Court Opinion

ID: 9762025
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:07:59.255202+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:29.231543
License: Public Domain

BURGESS, Justice,
concurring.
I wholeheartedly join in the affirmance of the hindering apprehension charge and reluctantly concur in the affirmance of the assault charge. I have no real quarrel with our Chief Justice’s reasoning and applaud my brother for cautiously and faithfully following the recent dictates of our reviewing court in Criner v. State, 860 S.W.2d 84 (Tex.Crim.App.1992). I would not be so cautious. As Judge Clinton pointed out in his dissenting opinion to denial of appellant’s motion for rehearing on State’s petition for discretionary review, at page 88, the court of criminal appeals is simply playing lip service to its *102opinions in Arcila v. State, 834 S.W.2d 357 (Tex.Crim.App.1992) and Meraz v. State, 785 S.W.2d 146 (Tex.Crim.App.1990). Either the courts of appeals are the final arbiters of fact questions or they are not; Arcila and Meraz say they are, Criner erodes that position. Either the “factual conclusivity clause” of our state constitution means something or it does not. Under the majority opinion in Criner, when the court of criminal appeals agrees with the court of appeals, the clause means what it says; when the court of criminal appeals disagrees with the lower court, the clause loses its meaning.
Since it is undisputed the state failed to produce any direct evidence that the physical contact caused bodily injury, i.e., produced any physical pain, illness, or any impairment of physical condition, the majority’s analysis correctly focuses on whether there is any circumstantial evidence of bodily injury. While the officer did not testify she suffered any physical pain, she did testify about blows to the her head with appellant’s fist. While there is certainly a difference between a reasonable inference and speculation,1 the facts of this case support the reasonable inference that blows to the head with a closed fist will cause some amount of physical pain.2 Therefore, I concur in the result.

. See dissenting opinion in the companion case, Wawrykow v. State, 866 S.W.2d 87 (Tex.App.—Beaumont, 1993, n.p.h.).

. As opposed to the speculation that a "push” to the chest will cause physical pain.