Court Opinion

ID: 9769524
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 14:53:23.473433+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:37:54.847651
License: Public Domain

ROBERTS, Judge,
dissenting.
The appellant offered a newspaper clipping into evidence and it was admitted by the trial court. This clipping was a newspaper reproduction of an artist’s sketch of the two alleged robbers based on eyewitness description. Scrawled on the exhibit were the names of one Vivian A. Carter and one W. L. Tefteller. Nothing on the exhibit identified Vivian A. Carter as the wife of the defendant.
Detective Tefteller of the San Antonio Police Department testified that he interviewed a woman in his office on April 24, 1975. As a result of information received .from, this (Woman, Detective Tefteller put together a photographic lineup which included the photograph of the appellant. This was the lineup from which the complainant Rhodes identified the appellant on April 29, 1975.
Tefteller testified that both he and the woman he interviewed signed the newspaper reproduction of the artist’s sketch.
On redirect examination, Detective Tef-teller testified that to his knowledge Vivian A. Carter and the appellant were man and wife, and, over objection, that Vivian A. Carter was the woman he interviewed in his office that day.
When the prosecutor cross-examined the appellant, he established that on the date Vivian A. Carter went to Detective Teftel-ler’s office the appellant and she were not on good terms. The conclusion of the prosecutor’s cross-examination of the appellant was as follows:
“Q Smokey [appellant], isn’t it a fact that your wife and you and Pam Moore and Claude Jones [co-defendant] all sat in a room and discussed this heist before it took place?
“A No, sir.”
The disqualification of adverse spousal testimony cannot be waived. Johnigan v. State, 482 S.W.2d 209 (Tex.Cr.App.1972). Nor can the prosecution do indirectly what the statute1 prevents them from doing directly. Davis v. State, 160 Tex.Cr.R. 138, 268 S.W.2d 152, 153 (1954). Thus, we stated in Johnigan, that:
“This Court has held that it is reversible error for the State to show that the defendant’s wife is assisting in the prosecution of the case, even though she has not testified.” (Citations). Id., at 211.
I would sustain appellant’s contention and reverse. The record reflects prosecuto-rial tactics designed to convey to the jury the impression that appellant’s wife’s testimony would have been harmful to his defense, and that she assisted in the prosecution of the case. Nor can I deem these actions harmless. Witness Rhodes identified ■ appellant from a photographic lineup more than two years after the robbery. Witness Hardy viewed a live lineup on the same day, but could not positively identify appellant. Fingerprints were taken at the scene of the robbery, but none could be *287matched with the prints of either appellant or his co-defendant.
The judgment should be reversed and the cause remanded.

. Art. 38.11, V.A.C.C.P.