Court Opinion

ID: 9620442
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 05:42:23.236843+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:06.662798
License: Public Domain

EVELYN V. KEYES, Justice,
concurring and dissenting.
I dissent in part. The majority “holds” that “in a case like this, where there is an acquittal on one of the charges and a conviction on another the State cannot reliti-gate the acquittal at the punishment phase hearing by introducing testimony that is relevant only to the charge [of] which the defendant was acquitted.” However, as the majority correctly concludes, the testimony of the State’s additional witnesses was not introduced to relitigate the charge of which appellant was acquitted; it was introduced at the punishment phase of appellant’s trial as evidence of an extraneous bad act to help the jury to determine the proper punishment for the crime of which appellant was convicted. Therefore, the foregoing “holding” is advisory. See Garrett v. State, 749 S.W.2d 784, 803 (Tex.Crim.App.1988) (opinion on denial of rehearing) (stating, “An advisory opinion results when a court attempts to decide an issue that does not arise from an actual controversy capable of final adjudication,” and, instead, “anticipate^] a controversy and assume[s] hypothetical facts”). This Court has no constitutional or statutory power to render an advisory opinion. See Tex. Const. art. V, § 6; Gonzales v. State, 864 S.W.2d 522, 523 (Tex.Crim.App.1993); Garrett, 749 S.W.2d at 803-04; Morrow v. Corbin, 122 Tex. 553, 62 S.W.2d 641, 647 (1933). I dissent from the majority’s characterization of its agreement with prior *806case law regarding a matter not properly before it for final adjudication as a “holding.”
I concur in the majority’s holding that the evidence of appellant’s extraneous bad act was properly admitted.