Court Opinion

ID: 9678057
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 06:09:45.481298+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:01.615934
License: Public Domain

MILLER, Judge,
concurring.
I agree that appellant has preserved nothing for review. Appellant’s contention, as pointed out in the majority opinion, was that he should have been allowed to bring out in front of the jury evidence showing that the co-defendant would claim *384his Fifth Amendment privilege because, at least in part, he agreed to do so as part of a plea bargain agreement with the State; and that the co-defendant’s lawyer had been informed that the State could recharge the co-defendant with dismissed counts if he did not live up to the agreement. The record reflects that the trial court carried appellant’s request so that appellant could have an out of presence hearing. Appellant never reurged his request and never sought to call the co-defendant to the stand.
The majority opinion goes further and holds that had appellant’s contention been preserved it would have been found to be without merit. The majority’s discussion supporting this holding fails, however, to address the crux of appellant’s ground of error — that the co-defendant was claiming his Fifth Amendment privilege not of his own volition but because: 1) he had been made to do so as part of a plea bargain with the prosecution, and 2) he had been threatened with retaliation from the prosecution if he didn’t live up to the plea bargain. Thus, claims appellant, his co-defendant’s invocation of the Fifth Amendment should not have “a neutral effect on the accused and the state.”1
Since this additional majority holding does not properly address appellant’s claim and also is unnecessary to resolution of the case, I cannot agree with it. To that portion of the majority opinion which states that appellant preserved nothing for review, I concur.

. Majority opinion quoting Mendoza v. State, 552 S.W.2d 444 (Tex.Cr.App.1977).