Court Opinion

ID: 9764260
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 03:17:06.455392+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:55.096890
License: Public Domain

CLINTON, Judge,
concurring.
I agree with Judge Tom Davis’s able analysis which concludes no reversible error is presented in this case by either appellant’s grounds of error one through ten,1 or by his final ground of error.2 Because of their limited factual contexts, the questions posed to selected jurors concerning their ability to answer the deliberateness question “yes” relative to an individual defendant who may not have hit the victim, but who was shooting at him and clearly attempting to hit him, do not compel reversal of appellant’s conviction. Accordingly, with but one objective in writing separately, I join the opinion and judgment of the Court.
I write only to make explicit what is clearly implicit in Judge Davis’s rationale: It is error to apply directly the law of parties to any of the punishment issues in a capital murder case—that is, so a capital defendant may be punished for the deliberate conduct of another, the future dangerousness of another or the unreasonable response to provocation by another—without regard to the individual conduct of the defendant whose fate is in question.3
Since the hypothet circumscribing the improper communication here did not require or even lend itself to an application of the law of parties to find “deliberateness,” it is in the best tradition of judicial restraint that Judge Davis has avoided directly addressing the viability of Wilder and Armour v. State, 583 S.W.2d 349 (Tex.Cr.App.1979) which found the evidence of Armour’s “deliberateness” sufficient solely on the basis of Wilder’s conduct, through application of the law of parties.4 Nevertheless, I am alarmed by the increasing number of cases implicating Wilder and Armour and believe it behooves us to provide guidance to the bench and prosecution bar today—to warn them and, hopefully, to avert future reversals of death sentences which are constitutionally infirm5 simply because an untenable interpretation of state law technically has not been closely examined by the Court. My purpose then, is to provide that scrutiny.
STATE LAW OF PARTIES
V.T.C.A. Penal Code, § 7.01, entitled “Parties to Offenses” provides:
(a) A person is criminally responsible as a party to an OFFENSE if the offense is committed by his own conduct, *377the conduct of another for which he is criminally responsible, or by both.
(b) Each party to an offense may be charged with commission of the OFFENSE.
(c) ... [E]aeh party to an offense may be charged and CONVICTED without alleging that he acted as a principal or accomplice.
V.T.C.A. Penal Code, § 7.02, entitled “Criminal Responsibility for Conduct of Another” provides:
(a) A person is criminally responsible for an OFFENSE committed by the conduct of another if:
⅜ ¾: * ⅜ ⅜ ⅜
(2) acting with intent to promote or assist the commission of the offense, he solicits, encourages, directs, aids, or attempts to aid the other person to commit the offense; * * *
(b) If, in the attempt to carry out a conspiracy to commit one felony,6 another felony is committed by one of the conspirators, all conspirators are GUILTY of the felony actually committed though having no intent to commit it, if the offense was committed in furtherance of the unlawful purpose and was one that should have been anticipated as a result of the carrying out of the conspiracy.
It is unambiguous that the law of parties provided by the penal code applies only to the jury’s consideration of an accused’s guilt for the commission of an offense in the first stage of our bifurcated felony trial procedure.7
This conclusion is fortified by the language of Article 37.071(b)(l)-(3), V.A.C. C.P. which provides unique criteria for assessment of the penalty of death in capital cases; the so-called “special issues” have been framed in parallel construction by the Legislature and, as Judge Davis also observes, each issue clearly directs consideration of the conduct of the individual defendant:
(1) whether the conduct8 of the defendant that caused the death was committed deliberately and with the reasonable expectation that the death of the deceased or another would result;
(2) whether there is a probability that the defendant would commit criminal acts of violence that would constitute a continuing threat to society; and
(3) if raised by the evidence the conduct of the defendant in killing the deceased was unreasonable in response to the provocation, if any, by the deceased.
While it is true that submission of these special issues is mandatory in assessing the penalty for one found guilty of the offense of capital murder through application of the law of parties, it is improper to assume that those issues must be answered for such a defendant exactly as they would be for a codefendant whose conduct actually caused the death involved.9 Obviously, the culpable “conduct” of codefendants is different, and though the “criminal responsi*378bility” for purposes of a determination of guilt is the same, once a finding of guilt is made, the jury is confronted with substantively different questions 10 regarding the propriety of punishment for the individual defendants.
It is apparent then that while a capital murder defendant may be held “criminally responsible”—and therefore found guilty— through application of our law of parties, the determinations made by the jury in answering the special issues dictated by Article 37.071(b), supra, must be made solely upon consideration of the particularized conduct of the individual defendant which, by virtue of §§ 7.01 and 7.02, supra, contributed to another’s causing the death of the victim.
Thus, it can be seen that the suggestion in Wilder and Armour that the law of parties can supply evidence otherwise lacking upon a punishment issue, is patently unsupported by the language of pertinent state statutes.
