Court Opinion

ID: 9661407
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 22:38:15.784377+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:28.259394
License: Public Domain

MORRISON, Judge
(Dissenting.)
The fact which my brethren overlook is that at least three of the jurors changed their vote on the question of punishment from twenty to ninety-nine years after the foreman made the statement that he had read in a newspaper that the average person who received a life sentence was pardoned after serving only eight years.
To me, a simple, fair and easily workable rule would be: Where a juror makes a statement of fact or law which is not true and where any appreciable number of the jurors vote for a much greater punishment following the making of the statement, then the case should be reversed on account of jury misconduct. As I view the opinions of this court in Price v. State, 150 Texas Cr. Rep. 161, 199 S.W. 2d 168, and Jackson v. State, 157 Texas Cr. Rep. 323, 248 S.W. 2d 748, they support such a rule. If given application here, a reversal would follow.
I respectfully enter my dissent.