Court Opinion

ID: 9684165
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 13:48:50.073614+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:53.566506
License: Public Domain

PHILLIPS, Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur in the disposition of appellant’s ground of error pertaining to the submission of a charge on circumstantial evidence at the punishment phase of the trial for the following reasons.
“We have three classes of evidence: (1) Direct or testimonial evidence; (2) indirect or circumstantial evidence; (3) autoptie preference, or real evidence.” Philadelphia and R.R. Co. v. Berg, 274 F. 534, 537 (3rd Cir. 1921), citing Greenleaf on Evidence (16th Ed.), Vol. 1, Sec. 13a; Wigmore on Evidence, Sec. 1150, et seq.
There being no expert testimony in the cause sub judice as to “future probability”, the evidence on said issue is obviously entirely circumstantial.
The right to a charge on circumstantial evidence is not one of constitutional or legislative origin, but derives from the decisions of this Court. This Court has held such charge to be required only when the main fact of the offense, the factum pro-bandum, is shown only by circumstantial evidence. Bloch v. State, 81 Tex.Cr.R. 1, 193 S.W. 303; Hall v. State, 161 Tex.Cr.R. 460, 278 S.W.2d 297; Eiland v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 509 S.W.2d 596. Such a charge has never been required solely because a fact issue as to a defendant’s state of mind, e. g., intent or malice, is shown only through circumstantial evidence. Davis v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 516 S.W.2d 157; Sloan v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 515 S.W.2d 913; Schwartz v. State, 172 Tex.Cr.R. 326, 357 S.W.2d 393; Wesley v. State, 149 Tex.Cr.R. 650, 198 S.W.2d 103.
Such decisions, however, cannot be considered to apply to the present question for the reason that probability that an accused will conduct himself in a certain manner in the future is not necessarily determinable by the accused’s past or present existing state of mind as is intent or malice at the time of the commission of a crime. What I consider to be controlling on the question are the following illuminating facts: (1) A charge on circumstantial evidence is by its very terms a general charge on the one ultimate, all encompassing issue of innocence or guilt of the offense alleged, McClung’s Jury Charges for Texas Criminal Practice, page 173; (2) To single out one fact and charge upon it the law of circumstantial evidence is erroneous in that one fact is singled out as the main fact sought to be proved, Montgomery v. State, 157 Tex.Cr.R. 44, 246 S.W.2d 209; Cox v. State, 161 Tex.Cr.R. 421, 278 S.W.2d 155; and (3) Art. 37.071(c), V.A.C.C.P., specifically provides with regard to said fact issues therein that “the state must prove each issue submitted beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Since a charge on circumstantial evidence has never been required except as a general charge on the one ultimate issue of innocence or guilt and since Art. 37.071, supra, *270specifically provides the manner of submitting said issue to the jury with regard to the burden of proof required, I agree that a charge on circumstantial evidence was not required as to the issue submitted under Art. 37.071(b)(2), supra.
I dissent to the majority’s disposition of appellant’s jury selection complaint and concur with that part of Judge Roberts’ dissenting opinion which states that the mandates of Witherspoon v. Illinois, supra, were violated when the trial court sustained the State’s challenge for cause to veniremen Barton and Conner.