Court Opinion

ID: 9660460
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 22:14:09.006221+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:19.648866
License: Public Domain

OPINION ON STATE’S MOTION FOR REHEARING
CLINTON, Judge.
Because the State urged strongly that the panel opinion in this cause misconstrued certain language providing an exception to the statutory prohibition that spouses “shall in no case testify against each other in a criminal prosecution,” Article 38.11, V.A.C. C.P., and claimed that the earlier panel opinion in Garcia v. State, 573 S.W.2d 12 (Tex.Cr.App.1978) supported its submission, we granted the motion for leave to file. Now, having carefully examined and considered the contention and the opinion in Garcia v. State, supra, we find that the State has missed the target by drawing a bead on the wrong point, that what Garcia decided is not the issue here and, therefore, the motion for rehearing is wide the mark.
The exceptional situation at issue is circumscribed by that part of Article 38.11, supra, which reads:
“. . . However, a wife or husband may voluntarily testify against each other in any case for an offense involving any grade of assault or violence commit*853ted by one against the other or ” 1
The exceptional situation at issue in Garcia, supra, however, was the very next one in a train of others, viz.: “or against any child of either under 16 years of age,” id., at 14. The dispositive question that the Court itself raised and considered in the interest of justice was whether the alleged act of indecency with a child is “an offense involving any grade of assault . . . committed by one [spouse] . . . against any child of either under 16 years of age . . .” [Emphasis added in original.] The Court found that the testimony “outlines a fact situation which would constitute an assault” under a specified statute “against the child of the witness” and, therefore, “the wife was a competent witness,” Garcia, supra, at 15-16. We have no occasion to disturb that finding and conclusion, for our issue is manifestly different.
What must be looked to here is not the “involving” feature of the statute; certainly the instant offense involved an assault for appellant drove his automobile into a smaller car and thereby, the indictment avers, did “threaten imminent bodily injury to Tommy Lee Gould,” an occupant of the car along with wife of appellant and one other. Plainly and simply, this is not a “case for an offense . . . committed by one [spouse] against the other.” Rather it is a case for an offense allegedly committed by appellant against Gould. As the panel correctly perceived, “the wife was not the injured party in the case being tried.”
The State’s motion for rehearing is overruled.2

. All emphasis is supplied throughout by the writer of this opinion unless otherwise indicated.

. There is a suggestion that because appellant’s wife “voluntarily” testified the exception at issue was applicable. However, as Garcia v. State, supra, at 15, also correctly points out, “Therefore, the question of whether or not Mrs. Garcia’s testimony was voluntary is not dispos-itive of the issue if she was disqualified as a witness in this case.” In other words, the mere willingness of the spouse to testify for the State is not enough to remove the basic bar to that testimony; it must be voluntariness in an exceptional situation.
Nor, given very different policy considerations, are we persuaded that the federal spousal testimonial privilege dealt with in Trammel v. United States, 445 U.S. 40, 100 S.Ct. 906, 63 L.Ed.2d 186 (1980) should now determine our own, especially since Article 38.11, supra, appears to receive recurring examination by our Legislature. See its Historical Note.