Court Opinion

ID: 9675683
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 05:02:13.858159+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:37.184490
License: Public Domain

PHILLIPS, Judge,
dissenting.
The majority holds that the trial court did not err in allowing the prosecutor to read to the jury the critical portion of co-defendant David Mabra’s first confession, in which Mabra implicated appellant as the “triggerman” to the offense. The majority further concludes that even if error were committed, the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. As I cannot accept either conclusion, I am compelled to dissent.
Appellant testified in his own defense. He admitted being a party to the offense. However, he denied carrying the shotgun into the store or killing the deceased. He testified that Mabra killed the deceased. Appellant introduced his written confession in support of his testimony. The confession related the same facts as testified to by appellant:
. .. We went in the Toot N Totum and David was carrying the shotgun. He had it beside his leg. The lady was watching me and he stood in front of the cash register. I went and got some hamburger buns and some lunch meat and came back to the counter. David said “You want to give us some money”. She said “What”. He said “Do you want to give us some money”. She said “Why no, o[f] course not”. He put the shotgun on top of the cash register and she said “Anything you want”. She opened the cash register and got all the money out of the cash register and put it in a little sack and said “Do you want the change” and I said “No, we don’t want the change, what is under the drawer”. She raised up the drawer and said “There is only this dime, there is no money here”. I said “Well *934give us the dime”. I put the dime in the bag and I took the bag and the lunch meat and the hamburger buns and stepped back from the counter and dropped them. I picked them back up and David put the shotgun back on top of the cash register. When he did, he popped it down against the cash register and it went off. It blew her hair up and scared her and it hurt her because she just moaned so he shot her again. He just stood there with his mouth open and the shotgun on the cash register. I grabbed him by the coat and dragged him out of the store. We got outside and got in the pickup and went back to my apartment .. .
On cross-examination and over defense counsel’s objection, the prosecutor elicited from appellant that he gave the confession only after police showed him a confession given by Mabra earlier that day that exculpated Mabra and placed responsibility for the offense entirely on appellant. The prosecutor then produced Mabra’s confession and began to cross-examine appellant with it. Defense counsel strenuously objected that the confession was inadmissible hearsay and the prosecutor’s reading it violated appellant’s Sixth Amendment right to confront and cross-examine witnesses. The court overruled appellant’s objections, and the prosecutor read the following from Ma-bra’s confession:
. .. Donny parked his pickup in front of the store and I got out to get my snuff. Donny said as I got out of the truck, “I think I’ll rob this place.” I thought he was joking as we are all the time making comments like this to each other. I went in and picked up a can of Copenhagen snuff and started to put it on the counter. At this time, I heard Donny open the door and looked around and I saw that Donny had the shotgun behind him. Donny said to the lady clerk, “Give me your money.” She said, “You’ve got to be kidding. Is this some kind of joke?” Donny then pulled the shotgun out and placed it on top of the cash register. She gave him the money in a paper sack and then Donny shot one time. He was holding it with one hand and missed the first shot. I saw the lady’s hair kinda fluff out and I saw the shot hit the wall. I turned and was trying to get out of the store and yelled “Crawford”. As I was running out, I heard the second shot. I did not pay for the snuff and I was so scared that I crushed the can of snuff in my hands. I got back in the pickup and Donny was right behind me...
On redirect examination defense counsel attempted to read from another confession given by Mabra the day after he gave the one set forth above. That confession read in pertinent part:
One other fellow and I drove up to the Toot ’n Totum store in the early morning hours, well after midnight, and we went in with the intention of robbing the store. I carried in a .410 shotgun, and I held it on the lady who was the clerk, who I now know to be named Whitfield, while we robbed her, and I also was threatening her with the shotgun after we robbed her when my companion grabbed the gun and it went off twice, shooting the clerk in the head and killing her.
