Court Opinion

ID: 9769441
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 14:50:51.247127+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:03.508811
License: Public Domain

CLINTON, Judge,
concurring.
Were we hearing it for the first time, I would not hesitate to sound the critic’s gong *848to the lyrical call of the prosecutor for a prideful verdict. It is, however, but a variation on a recurring theme that has received generally favorable reviews. Thus, Overstreet v. State, 470 S.W.2d 653 (Tex.Cr.App.1971) nodded to the tune of “ ‘go back in that jury room and write a verdict of which you may be proud,’ ” and early on Pearl v. State, 43 Tex.Crim. 189, 63 S.W. 1013, 1017 (1901) believed that urging the jury to “ ‘[rjeturn a verdict in this case that will be approved by the good citizens of Brown County’ ” was not off-key. Nor did Faubion v. State, 104 Tex.Cr.R. 90, 282 S.W. 599 (1926) detect a discordant note in an acknowledgement that the jury had power to acquit but that he, the prosecuting attorney, did not think they had any legal or moral right to do so and, if they did so, he wondered what legal or reasonable explanation they could give anybody for so doing.
Though dissonant to my own musical sense, the refrain is such a classic it will continue to receive critical acclaim until its hypocritical notes are more clearly heard. Meanwhile, in tune with stare decisis I concur in affirming the judgment of conviction.1

. Actually, as I analyze the “friends and neighbors” argument, it is neither a plea for law enforcement nor an indication of community expectations. Rather, by positing the jury as representing the citizenry of Harris County and the State of Texas — “your friends and your neighbors” — who will make inquiry as to the stewardship of the individual juror, in telling the jury that it will want to give an answer “your friends and neighbors can be proud of’ the prosecutor is really suggesting that the jur- or react to an anticipated sense of shame upon returning to his community from rendering a verdict of not guilty. The notion is more subtle than a statement of community expectations. While this Court cautioned in Hendricks v. State, 474 S.W.2d 230, 233, n. 1 that it would not condone argument that the community would criticize the jury in a particular case if a verdict desired by the State was not returned, so far as I can ascertain it has never directly denounced that tenor of argument but, as indicated in the body above, seems rather to have approved statements closely akin to it.