Court Opinion

ID: 9641595
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:35:35.70037+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:38.439576
License: Public Domain

CLINTON, Judge,
concurring.
As well as the sections of Article 40.09, V.A.C.C.P., quoted in the opinion of the Court, there is the provision in Article 37.-071, id., for automatic review by this Court of the judgment of conviction and sentence of death “after certification by the sentencing court of the entire record.”
Thus in a capital case the Legislature has directed this Court to ensure that “this unique penalty [is not] wantonly and ... freakishly imposed,” Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 310, 92 S.Ct. 2726, 2763, 33 L.Ed.2d 346 (1972); Jurek v. Texas, 428 U.S. 262, 276, 96 S.Ct. 2950, 2958, 49 L.Ed.2d 929 (1976). We may not shirk our duty to review “the entire record” on grounds that an appellant has not shown “harm” in being denied portions of a transcription of notes taken by the court reporter during the course of the trial of a capital case. That this Court have before it the entire record in a capital case serves a public policy which considers assuring evenhanded imposition of the ultimate penalty as important, if not more so, than faulting the one condemned for inability to demonstrate on appeal how an error resulted in disadvantage.
With those observations, I join the opinion of the Court.
TEAGUE, J., joins.