Court Opinion

ID: 9644604
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 21:00:43.395077+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:53:44.659121
License: Public Domain

CLINTON, Judge,
dissenting.
In his fifth point of error appellant contends that to hold the evidence sufficient to convict him of capital murder under V.T.C.A. Penal Code, § 19.03(a)(6)(A) is to blur the distinction between that provision and V.T.C.A. Penal Code, § 19.03(a)(6)(B). The majority acknowledges this contention but then never squarely addresses it. Instead the majority simply concludes, problematically, in my view, that a jury could have concluded the murders occurred “during the same criminal transaction.” This holding does indeed blur the distinction between subsections (A) and (B) of § 19.03(a)(6), and in the process threatens to render unconstitutional what until now we have scrupulously endeavored to preserve as constitutional, at least in its application to particular facts.
In Rios v. State, 846 S.W.2d 310 (Tex.Cr.App.1992), the Court recognized that subsections (A) and (B) of § 19.03(a)(6) are mutually exclusive. That is to say, whereas murder of more than one person is a capital offense under the former provision if committed “during the same criminal transaction[,]” multiple murders are capital under the latter provision only if committed “during different criminal transactions but ... pursuant to the same scheme or course of conduct.” No doubt a capital accused may be indicted under both theories in the alternative, with the factfinder to sort out which theory, if either, best fits the facts of the case. Given a general verdict of guilty, this Court would likely affirm if the evidence was sufficient to support either theory. But surely a capital accused cannot be found to have committed the same multiple murders both ways — at least not consistently with Rios. Here appellant was indicted only for murdering three persons during the same criminal transaction. The evidence at trial establishes the killings occurred during different transactions but pursuant to the same scheme or course of conduct. Loath to acquit a capital accused on the basis of such a variance of proof, the majority instead extends the concept of “same criminal transaction” beyond the breaking point, and in the process obliterates the line between the two theories of capital murder, contrary to due process and due course of law, not to mention plain legislative intent.
In Rios, supra, and in Vuong v. State, 830 S.W.2d 929 (Tex.Cr.App.1992) before it, we applied a very narrow understanding of “same criminal transaction.” In the latter case, we did so to avoid addressing the merits of the claim that § 19.03(a)(6)(A) was unconstitutionally vague. Appellant makes no such claim here, and so the majority apparently feels no such constraint as in *209Vuong. Nevertheless, the majority applies subsection (A) in a way that is sure to invite future claims of unconstitutional vagueness.
In Rios we held that in measuring sufficiency of the evidence under subsection (A) “we will look to see whether the jury could rationally conclude appellant engaged in a continuous and uninterrupted process, over a short period of time, of carrying on or carrying out murder of more than one person.” 846 S.W.2d at 314. As events stretch out over time, however, it becomes more difficult to say with confidence that they occur “in a continuous and uninterrupted process,” or “over a short period of time.” The meanings of such phrases are relative, and usually context-dependent. In the recent case of Corwin v. State, 870 S.W.2d 23, at 28-29 (Tex.Cr.App., delivered 1993), we said of § 19.03(a)(6)(B) that “in hypothetical cases, as time and distance between murders committed during different transactions increases, and as the actor’s motive or modus oper-andi vary, it will become more difficult for putative defendants and law enforcement agencies to say with certainty that the murders occurred ‘pursuant to the same ... course of conduct.’ ” It may be said, similarly, that as time and distance increases, it becomes increasingly tenuous to describe events as occurring “in a continuous and uninterrupted process ... over a short period of time.” At some point it must be said that the statute fails to give notice that a multiple killing is in fact a capital crime under § 19.03(a)(6)(A), supra.
In Vuong the killings took place within moments of each other, with no pause in the proceedings. In Rios the evidence supported a finding that the murders were only moments apart. Thus we were able to say without hesitation that the conduct of Vuong and Rios fell within what was clearly the “core” conduct proscribed by § 19.-03(a)(6)(A), supra. Cf. Corwin v. State, supra at 28-29. Here the majority describes “two to three hours” as “a short period of time.” While I agree that two to three hours is a short period of time relative to, say, two or three years, I would not describe two to three hours as “a short period of time” compared to two or three minutes, or two or three seconds. Nor can I say with the kind of certainty possible in Vuong that appellant’s conduct was continuous and uninterrupted. Again, these are not terms of absolute value. The killings occurred over a number of hours, and at three separate locations. Between each killing appellant went back to Karen Vicha’s house. Thus the killings may be said to have been “interrupted” in the sense, at least, that the actual bodily movements by which the killings were perpetrated were not sequential. I would not construe “continuous and uninterrupted” simply to mean occurring with some degree of regularity, because once again that would blur the distinction between § 19.03(a)(6), subsections (A) and (B). Corwin, supra at 28-29.
Under the carving doctrine the State was allowed to carve only one offense out of a single criminal transaction for prosecution, irrespective of how many penal proscriptions may have been violated. Because application of the carving doctrine often meant limiting the number of available prosecutions permitted for heinous crimes, there was an inherent pressure upon this Court to construe “same criminal transaction” narrowly. It may fairly be said that it was the vagueness of language used to gauge when one offense ended and another began for purposes of carving that led, in part, to its ultimate demise, in Ex parte McWilliams, 634 S.W.2d 815 (Tex.Cr.App.1982) (Opinion on rehearing). But of one thing I think we can be reasonably sure: this Court would never have concluded under carving that appellant killed his three victims during the same criminal transaction. E.g., Hester v. State, 544 S.W.2d 129 (Tex.Cr.App.1976).
“Same criminal transaction” was not defined by the legislature in § 19.03(a)(6), supra. Common acceptation is all we have to go on. We have always construed “transaction” narrowly in the carving context, again without benefit of any technical, legislatively defined meaning. That the Court now chooses to construe the phrase “same criminal transaction” more expansively may be attributed, I think I can suggest without undue cynicism, not to a change in our understanding of that phrase in common acceptation in *210English, but to an unpalatable outcome should we adhere to our prior, more narrow understanding of the phrase in the present context.
In common acceptation what appellant did here falls readily into the category of murder of more than one person “during different criminal transactions ... pursuant to the same scheme or course of conduct,” under § 19.03(a)(6)(B). No doubt had the State indicted appellant under this theory, the Court would have had no trouble holding the evidence sufficient — and justly so, for that is the theory the record supports. But the Court cannot have it both ways. Failing to insist that prosecution in this cause should have been predicated upon § 19.03(a)(6)(B), the majority threatens the constitutional viability of § 19.03(a)(6)(A).
I therefore respectfully dissent.