Court Opinion

ID: 9638735
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 15:52:23.38747+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:09.233233
License: Public Domain

ROBERTS, Judge,
concurring.
Although I join the Court’s opinion, I am concerned that two passages in it may be misinterpreted. The context of this case is vital to an understanding of the statement above:
“Having found error and made the determination that it is reversible, we should simply reverse the judgment of conviction and remand for a new trial if the State be so advised, without undertaking to examine appellant’s contention that the evidence is insufficient to convict.”
This statement applies only to the special case of an appellant like Collins who tries to bootstrap himself into an acquittal by arguing first that a piece of evidence was admitted erroneously, and then that the erroneously admitted evidence must be discounted in considering the sufficiency of the evidence. In this context the Court’s opinion may be understood to say:
Having found error in admitting evidence and made the determination that it is reversible, we should simply reverse the judgment of conviction and remand for a new trial if the State be so advised, without undertaking to examine appellant’s contention that the other evidence which was admitted properly is insufficient to convict.
*540This holding follows from the distinction between trial error and insufficiency of evidence. See Burks v. United States, 437 U.S. 1, 98 S.Ct. 2141, 57 L.Ed.2d 1 (1978); Ex parte Duran, 581 S.W.2d 683 (Tex.Cr.App.1979). The fact that evidence was received erroneously does not mean that it was not received, and we cannot pretend that it was not received when we consider the sufficiency of the evidence.
Today’s opinion does not affect our general rule that, even though we have found reversible trial error, we still must consider a claim that all the evidence (proper and improper) was insufficient. This rule is required by the different results of these errors: trial error calls for only a new trial, while insufficiency of evidence calls for a judgment of acquittal. Swabado v. State, 597 S.W.2d 361 (Tex.Cr.App.1980); Rains v. State, - S.W.2d - (Tex.Cr.App., No. 59107, 1980); Watson v. State, - S.W.2d - (Tex.Cr.App., No. 58062, 1979). Accord, United States v. Meneses-Davila, 580 F.2d 888, 896 (5th Cir. 1978). If Collins had claimed that all the evidence — including the hearsay which was improperly admitted — was insufficient, we would have considered the claim even though we had found reversible trial error.
I also am concerned by the implication in the Court’s opinion that it would be “an injustice to the State” to order an acquittal when the State had not “exhausted its resources” and “mustered, assembled and laid before the jury all evidence known and available to [it].” The general principle mandated by our double jeopardy provisions is that the State acts at its peril if it fails to put on sufficient proof. We should not be understood to say that the State can unjustifiably rely on improper proof while holding back its available proper proof for the retrial which will follow appellate reversal.
In this particular case there was no unjustified choice by the State to offer inadmissible evidence rather than available admissible evidence. While it is true that the State presumably could have sought to prove penetration by eliciting testimony from the complaining witness, it is also true that the complaining witness was only eight years old, that she testified almost entirely by nodding her head, and that she was excused from the stand in tears after brief questioning. In such delicate circumstances the State had a justification for turning to other proof. (In Ex parte Duran, 581 S.W.2d 683 (Tex.Cr.App.1979), the State and the defendant joined in an improper stipulation; the State’s. reliance was mistaken, but not unjustified.) Today’s opinion should not be read to authorize another trial when there has been an unjustified failure by the State to “muster, assemble, and lay before the jury all evidence known and available.”
On these bases, I concur.
PHILLIPS and DALLY, JJ., join in this opinion.