ERRONEOUS READING OF PRIOR DECISIONS
But then the opinion in Wilder and Armour did not undertake the analysis of relevant state statutes which is made above; instead, that opinion simply claimed prior decisions—primarily Livingston v. State, 542 S.W.2d 655 (Tex.Cr.App.1976)—“held that Sections 7.01 and 7.02 apply to ... Article 37.071, V.A.C.C.P.” 583 S.W.2d at 356. However, dissecting the decisions cited by Wilder and Armour belies the accuracy of that claim.
In Smith v. State, 540 S.W.2d 693 (Tex.Cr.App.1976) this Court in passing upon the sufficiency of the evidence to support the death penalty “generally,” stated at 696-697:
There was no evidence that [Smith] was in any way under the domination of anyone, nor was he under any mental or emotional pressure. He simply went out to rob and was the first person who tried to kill his victim (according to his oral confession).11 After the killing, he testified, he paused long enough to secure a pistol from under the counter and when a cigar box containing coins spilled, he paused to recoup the coins. His entire conduct was calculated and remorseless. ...
These facts were held to be sufficient to support the jury's finding on the deliberateness question and, indeed, correctly so. However, Smith also argued on appeal that Special Issues (1) and (3) should not be submitted in a case where the defendant is only charged and found guilty as a principal. In rejecting such a contention, the Court stated:
To agree with such a contention would require that we ignore this Court’s interpretation of the law of principals. Earlier in the opinion we declined to do so.
540 S.W.2d at 697.
Earlier in the opinion the Court had determined, contrary to Smith’s contention, that upon application of the law of principals, the evidence was sufficient to support the conviction, or, to restate it, the jury’s finding of guilt for the offense of capital murder.
Thus, the Court did not determine in Smith, supra, that the deliberate conduct of Howie Ray Robinson which caused the death of the victim in that case, constituted sufficient evidence to support the jury’s finding on the first special issue in Smith’s *379trial. Rather, it was conduct of the individual defendant, Smith, which aided and encouraged Robinson in causing the death,12 that justified the jury’s affirmative finding in his own trial.
In Livingston, supra, the appellant assailed the sufficiency of the evidence to support the jury’s verdict of guilt. In rejecting the contention, the Court held:
In Smith [citation omitted], a capital murder conviction under Article 1257, Vernon’s Ann.P.C. (immediate forerunner of V.T.C.A. Penal Code, Sec. 19.03), and Art. 37.071, it was held that a defendant could be convicted of murder despite the fact that it was the co-defendant who killed the deceased during the course of the robbery in light of the law of principals then in effect. See also Thompson v. State, 514 S.W.2d 275 (Tex.Cr.App.1974).
We do not construe ... Sections 7.01 and 7.02 of the new penal code to call for a different result, nor do we understand appellant to so contend.
542 S.W.2d 660.
So, in both Smith and Livingston, the Court approved the application of the law of criminal responsibility to the guilt phase of those capital murder trials, and concomitantly found the evidence sufficient to sustain the jury verdicts that those defendants were guilty of the respective capital murder offenses charged against them. The dispositions of Smith and Livingston in this regard, are clearly sound.
But, in neither Smith nor Livingston, was the evidence deemed sufficient to support the affirmative finding on the first punishment issue in those capital murder cases, through application of the law of parties, as the opinion in Wilder and Armour would have it.
It is also important to note the exact contention made by Armour on appeal; according to the Court’s opinion:
“In his first ground of error, Armour alleges that the evidence was insufficient under Article 37.071, V.A.C.C.P., to show he either caused the death of the deceased or committed the act deliberately and with the reasonable expectation that death would result because he did not actually kill the deceased.”
583 S.W.2d at 356. Obviously, the fact that a defendant “did not actually kill the deceased” does not necessarily mean that his own culpable conduct13 in contributing to the murder was not done “deliberately and with the reasonable expectation that the death of the deceased ... would result.” The facts in both Smith and the instant case exemplify instances in which nontriggermen14 were shown by their contributing conduct to be not only expecting a resulting death, but also offering deliberate assistance to that end; and the jury’s respective “yes” answers on the “deliber*380ateness question” find ample support in the evidence in each case.
Thus, the opinion in Wilder and Armour relied upon an erroneous reading of Livingston and Smith for its conclusion that the jury may find affirmatively on the “deliberateness question” at the trial of a “wheel man,” if they only find that the “triggerman’s” conduct was committed deliberately and with the reasonable expectation that the death of the deceased would result. By virtue of the misplaced reliance, a careful analysis of the issue was apparently thought to be unnecessary in Wilder and Armour; but, as I have demonstrated, scrutiny of the purported rationale of that ease mandates our disapproval of it.
There is no conceivable way an application of the law of parties to the punishment issues in appellant’s trial could have contributed to his death sentence;15 so, erroneous communication to selected jurors that such an application be made was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.
I concur in the opinion and judgment of the Court.

