Court Opinion

ID: 9770161
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 15:52:23.517168+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:15.383382
License: Public Domain

PRICE, J.,
delivered a dissenting opinion
in which MEYERS and JOHNSON, JJ., joined.
I dissent. We granted the State’s petition for discretionary review on the following grounds:
(1) Does any error on the part of trial counsel that could have an indirect, ancillary impact upon the punishment phase of the trial invoke the Duffy standard, instead of the Strickland standard, for assessing potential ineffective assistance of counsel?
(2) Should the Duffy standard be abandoned as the analytical test for assessing claims of ineffective assistance of counsel based upon errors of trial counsel that relate to the punishment phase of a trial?
The second ground for review actually granted by this Court comes closest to stating the focus of the majority opinion. The State’s argument under this ground asks us to abandon Duffy and apply the two-prong Strickland test. Although it argues that we should adopt Strickland and abandon Duffy, it does so without specifically discussing whether this is to be done as a matter of federal constitutional law, state constitutional law, or both. The State does this for the very simple reason that this Court has consistently held for more than a decade that the right to effective assistance of counsel under the Texas Constitution is the same as *775that right under the United States Constitution.1
Nevertheless, after rewriting the grounds for review presented to this Court, the majority detours into purely gratuitous dicta, in which it states the novel proposition that as to claims of right to counsel, the Texas Constitution now provides less protection to its citizens than the U.S. Constitution. This portion of the opinion is completely unnecessary. It is well established that a state, through its constitution and laws, may grant greater protections to its citizens than does the federal constitution2; to the degree that a state gives less protection than the federal constitution, the protection granted by the federal constitution reigns.3 Therefore, the section of the majority opinion on state constitutional law (ante, at 772-773), which is actually there to criticize contemporary Supreme Court jurisprudence on the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee of a right to counsel, reads less like a judicial decision than a political polemic. However, since the job of courts is to decide concrete controversies of law,4 such statements have no place in a court opinion.5
*776Furthermore, although the majority does not say so, its opinion overrules, sub silentio, a decision we handed down less than two years ago. In Valencia v. State, 946 S.W.2d 81, 83 (Tex.Crim.App.1997), we once again held that the standard of Ex parte Duffy, rather than the Strickland standard, was to be used when assessing claims of ineffective assistance of counsel with respect to punishment. The barest respect for both the doctrine of stare decisis6 and for the institutional integrity of this Court suggests that we should adhere to our own opinions for some minimal amount of time. That the majority does not do so here, and does not even acknowledge that it is not doing so, is doubly disturbing.
For the foregoing reasons, I dissent.

. See Hernandez v. State, 726 S.W.2d 53, 56-57 (Tex.Crim.App.1986) (because Texas constitutional and statutory provisions do not create a standard in ineffective assistance cases more protective of a defendant's rights than the standard of Strickland, Court of Criminal Appeals will follow in full the Strickland standards in determining effective assistance and prejudice resulting therefrom); see also Hathorn v. State, 848 S.W.2d 101, 118 (Tex.Crim.App.1992), cert. denied, 509 U.S. 932, 113 S.Ct. 3062, 125 L.Ed.2d 744 (1993); Black v. State, 816 S.W.2d 350, 356 (Tex.Crim.App.1991); Ex parte Felton, 815 S.W.2d 733, 736 n. 4 (Tex.Crim.App.1991); Derrick v. State, 773 S.W.2d 271, 272-273 (Tex.Crim.App.1989), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 874, 110 S.Ct. 209, 107 L.Ed.2d 162 (1989).

