries. The improper admission of Officer Fletcher’s testimony was therefore harmless.8 For this reason only, I concur in the majority’s result. But I cannot agree that this court should give either the State or the defense the green light to offer such speculation under the guise of rule 701 lay opinion testimony. I therefore must respectfully dissent from this portion of the majority opinion.

. Majority op. at 723.

. Plethora, http://dictionary.sensagent.com/ plethora/en-en/ (last checked Jan. 28, 2011).

.Majority op. at 724.

. 943 S.W.2d 895 (Tex.Crim.App.1997).

. See Tex.R. Evid. 701.

.Fairow, 943 S.W.2d at 898 (citations and footnote omitted).

. Ford v. State, 305 S.W.3d 530, 533 (Tex.Crim.App.2009) (citations omitted).

. See Leday v. State, 983 S.W.2d 713, 718 (Tex.Crim.App.1998).