Court Opinion

ID: 9664869
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 00:32:05.124605+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:10.893509
License: Public Domain

OPINION ON STATE’S MOTION FOR REHEARING
McCORMICK, Judge.
Appellant was convicted of the murder of James Timothy Roche and was assessed a prison term of seventy-five years. Appellant appealed this conviction to this Court. This appeal was consolidated with appellant’s appeal of the revocation of his probation in four other cases.
In an opinion handed down on February 16, 1983 (see page 435), the Court affirmed the four cases in which appellant’s probation had been revoked. After reviewing the grounds of error raised as to the murder conviction, the Court concluded they had no merit.1 However, the conviction was reversed because of unassigned fundamental error in the court’s charge. A review of the charge revealed that not only had the trial court charged the jury on the primary offense of murder, but also the lesser included offenses of voluntary manslaughter and aggravated assault. Relying on this Court’s opinion in Cobarrubio v. State, 675 S.W.2d 749 (Tex.Cr.App.1983), the Court found that the portion of the court’s charge applying the law of murder to the facts of the case failed to require the State to prove the lack of sudden passion. It was held that this lapse constituted fundamental error.
The State filed a motion for leave to file a motion for rehearing.
After the opinion on original submission was delivered, this Court radically altered the procedure for reviewing error in the court’s charge to the jury. Almanza v. State, 686 S.W.2d 157 (Tex.Cr.App.1985). In Almanza, this Court abandoned the concept of fundamental error in the jury charge and instead adopted a two part test to be used in examining allegations of jury charge error. The first step, of course is to determine if the charge contains error. *441If error is present, then the reviewer moves to the second step — the harm analysis. If the error was the subject of a timely objection, then reversal is required if a review of the record indicates that the appellant suffered some harm as a result of the error. If there was no objection to the charge, then reversal is mandated only if the record reveals that the error caused egregious harm.
This Court has applied the Almanza analysis to cases involving Cobarrubio error on several occasions. In Lawrence v. State, 700 S.W.2d 208 (Tex.Cr.App.1985), this Court held that Cobarrubio error, although error, was not per se reversible error and thus if a defendant failed to object to the charge at trial, a showing of egregious harm had to be made before reversal would result. Of particular importance to the instant case was the following language in Judge Campbell’s opinion:
“Judge Clinton opined in Cobarrubio, supra, that the failure of a trial court to charge in accordance with Cobarrubio ‘precipitated a denial of due process of law in the most fundamental sense,’ 675 S.W.2d at 752, and perforce constituted fundamental error. We cannot accept this position as being consistent with this Court’s holding in Almanza. Such an application of the doctrine of fundamental error ignores the necessity of a finding of actual egregious harm as Alman-za requires. To the extent that Cobar-rubio held that jury charge ‘error precipitated a denial of due process of law in the most fundamental sense,’ Cobarru-bio at 752, it is overruled. ‘Cobarrubio error’ will be assayed in light of our holding in Almanza.
“Judge Teague, along with the court of appeals, posits his argument that, Co-barrubio error is fundamental error of federal constitutional dimension, [emphasis added] primarily on Mullaney v. Wilbur, 421 U.S. 684, 95 S.Ct. 1881, 44 L.Ed.2d 508 (1975). Cf. Patterson v. New York, 432 U.S. 197, 97 S.Ct. 2319, 53 L.Ed.2d 281 (1977). In Mullaney, the Maine statute prescribed that a defendant prove by a fair preponderance of the evidence that he acted in the heat of passion on sudden provocation in order to reduce murder to manslaughter. The Supreme Court held that ‘the due process clause requires the prosecution to prove beyond a reasonable doubt the absence of the heat of passion on sudden provocation when the issue is properly raised in a homicide case.’ Mullaney, supra [421 U.S.] at 704, 95 S.Ct. at 1892. The Maine statute was thus found to be infirm, the burden not being placed on the State to prove every element of its case beyond a reasonable doubt. See In Re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 90 S.Ct. 1068, 25 L.Ed.2d 368 (1970).
“In this state, the burden is on the prosecution in Sec. 19.02, supra, a fact that we confirmed only recently in Bradley, supra. See ante, p. 215. Thus, we find that the Texas murder statute and the holding in Bradley, supra, are harmonious with the holding in Mullaney, supra.
“Even if we concede, as does our brother Teague, that the error in the instant case was of federal constitutional dimension, we know of nothing in the law that saves appellant from her failure to object to the charge. Our state law provides that any such objection or refusal of any specially requested charge ‘shall be made at the time of the trial.’ Art. 36.19, Y.A.C.C.P. It is this failure by the appellant that is the backbone of the holding in Almanza, supra.” 700 S.W.2d at 213.
See also Castillo-Fuentes v. State, 707 S.W.2d 559 (Tex.Cr.App.1986).
As noted above, this Court on original submission reviewed the error in the jury charge even though it was unassigned because it was fundamental error. Since we have determined that such error is no longer fundamental error, it follows that our review of such unassigned error was error itself. Because appellant did not argue such a ground in his brief, we now hold that there is nothing for this Court to review.
