Court Opinion

ID: 9776402
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 19:34:03.492593+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:38.430730
License: Public Domain

DOUGLAS, Judge
(concurring).
The record reflects that the Honorable Carl Anderson, the same judge who tried the case, conducted the sanity hearing. He submitted the charge on the sanity issue on November 17, 1970, and the charge to the jury on the trial on the merits the following day.
After the jury found the appellant guilty, the same judge assessed the punishment.
The exhibits consisting of the prison packets which included the judgments, sentences, photographs and fingerprints of the appellant were introduced formally before Judge Anderson at the penalty stage of the trial.
The judge entered “Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law” and found that the State offered into evidence at the penalty stage of the trial the same exhibits that were offered at the sanity hearing. He found, “[sjaid exhibits were offered before the same court in the same proceedings,” and based thereon, he found that Rounsavall was the person previously con*699victed as alleged in the indictment.1 There is no express statement in the findings and conclusions that the trial judge was exclusively basing his findings on other testimony without reference to testimony offered at another hearing. The judge set out the proceedings of the sanity hearing and then made his findings. It appears that this is certainly a reference to that proceeding.
The judge had before him the same judgments, the same sentences, the same photographs, the same fingerprints and the same man who had been found sane the day before, yet the dissent would reverse the penalty phase of the trial for further proceedings because the fingerprint examiner did not testify the second time that the fingerprints in the exhibits were those of Rounsavall.
It appears that the dissent would hold that the trial court could not know that the same man was before him the day after the sanity hearing.
This Court had before it a somewhat analogous situation in Bridges v. State, 468 S.W.2d 451. There it was contended that the court erred in cumulating sentences against Bridges because no proof was offered that he was the person previously convicted. The sentence in that case was imposed April 20, 1970, in Randall County. The trial court cumulated that sentence with one that was pronounced in Potter County on April 14, 1970, without any proof that he was the person previously convicted.
This Court, in an opinion by Presiding Judge Onion, unanimously held that no proof was required that Bridges was the same person previously convicted. That opinion recited that the sentences were imposed some six days apart by the same judge during the same term of court. There the Court cited the rule:
“ ‘In criminal cases, the trial court may notice judicially its own records and proceedings, and all judgments entered by the court. Thus, the court may, and indeed should, take judicial notice of the fact that the defendant or a witness has previously been convicted by the court.’ 23 Tex.Jur.2d, Evidence, Sec. 27, pp. 47-48.”
In the present case there is less chance of mistaken identity because the hearings were under the same cause number, in the same court in a two-day period with the same judge presiding. In my opinion, there is no logical reason to apply a different rule in the present situation, especially where we have exhibits containing photographs of the appellant before the trial judge who saw these exhibits which were introduced one day before the trial on the merits. In the Bridges case there were no such exhibits or proof before the trial judge or this Court on appeal.
This does not involve another trial such as was the case in Scott v. Clark, Tex.Civ. App., 38 S.W.2d 382, and in Grayson v. Rodermund, Tex.Civ.App., 135 S.W.2d 178, cited in the dissent. In Entrekin v. Entrekin, Tex.Civ.App., 398 S.W.2d 139, also cited in the dissent, a different issue was involved at each hearing, i. e. child custody and divorce. In the present case there was a different ultimate issue at each hearing, but the only issue that the testimony of the fingerprint examiner could be used for was the identity of the person previously convicted.
We should and have followed the reasoning in the Bridges case.
*700The dissent would apparently fear that the failure to require additional proof of identity in the present case might be construed as a precedent that no proof of identity will be required if the same judge presides at another trial months or perhaps a year later. We do not have that situation here. Any such question can be answered when that fact situation is before this Court.
In Branch v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 445 S.W.2d 756, there was a two-stage trial. It was proved at the guilt-innocence stage that Branch was the person previously convicted. He was not identified as the person previously convicted at the penalty stage, but the prison record including photographs and fingerprints were introduced. The Court held that the evidence used at the guilt stage could be considered by the jury at the second or penalty stage of the trial. Generally, prior convictions can be introduced at the guilt stage of the trial for impeachment purposes, but they also serve as proof at the penalty stage for identification for the purpose of enhancement.
With these additional reasons, I concur with the original opinion affirming this cause.

. The pertinent findings of the trial judge concerning the basis for his conclusion are, in part, as follows: “ [i]n a hearing involving the defendant, said hearing being for the purpose of determining the present sanity of the defendant, since said exhibits were offered before the same Court in the same proceedings, expect (sic) upon the sanity issue, the Court admitted the said exhibits and based thereon found that the defendant was one and the same individual who had two times before been convicted of a felony offense, less than capital, as alleged in Count 2 of the indictment;