Court Opinion

ID: 9777184
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 20:01:39.885415+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:49.810594
License: Public Domain

TEAGUE, Judge,
dissenting.
As a general proposition, based upon what this Court has stated and held in the past, it is true as the majority opinion states, that “Evidence of unadjudicated offenses is admissible at the punishment phase of a capital murder case.” However, simply making such a conclusory statement is not always sufficient to dispose of a contention that such should not have been admitted into evidence at the punishment stage of a capital murder trial.
My understanding of the record in this cause is that to establish the unadjudicated offense of the murder of Blanca Arreola, the State relied solely upon what the appellant, who was then in custody and represented by counsel, had told a Detective Smith concerning Arreola’s murder, her burial, and the place where her body was buried. Notwithstanding these incriminating statements, by the record before us, the appellant to this day has not been charged with the murder of Arreola.
Appellant asserts, inter alia, that because the prosecuting attorney affirmatively represented to the trial judge during the pretrial phase of this cause that no such oral statements were made by the appellant, and thus none would be used by the prosecuting attorney during the trial of this cause, his subsequent use of such statements over objection constitutes reversible error.
The majority opinion, in extremely casual fashion, disposes of the appellant’s contentions that the statements should not have been admitted into evidence, because, inter alia, there was no showing of a compliance with the then provisions of Art. 38.22, V.A. C.C.P., by simply holding that his counsel’s trial objection was insufficient to preserve the error. Had what occurred in this cause not occurred, I might agree.
Appellant’s counsel acknowledges the fact he did not properly object in the trial court, but explains to this Court in satisfactory fashion, to me at least, that this occurred because the prosecuting attorney had affirmatively stated during pretrial that the State would not seek to offer any oral statements of the appellant during his trial. In other words, the reason why the appellant’s attorney did not sufficiently articulate his objection at trial was because he got sandbagged by the prosecuting attorney’s false representation. Interestingly, in its appellate brief, the State does not even attempt to take issue with what the appellant’s attorney’s asserts, nor does it seek to justify the actions of the prosecuting attorney.
Had the appellant’s attorney not got sandbagged in the trial court by the prosecuting attorney, I am confident that he would have more intelligently expressed his objections why the statements that the appellant made to Smith were inadmissible.
Based upon this record, it is obvious to me that the statements that appellant made to Smith are, under Art. 38.22, supra, inadmissible as a matter of law. This, of course, might explain why the prosecuting attorney represented that he was not going to introduce any such statements into evi*626dence at the appellant’s trial. See and compare King v. State, 657 S.W.2d 109 (Tex.Cr.App.1983), with the provisions of Art. 38.-22, supra, as worded at the time the statements were obtained from the appellant. Of course, the prosecuting attorney was presumed to have been aware that, under the existing law at the time, the admissibility of evidence that is offered pursuant to Art. 37.071, supra, is governed by exclusionary rules of evidence. King, supra, at 111.
If this Court is willing to sweep the appellant’s contentions under the rug labeled “The objection is insufficient to preserve the alleged errors appellant now complains of,” it should at least be willing to remand this cause to the trial court in order to hold a hearing on the fundamental error issue whether the appellant was denied and deprived of the effective assistance of counsel at his trial.
I would review the error in the interest of justice or at least remand the cause to the trial court for a hearing to be held on the issue whether the appellant was deprived of the effective assistance of counsel at his trial. Because the majority of this Court refuses to do either, I must dissent.