Court Opinion

ID: 9748915
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 16:17:37.173731+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:40.659646
License: Public Domain

WOMACK, J.,
filed a concurring opinion.
I concur in the judgment of the Court.
I would like to make the testimony clear. The first witness was the victim’s aunt, Ms. Smith, who testified about the victim’s “outcry” statement to her, see Code of Criminal Procedure art. 38.072. She also testified that she had made a handwritten statement to the investigating officer, Mr. Peterson, but she did not say what was in it.
Mr. Peterson testified about the steps in his investigation. He got a report from Child Protective Services and was contacted by Ms. Smith. Evidently he learned that the fourteen year-old victim was pregnant and had named the appellant as the father. He met the appellant at his place of work, and the appellant denied being the father. Then he met with the victim, her mother, and Ms. Smith. He interviewed the victim and, at her request, wrote a statement which she signed. He interviewed Ms. Smith and the victim’s mother, who each wrote a statement. There was no testimony about the contents of the oral or written statements of these three persons. (Ms. Smith had testified earlier that she gave a statement to Mr. Peterson, but its contents were not revealed.)
Next came the question that is at issue: Q. Were the statements they [Ms. Smith and the victim’s mother] gave consistent with C
[Defense]: Objection, Your Honor.
Calls for hearsay.
THE COURT: Overruled.
Q. Were the statements they gave to you consistent with the facts related to you by [the victim]?
A. Yes.
A week later Mr. Peterson got some telephone bills from Ms. Smith. After the baby was born, he got blood samples from the victim and the baby. Then he got a blood sample from the appellant. He transferred the blood to a DNA testing facility. Then he transferred the case to the Fort Worth police. (The assault that left the victim pregnant was committed in another county a number of years after the assault that was on trial. At trial the defense admitted the appellant committed the later assault.)
The appellant and the dissent argue that the evidence permitted an inference that the out-of-court statements were consistent with testimony of another witness.1 It is clear to the dissenter that Mr. Peterson’s testimony “was offered ‘solely’ for purposes of corroborating both Smith’s earlier testimony and [the victim’s] subsequent testimony,” and that the Court “does not explain what other possible reason there could have been.” Post at 265-66. That purpose was not apparent to the court of appeals, and it is not readily ap*264parent to me. The evidence was ill-designed to corroborate their testimony, since it did not mention it. Mr. Peterson’s testimony was a step-by-step review of his investigation. In that context, it seems to me that the evidence was offered to prove that there were no inconsistencies at that time in the investigation which would have called for him to take other investigatory steps. The evidence was that the three persons had given consistent statements, but there was no evidence of the contents of those statements.
The Court upholds the trial court’s ruling to admit this evidence because “[t]he trial court could have reasonably concluded that Peterson’s testimony, when taken in context, did not lead to any inescapable conclusions as to the substance of the out-of-court statements.” Ante at 262. I do not agree that we should ask whether it is an “inescapable conclusion” that evidence is intended to be hearsay.
The words “inescapable conclusion” were used in our opinion in Schaffer v. State, 777 S.W.2d 111, 114 (Tex.Cr.App.1989), in this context:
The rule concerning the type of hearsay in this case is set out in McCormick on Evidence:
“If the purpose of the testimony is to use an out-of-court statement to evidence the truth of facts stated therein, the hearsay objection cannot be obviated by eliciting the purport of the statement in indirect form. Thus evidence as to the purport of ‘information received’ by the witness, or testimony of the results of investigations made by other persons, offered as proof of the facts asserted out of court, are properly classed as hearsay.” McCormick on Evidence, Section 249, p. 735 (Cleary Rev., 3rd Ed.1984).
Thus, where there is an inescapable conclusion that a piece of evidence is being offered to prove statements made outside the courtroom, a party may not circumvent the hearsay prohibition through artful questioning designed to elicit hearsay indirectly. In short, “statement” as defined in Tex.R.Civ. Evid. 801(a) (now see Tex.R.Crim.Evid. 801(a)) necessarily includes proof of the statement whether the proof is direct or indirect.
“Inescapable conclusion” formed no part of the rule; the rule turns on the purpose of the testimony C whether it is being offered as indirect proof of the truth of an out-of-court statement. And we did not say the rule applies only where there is an inescapable conclusion of the statement’s purpose. Our statement was literally correct; the rule applies where there is an inescapable conclusion of the purpose. But it may also apply when the conclusion is less than inescapable. Indeed when we decided the case we asked what was the purpose of the evidence, not whether that purpose was an inescapable conclusion: “In the case at bar, however, the State introduced Segovia’s testimony for no other reason than to inferentially prove Seals told Segovia that appellant was not an informer. Seal’s . out-of-court, implied statement was offered for its truth and was therefore hearsay.” Schaffer v. State, 777 S.W.2d at 115. We have never cited Schaffer as establishing a standard of “inescapable conclusion” in deciding whether testimony is indirect hearsay. I would not do so today.

. The appellant and the dissent disagree about which witness's testimony was consistent with the out-of-court statements. The appellant says, Brief at 24, it was "the testimony of the victim,” who had not testified at that point in the trial. The dissent says, post at 265, it was the testimony of Ms. Smith, who had testified.