. See, e.g., PruneYard Shopping Ctr. v. Robins, 447 U.S. 74, 81, 100 S.Ct. 2035, 2040, 64 L.Ed.2d 741 (1980) (A State is not limited in exercising "its police power or its sovereign right to adopt in its own Constitution individual liberties more expansive than those conferred by the Federal Constitution") (citing Cooper v. California, 386 U.S. 58, 87 S.Ct. 788, 17 L.Ed.2d 730 (1967)); see also Connecticut v. Johnson, 460 U.S. 73, 81 n. 9, 103 S.Ct. 969, 974 n. 9, 74 L.Ed.2d 823 (1983) (plurality opinion); Michigan v. Mosley, 423 U.S. 96, 120, 96 S.Ct. 321, 334, 46 L.Ed.2d 313 (1975) (Brennan, J., dissenting); United States v. Cella, 568 F.2d 1266, 1279 n. 9 (9 th Cir.1977); United States v. Valenzuela, 546 F.2d 273, 275 (9 th Cir.1975); United States v. Hall, 543 F.2d 1229, 1246 n. 17 (9 th Cir.1976 (Duniway, J., concurring), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 1075, 97 S.Ct. 814, 50 L.Ed.2d 793 (1977); United States v. Geller, 560 F.Supp. 1309, 1314 (E.D.Pa.1983), aff'd sub nom. United States v. DeMaise, 745 F.2d 49 (3rd Cir.1984), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 1109, 105 S.Ct. 786, 83 L.Ed.2d 780 (1985); Bower v. State, 769 S.W.2d 887, 903 (Tex.Crim.App.1989); Milton v. State, 549 S.W.2d 190, 192 (Tex.Crim.App.1977); Crittenden v. State, 899 S.W.2d 668, 676 (Tex.Crim.App.1995) (Baird, J., dissenting); Gillett v. State, 588 S.W.2d 361, 367 (Tex.Crim.App.1979) (Roberts, J., dissenting); Reeves v. State, 969 S.W.2d 471, 484 (Tex.App.-Waco 1998, pet. ref’d); Jones v. State, 867 S.W.2d 63, 65 (Tex.App.-Corpus Christi 1993, pet. ref'd); State v. Engelking, 771 S.W.2d 213, 218 (Tex.App.-Houston [1 st Dist.] 1989) (Dunn, J., dissenting), rev’d, 817 S.W.2d 64 (Tex.Crim.App.1991).

. See, e.g., Davis v. Bd. Of Medical Examiners, 497 F.Supp. 525, 528 (D.N.J.1980); Autran v. State, 887 S.W.2d 31, 36 (Tex.Crim.App.1994) (plurality opinion); Kann v. State, 694 S.W.2d 156, 159 (Tex.App.-Dallas 1985, pet. ref'd).

. See, e.g., Matchett v. State, 941 S.W.2d 922, 932-933 (Tex.Crim.App.1996) (plurality opinion) ("Judicial power ... is the power of the courts to decide and pronounce judgments and to carry them into effect between persons and parties who bring cases before them for decisions”) (citation omitted), cert. denied, 521 U.S. 1107, 117 S.Ct. 2487, 138 L.Ed.2d 994 (1997); Garrett v. State, 749 S.W.2d 784, 803 (Tex.Crim.App.1988) (opinion on State’s motion for rehearing) (plurality opinion) ("The Texas Constitution vests judicial power over criminal cases in the Court of Criminal Appeals and the courts of appeals ... ' 'Judicial power' is the power of a court to decide and pronounce a judgment and carry it into effect between persons and parties who bring a case before it for a decision ... 'Judicial power does not include the power to issue advisory opinions ... An advisory opinion results when a court attempts to decide an issue that does not arise from an actual controversy capable of final adjudication”) (footnote and citations omitted); Gammage v. Compton, 548 S.W.2d 1, 9 (Tex.1977) (Yarbrough, J., dissenting) (courts "... are restricted to the exercise of 'judicial power,’ which 'is the power of a court to decide and pronounce a judgment and carry it into effect between persons and parties who bring a case before it for a decision’ ” (citation omitted), cert. denied sub nom. Paul v. Gammage, 431 U.S. 955, 97 S.Ct. 2676, 53 L.Ed.2d 271 (1977).

. This unrestrained diatribe is particularly striking, since just prior to it, the majority states that it is now applying Strickland to claims of ineffective assistance of counsel in noncapital sentenc*776ing proceedings, as a matter of "exercis[ing] restraint.” Ante, at 772.

. See Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 854, 112 S.Ct. 2791, 2808, 120 L.Ed.2d 674 (1992) (recognizing that the doctrine of stare decisis is based on the premise "... that no judicial system could do society’s work if it eyed each issue afresh in every case that raised it”) (citing Cardozo, The Nature of the Judicial Process 149 (1921)).