Court Opinion

ID: 9767867
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 05:31:17.58495+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:34.052400
License: Public Domain

OPINION
ON STATE’S MOTION FOR REHEARING
JACKSON, Commissioner.
The State, with leave of this Court, has filed a motion for rehearing, in which the *496contention is advanced and argued that the error of the trial court in not deleting from the confession the statement of appellant, “I always carry a pistol with me because I shot and killed a man in Lubbock not too long ago and I am afraid of his people,” was rendered harmless because the appellant testified to the same facts on the trial.
In response to questions by his counsel, appellant said the statement in the confession was correct. On cross-examination he reiterated that the reason he carried the pistol was as stated in the confession, that he was afraid some of those people (meaning from Lubbock) would be there. He further testified in answer to questions by his attorney that, referring to the previous trouble, a man hit him with a shovel, from which he had a scar, headaches, and was supposed to have a crushed head; that the reason he came to Midland (where the offense on trial was alleged to have occurred) was because he “was afraid over there.”
We adhere to the holding in the original opinion that the statement in the confession as to the appellant having killed a man in Lubbock was proof of an extraneous matter, and should have been deleted. The question remains, however, as to whether such error was waived and rendered harmless by the testimony of appellant on the same subject.
In McDuff v. State, 103 Tex.Cr.R. 668, 281 S.W. 1073, a rape case where the State had erroneously proved that defendant had a wife and two children, and he afterwards testified to the same facts, the Court said:
“The difficulty about the state’s position is that this testimony by appellant was offered after he had objected to the state going into this matter and after he had had his objections overruled and after prosecutrix had already been permitted to testify that he had a wife and two children. This would rather come under the rule that, when improper testimony is admitted by the state, it is usually not cured because appellant offers other testimony along the same line for the purpose of counteracting the testimony improperly elicited by the state.”
In Autry v. State, 159 Tex.Cr.R. 419, 264 S.W.2d 735, this Court said:
“It is the general rule that the admission of improper evidence is not reversible error if the same facts were proven by other testimony to which no objection was made.
“We must determine if that rule has application here. In this case, the State had improperly introduced, over appellant’s objection, proof of prior convictions for misdemeanors not involving moral turpitude. This is error. Pippen v. State, 126 Tex.Cr.R. 163, 70 S.W.2d 598. Now, must we require the accused to sit mutely before the jury and say that he waives that error when he tries to explain to the jury the circumstances under which he was tried and convicted for those offenses ? We think not.”
To the same effect, see Garza v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 397 S.W.2d 847; Buse v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 435 S.W.2d 530.
We, therefore, hold that this error of the court was not cured or rendered harmless by the subsequent testimony of appellant.
The State’s motion for rehearing is overruled.
Opinion approved by the Court.