Court Opinion

ID: 9776385
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 19:33:12.768014+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:38.133572
License: Public Domain

PRICE, J.,
delivered a dissenting opinion in which JOHNSON, J. joined.
I respectfully dissent. It is fruitless to remand this cause to the court of appeals for a harmless error analysis because no meaningful finding of harm can be explained, quantified, or proved regarding a wrongfully prohibited voir dire question.
The majority contends that “[w]e recognize that certain types of error may defy proper analysis or the data may be insufficient to conduct a meaningful harm analysis” and “some errors may never be harmless or will rarely be harmless.” This logic seems similar to the reasoning in Nunfio: when a trial court improperly circumscribed a defendant’s voir dire, harm is presumed because the defendant is denied the chance to properly and intelligently use his peremptory strikes. See Nunfio, 808 S.W.2d at 485. But the majority opinion overrules Nunfio, and the opposite result will now undoubtedly occur. Ante, at 171. I disagree with the hypothesis that the lack of ability to prove harm equals the lack of harm itself, but this seems to be the driving force in each of this Court’s Cain analyses.
For the foregoing reasons, I respectfully dissent.