. As stated by Judge Davis, appellant's first ten grounds of error complain of the trial court "instructing and/or permitting the prosecutor to instruct veniremen that the law of parties could be used in answering special issue number one at the punishment stage.”

. According to Judge Davis, appellant’s final ground of error claims that "Art. 37.071(b)(1) is unconstitutional as applied in this case because, 'its language indicates that the law of parties applies in answering it at the punishment stage.’ ”

. It quickly follows that prospective jurors may not be informed that such an application is permitted, and that it was error in this case to so inform them, albeit not reversible error.

. The evidence was undisputed that Armour was the "wheel man” and waited in the car while Wilder committed the aggravated robbery and, ultimately, the capital murder.

. See Enmund v. Florida, 458 U.S. 782, 102 S.Ct. 3368, 73 L.Ed.2d 1140 (1982).

. "'Felony' means an OFFENSE so designated by law or punishable by death or confinement in a penitentiary." (All emphasis is supplied throughout by the writer of this opinion unless otherwise indicated.)

. Article 37.07, § 2(a) directs:
In all criminal cases, other than misdemeanor cases ..., which are tried before a jury on a plea of not guilty, the judge shall, before argument begins, first submit to the jury the issue of guilt or innocence of the defendant of the offense or offenses charged, without authorizing the jury to pass upon the punishment to be imposed.

. "‘Conduct’ means an act or omission and its accompanying mental state.” V.T.C.A. Penal Code, § 1.07(a)(8).
" 'Act’ means a bodily movement whether voluntary or involuntary and includes speech." V.T.C.A. Penal Code, § 1.07(a)(1).

.In discussing the tenet that individualized sentencing in capital cases is constitutionally required, the Supreme Court of the United States noted, in Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586, 98 S.Ct. 2954, 57 L.Ed.2d 973 (1978), 98 S.Ct. at 2964:
“That States have authority to make aiders and abettors equally responsible as a matter of law, with principals, or to enact felony murder statutes is beyond constitutional challenge. But the definition of crimes generally has not been thought automatically to dictate what should be the proper penalty, [citations omitted]”

. Against the constitutional challenge that the special punishment issues in the Texas capital murder scheme “merely repeat issues already decided” at the guilt phase, then Texas Attorney General John L. Hill assured the United States Supreme Court that, as drafted, the punishment issues had been (and impliedly, would be) construed as showing "a real basis for distinguishing among defendants." Oral argument on the constitutionality of Texas death penalty procedure in Jurek v. Texas, 428 U.S. 262, 96 S.Ct. 2950, 49 L.Ed.2d 929 (1976). Accord: Heckert v. State, 612 S.W.2d 549 (Tex.Cr.App.1981) [holding "intentionally” is not the same as “deliberately”].

. According to Smith’s oral confession, he attempted to shoot the victim, but his gun misfired; he then called out to his coprincipal “get him” and Howie Ray Robinson shot the victim to death.

.The law in effect at the time of the commission of the capital murder in Smith which authorized the jury’s finding of guilt follows:
"All persons are principals who are guilty of acting together in the commission of an offense.”
Vernon’s Ann. P.C., Article 65.
"When an offense is actually committed by one or more persons, but others are present, and knowing the unlawful intent, aid by acts or encourage by words or gestures, those actually engaged in the commission of the unlawful act, or who, not being actually present, keep watch so as to prevent the interruption of those engaged in committing the offense, such persons so aiding, encouraging or keeping watch are principal offenders.”
Vernon’s Ann.P.C., Article 66.
"All persons who shall engage in procuring aid, arms or means of any kind to assist in the commission of an offense, while others are executing the unlawful act, and all persons who endeavor at the time of the commission of the offense to secure the safety or concealment of the offenders are principals.”
Vernon’s Ann.P.C., Article 68.
“Any person who advises or agrees to the commission of an offense and who is present when the same is a principal whether he aid or notice the illegal act.”
Vernon’s Ann.P.C., Article 69.

. "Culpable" by virtue of the law of parties.

. As I understand the facts in the instant case, there was simply inconclusive evidence as to whether it was appellant or his confederate who fired the fatal bullet.

. But that is not to say, of course, that the law of parties has any application to sufficiency of evidence to support a finding on the deliberateness issue.