Court Opinion

ID: 9683194
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 13:24:13.549399+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:46.127613
License: Public Domain

OPINION ON APPELLANT’S MOTION FOR REHEARING
In his motion for rehearing, appellant contends for the first time that the trial court’s charge to the jury contained fundamental error. He further contends that the trial court’s charge to the jury erroneously assumed and established two essential facts. The application paragraph reads as follows:
“Therefore, if you believe from the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that the Defendant, Martin Luther Adams, in Nueces County, Texas, on or about August 26, 1982, did then and there unlawfully, knowing the content and character of certain material, to wit: one (1) motion picture, the title of which is unknown to affiant, to be obscene, unlawfully and knowingly promote obscene material by then and there exhibiting said obscene material to R. Vipon, which material depicts ultimate sexual acts, to wit: sexual intercourse, you will find the Defendant guilty as charged.
If you do not so believe, or if you have a reasonable doubt thereof, you will find the Defendant not guilty.”
Appellant asserts that this paragraph of the charge was fundamentally defective “because it assumed as established, two essential facts: (1) that the motion picture in question is obscene, and (2) that it depicts ultimate sexual acts, to wit: sexual intercourse.” Appellant points out that in Andrews v. State, 652 S.W.2d 370 (Tex.Cr.App.1983), the Court of Criminal Appeals held the application paragraph of that charge was erroneous for essentially the same reasons. In Andrews, however, the defendant timely and properly objected to the application portion of the charge. In the instant case, no objection was made at trial.
*347Appellant also cites Grady v. State, 634 S.W.2d 316 (Tex.Cr.App.1982), where an error of a similar sort caused the defendant to contend on appeal that an error in the trial court’s charge “removed from the jury’s consideration the issue of whether or not phentermine is an isomer of methamphetamine.” The Court of Criminal Appeals, after concluding that the charge was erroneous, held that the particular error was not fundamental.
Likewise, the charge in the present case, while not adequately drafted, is not fundamentally defective. In the future, the trial court should submit to the jury a charge in compliance with the Court of Criminal Appeals’ suggested charge as set forth in Andrews, 652 S.W.2d 370 at 374. Appellant’s first ground for rehearing is overruled.
Appellant’s remaining grounds raised on his motion for rehearing have also been considered, and they are also overruled.