Court Opinion

ID: 9778799
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 21:21:02.749193+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:33:13.264942
License: Public Domain

WOODLEY, Judge
(dissenting).
Ernster v. State, 165 Tex. Cr. Rep. 422, 308 S.W. 2d 33, appears to support the majority opinion but, as I see it, the opinion herein demonstrates the error in that reversal.
The opinions treat “transactions” and “offenses” as synonymous, and find reversible error because the charge did not require the jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt that appellant “committed such other transactions” before they considered them for the purpose of showing the intent or system of the defendant as to the particular act charged.
It is difficult to understand how one can be guilty of a “transaction” which is not a crime.
Evidence of similar extraneous transactions becomes admissible whether it shows the commission of other offenses or not, where it shows system, intent, knowledge or identity Cage v. State, 167 Tex. Cr. R. 355, 320 S.W. 2d 364; Stanford v. State, 103 Tex. Cr. R. 182, 280 S.W. 798. See also Campbell v. State, 163 Tex. Cr. R. 545, 294 S.W. 2d 125.
These authorities, and not the Ernster case, should be followed.