Court Opinion

ID: 9641599
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:35:49.204312+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:38.538142
License: Public Domain

TEAGUE, Judge,
concurring.
I am compelled to write because of the way the majority opinion disposes of the appellant’s seventh ground of error. The majority opinion states the following: “In his seventh ground of error appellant contends the trial court erred in refusing to give a charge on circumstantial evidence. The jury was, however, properly instructed on the presumption on innocence, that the burden of proof was on the State, and on the requirement that appellant be acquitted if there was a reasonable doubt of his guilt. *50In such a case a charge on circumstantial evidence is no longer required. Hankins v. State, 646 S.W.2d 191, 199 (Tex.Cr.App.1983) (Opinion on State’s motion for rehearing. Ground of error number seven is overruled.” (My emphasis.)
The way I interpret what the majority opinion states is that whether an instruction on circumstantial evidence must be given hinges or is conditioned on whether the jury was instructed on presumption of innocence, on the burden of proof, and instructed that if there was a reasonable doubt the jury should acquit the defendant. If they were, the defendant does not get such an instruction. If they were not, the defendant does get such an instruction.
The majority opinion thus implies that in some cases, as a matter of law, a defendant will be entitled to receive an instruction on circumstantial evidence. It cites Hankins v. State, supra, as its authority for this proposition. Hankins, supra, however, did not so expressly limit itself.
In fact, but as I and others, including Judge Clinton, the author of the majority opinion in this cause, correctly pointed out in the concurring and dissenting opinions that were filed in Hankins, supra, the then aggressive and assertive majority of this Court held that no longer, as a matter of law, would an accused person ever be entitled to an instruction on circumstantial evidence. I stated the following in the dissenting opinion that I filed in Hankins, supra: “In any event, the mighty circumstantial evidence charge in our law is now consigned by the majority opinion to its death and burial in the refuse heap of Texas law, preceded in death only recently by the doctrine of carving. See Ex parte McWilliams, 634 S.W.2d 815 (Tex.Cr.App.1982).” (221).
In summary, until Hankins v. State, supra, is expressly overruled by this Court, or the Legislature of this State so provides, an accused person in Texas will not ever be entitled, as a matter of law, to receive an instruction on circumstantial evidence.