However, even if appellant had made such an argument in his brief, given the record before us, we would be compelled to *442find no egregious harm. According to the State’s witnesses, three Texas Christian University students, Tim Roche, Dan Cas-key, and Warren Mackey, decided to go to Dallas with some of their fraternity brothers for a night of bar-hopping. The three drove to Dallas in Caskey’s 1967 Pontiac Firebird. Shortly after midnight as they were heading back towards Fort Worth, they saw a car of the same model and color as Caskey’s car. They pulled alongside the car and saw that it was being driven by a young female accompanied by a male passenger. Caskey drove alongside the other Firebird for some distance while Roche, who was sitting on the passenger side of the front seat attempted to get the other car to pull over so they could look at it. For some reason, the male passenger in the second Firebird, who was later identified as appellant, sat up on the window sill of the passenger side of the car and began throwing objects at Caskey’s car. After several objects hit Caskey’s ear, the second Fire-bird sped off. Caskey, wanting to catch the second Firebird and ascertain if the driver would pay for the damage caused to the car as a result of the thrown objects, pursued the second Firebird. Thereupon a ten minute high speed chase ensued until the second Firebird pulled up to the front of an apartment complex. Caskey pulled his car up in front of the second Firebird. Before the three TCU students could exit the car, something crashed through the right front window, sending glass fragments all over the interior of Caskey’s car. Caskey and Mackey then exited from the driver’s side of the car. Mackey testified that as he got out of the back seat area of the car he grabbed a rubber mallet that was laying in the back seat area. By the time he had actually exited the car, he looked over and saw Roche, the victim stumbling into an adjacent field. He saw Caskey standing at the rear of the car and appellant was sitting on the ground. Mackey ran over to the victim who was laying face down on the ground, looked at him and then ran back to where Caskey was standing. At this time he noticed that appellant was holding a knife and Caskey had blood all over the front of his shirt. Appellant and the female got in the car and left the scene.
Caskey’s testimony regarding the beginning of the incident was similar to Mack-ey’s. However, Caskey testified that after the front passenger window had been broken and he had gotten out of the car, he looked for his friends and saw the victim laying in the field. He then turned and saw the appellant in a crouched position at the end of the car. Appellant said “Come on fucker, come on fucker.” The two began fighting and sometime during this struggle appellant stabbed Caskey in the stomach. The fight ended when Caskey hit appellant in the face and appellant fell to the ground.
The appellant took the stand in his own defense and testified that when the TCU students began driving alongside them, he and his girlfriend were afraid that the people in the other car intended to harm them. Appellant admitted that he threw several objects at Caskey’s Firebird during the chase and after that Caskey tried to run them off the road. Appellant related that when his girlfriend stopped the car in front of the apartment complex, he got out the passenger side of the car and told his girlfriend to go get help from someone in the apartment complex. He stayed by the car while his girlfriend went for help. He watched the three students get out of their car and saw Mackey holding the hammer in his hand. Panicking, he threw a Dr. Pepper bottle at their car and broke the front passenger window. Appellant testified that one of the three students struck him and he fell to the ground. Then they all began kicking and beating him. While he was on the ground, he managed to pull his pocket knife out of this right front pocket, opened it and began jabbing and stabbing at all three of them to protect himself. After he had slashed at the three of them for awhile, they backed away and he was able to get up and run to his girlfriend. When onlookers told him to leave, he and his girlfriend got into their car and drove away. Appellant testified that he did not realize he had killed anyone until the next day and he turned himself in after hearing *443that the police were looking for him. Throughout his testimony, appellant insisted that he was only trying to protect- himself.
Our review of the record compels us to find that the issue of sudden passion was not raised by the testimony at trial. Although the evidence showed that appellant was afraid at the time of the incident, this Court has held repeatedly that fear, standing alone, does not raise sudden passion. Smith v. State, 721 S.W.2d 844 (Tex.Cr.App.1986); Daniels v. State, 645 S.W.2d 459 (Tex.Cr.App.1983). Furthermore, it is clear that throughout the trial the whole theory of the defense team was that appellant was acting in self-defense. Defense counsel began his voir dire examination of the jury by telling them that appellant was pleading not guilty to the charge of murder, “based on the law of self-defense.” Then he proceeded to question the potential jurors on their views about the law on self-defense. In talking about the possibility of appellant being found guilty of any lesser included offenses defense counsel urged the jurors not to be confused between the lesser included offenses and the use of self-defense. Representative of his comments is the following:
“We are talking about these lesser included offenses, I hope that you don’t— you feel that the defendant did use self-defense, hope that you don't compromise your verdict and convict him of aggravated assault or voluntary or involuntary manslaughter simply because there is a dead man.”
This type of statement was repeated during final argument at the guilt-innocence portion of the trial when defense counsel argued the following:
“The only question is whether or not that boy is at blame at all. And I am not saying that any lesser included offense (sic) are appropriate. I don’t think they are appropriate. I agree with the DA. This isn’t a case — this is a case of murder or a case of self defense. It’s not aggravated assault. All that other stuff might tend to confuse you. You can go in there and figure it all out if you want to. That’s not my argument to you here today. My argument to you here today is if this is not a case of self defense, what is.”
Given the state of the record and the strategy used by the defense, we cannot say that the unobjected-to jury charge error caused egregious harm to appellant. Smith v. State, supra; Lawrence v. State, supra. As a result, our opinion on original submission is overruled to the extent that it reversed appellant’s conviction for murder.
The State’s motion for rehearing is granted and the judgment of the trial court is affirmed.
MILLER, J., dissents.

. Appellant was convicted of this offense on February 21, 1979. Sentence was pronounced on March 21, 1979. Notice of appeal was filed on March 26, 1979. At the time of appellant’s conviction, the Code of Criminal Procedure provided that all appeals in felony cases be heard by the Court of Criminal Appeals. Article 4.03, V.A.C.C.P. In addition, at the time this case was heard on original submission Article 40.09(9), V.A.C.C.P. (1981), provided that the briefs contain “grounds of error.” Now pursuant to Tex. App.Proc.Rule 74(d), on original submission to the courts of appeal, briefs will contain "points of error.”