Court Opinion

ID: 9649226
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 14:45:43.010384+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:09.079901
License: Public Domain

OPINION ON STATE’S MOTION FOR REHEARING
ONION, Presiding Judge.
The State vigorously urges its motion for rehearing, suggesting the majority adopt Judge Douglas’ dissenting opinion except the last two paragraphs thereof.
The State contends that even if Article 38.27, V.A.C.C.P., is inapplicable, the documentary evidence offered when taken with the testimony of appellant’s father that he was convicted of “those offenses” is sufficient to show that appellant was the same person so previously convicted.
The documentary evidence had already been offered when the appellant’s father was called as a defense witness at the penalty stage of the trial. On direct examination the witness admitted he had “some problems” with the appellant as a teenager after he came back from living with his mother, the witness’ divorced wife. When asked if the earlier “problems” culminated in the appellant being charged in “those offenses,” after he was seventeen years of age, the witness answered:
“A. I think * * * I believe some of those were while he was with his mother.”
Later he answered affirmatively “That’s right” when asked if the appellant had gone to the Department of Corrections at age seventeen on “those offenses.”
The witness’ attention was never directed to any particular offense.
On cross examination he specifically denied knowledge of the offenses and the resulting convictions upon which the State relied to prove the appellant’s “prior criminal record.”
We cannot agree that such evidence is sufficient to support the State’s contention.
Further, the proper predicate for the introduction of a defendant’s “prior criminal record” under the provisions of Article 37.07, V.A.C.C.P., must be laid in the trial court before the jury in the particular case should be permitted to consider the same. The fact that in the event of an appeal this Court may find another appellate record which may supply the deficiency in the predicate is not controlling. The rule announced in 23 Tex.Jur.2d, Evidence, Sec. 29, p. 51, was never intended to be used in this fashion.
Still further, the State, while authorized to prove an accused’s “prior criminal record” by virtue of Article 37.07, supra, is not authorized to prove the details of every offense resulting in a conviction which forms a part of the “prior criminal record.” In the instant case, under the guise of only introducing the appellant’s signature thereto, the State offered written stipulations of evidence reciting the details of prior offenses. Such was not proper.
Remaining convinced of the soundness of our original decision, the State’s motion for rehearing is overruled.