Court Opinion

ID: 9776657
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 19:41:41.135848+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:09:16.959833
License: Public Domain

TIJERINA, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent.
In two grounds of error, numbers ten and eleven, appellant alleges the trial court erred in entering judgment on an ambiguous verdict without either retiring the jury for further deliberations to correct the ambiguity or obtaining the jury’s consent to correct the ambiguity.
The indictment charged appellant with one offense of sexual abuse of a child in two counts. Each count alleged a different way in which the offense was committed. The jury was basically instructed that if they found appellant guilty of one count they should not consider the other count. The jury returned two verdicts finding appellant guilty of each of the two counts. Appellant objected that the jury had disregarded the court’s instruction in finding him guilty of both counts and objected to the court instructing the jury to assess punishment only on the first count. The appellant moved for a mistrial which was denied by the court.
At punishment, the printed jury verdict forms indicated that the jury had found appellant guilty as charged in the first count and then left blank the area for assessment of punishment.
The verdict form on punishment returned by the jury shows that hand-written notation that appellant was to be confined for “... 20 years and in addition thereto assess a fine in the amount of $10,00.00.”
The court entered a judgment that appellant had been found guilty of sexual abuse of a child as alleged in count I of the indictment and sentenced appellant to twenty years’ confinement and a ten thousand dollar fine, (emphasis added).
From the verdict form in the record, it is unclear whether the jury was imposing a one thousand dollar fine or a ten thousand dollar fine. Under the circumstances, the trial court should have retired the jury for further deliberations under appropriate instructions to resolve the ambiguity. See Batten v. State, 549 S.W.2d 718 (Tex.Cr.App.1977). Another alternative would have been for the trial court to correct the verdict with the jury’s consent and prior to the jury being discharged. See Ex parte McIver, 586 S.W.2d 851 (Tex.Cr.App.1979).
Since the punishment assessed by the jury as to the fine is neither definite nor certain, it is void and this cause must be reversed and remanded. See Batten v. State, supra. I would sustain grounds of error, numbers ten and eleven.
*291There is an additional reason why this case must be reversed. Appellant alleges in ground of error three that the trial court erred by failing to find that the pre-trial photographic lineup spread was impermissi-bly suggestive. Appellant timely filed a motion to suppress the identification.
At a hearing on his motion, appellant produced testimony from Officer Beattie that both children, Kristen Eppner and the complainant Laura Hiller, were shown a photographic spread for identification purposes. Officer Beattie identified Defendant’s Exhibits A and B as the photographic lineup shown to each child. Beattie admitted that appellant was the only Anglo male in the spread and that all other photos were of Mexican-American males. Following Beattie’s testimony, the court denied appellant’s motion to suppress the identification.
The claim that the identification of appellant was so unnecessarily suggestive and conducive of irreparable mistaken identification that it denied due process of law is a recognized ground of attack on a conviction independent of any right to counsel claim. Stovall v. Denno, 388 U.S. 293, 301-02, 87 S.Ct. 1967, 1972, 18 L.Ed.2d 1199 (1967). The United States Supreme Court in Simmons v. United States, 390 U.S. 377, 384, 88 S.Ct. 967, 971, 19 L.Ed.2d 1247 (1968), held that each case must be considered on its own facts, and that convictions based on eyewitness identification at trial following a pre-trial identification by photograph will be set aside on that ground only if the photographic identification procedure was so impermissibly suggestive as to give rise to a very substantial likelihood of irreparable misidentification.
An examination of Defendant’s Exhibits A and B indicates that the photographic spread was impermissibly suggestive. Not only was appellant’s photograph the only Anglo male in the lineup, his photograph was the only one showing a person with fair complexion, the others all having darker complexions. Appellant’s photograph was the first photograph among the ten photographs in the spread. This is an extreme and aggravated impermissibly suggestive identification which clearly denied appellant’s rights to due process of law under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution.
Contrary to the majority opinion I believe the evidence is insufficient to determine if the identification of appellant in court by the children was tainted as a result of the impermissibly suggestive photo lineup so as to give rise to a substantial likelihood of misidentification. See United States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218, 78 S.Ct. 1926, 18 L.Ed.2d 1149 (1967); Cf. Turner v. State, 614 S.W.2d 144 (Tex.Cr.App.1981) (witness’ in-court identification was independent of earlier pre-trial suggestive photo lineup). I, therefore, would sustain ground of error three.
Due to my disposition of appellant’s third, tenth and eleventh grounds of error, I need not address the remaining grounds of error.
For the reasons previously discussed, I would reverse and remand the cause to the trial court.