My companion and I ran from the store
The previous statement which I gave to Officers Kirkwood and Collins last night left out the truth about my participation in our attempt to rob the Toot ’n Totum and the way I handled the gun and threatened the clerk before she Was shot, but this statement truthfully described my real part in the crime, (emphasis added)
The state objected to defense counsel’s attempt to read this confession. The court sustained the objection, and prohibited appellant from reading the confession to the jury or alluding to it in any way.
At the hearing on appellant’s motion for new trial it was stipulated that at the time of trial the prosecutor was aware of Ma-bra’s second confession. It was further stipulated that the prosecutor knew that the results of a lie detector test administered to Mabra indicated that the second confession was the truth.
*935The majority concludes that because appellant introduced his confession in evidence, the state “was entitled to prove the whole of what was said immediately prior to appellant’s confession,” pursuant to Art. 38.24, Y.A.C.C.P. I am willing to accept that the scope of Art. 38.24 extends to the situation presented here — the statute provides in part that:
. .. When a detailed act, declaration, conversation or writing is given in evidence, any other act, declaration or writing which is necessary to make it fully understood or to explain the same may also be given in evidence.
However, the trial court egregiously erred in admitting Mabra’s first confession without also admitting Mabra’s second confession as requested by appellant. As this Court previously has pointed out, the purpose of Art. 38.24 is to reduce the possibility that the fact finder will receive a false impression by hearing only a part of the evidence concerning a conversation, writing, act, or declaration. Vanderbilt v. State, 563 S.W.2d 590 (Tex.Cr.App.1978); Roman v. State, 503 S.W.2d 252 (Tex.Cr.App.1974); see Rodriguez v. State, 597 S.W.2d 917 (Tex.Cr.App.1980) (Phillips, J., dissenting). The admission of Mabra’s first confession led the j'ury to believe that, according to Mabra, appellant wielded the murder weapon and in fact was entirely responsible for the offense. The j'ury also was informed that appellant confessed only after seeing Mabra’s first confession. The inevitable impression left on the j'ury by this evidence was that Mabra claimed to be innocent, and that appellant confessed as he did simply in order to place part of the blame for the commission of the murder on Mabra.
This impression was entirely misleading and false. In actuality, Mabra repudiated his first confession, admitting that he carried the shotgun into the store and threatened the deceased with the weapon. This version of the events corroborated several parts of appellant’s confession. It undoubtedly would have lent support to appellant’s claim that Mabra was the trigger-man. Mabra expressly stated that his second confession was the correct version, and the lie detector test confirmed this. Given that the court admitted Mabra’s first confession, it was absolutely critical to go forward and admit Mabra’s second confession in order to prevent the j'ury from receiving a totally false impression of the evidence, and to enable the jury to assess Mabra’s credibility as a witness. The admission of the first confession without the second constituted error.
Moreover, the majority fails to recognize that the application of Art. 38.24 in this case violates appellant’s Sixth Amendment right to confront and cross-examine witnesses. Pointer v. Texas, 380 U.S. 400, 85 S.Ct. 1065, 13 L.Ed.2d 923 (1965). This right [“has] long been recognized as essential to due process.” Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U.S. 284, 295, 93 S.Ct. 1038, 1045, 35 L.Ed.2d 297 (1973). See In re Oliver, 333 U.S. 257, 273, 68 S.Ct. 499, 92 L.Ed. 682 (1948); Coulter v. State, 494 S.W.2d 876 (Tex.Cr.App.1973).
Douglas v. Alabama, 380 U.S. 415, 85 S.Ct. 1074, 13 L.Ed.2d 934 (1965), a companion case to Pointer, supra, establishes that action such as was taken by the prosecutor in this case denies a defendant his right of confrontation and cross-examination. At the defendant’s trial in that case the state called the codefendant to the stand to testify against the defendant. The codefend-ant, a man named Lloyd, invoked his privilege against self-incrimination and refused to answer any questions. Under the guise of refreshing Lloyd’s memory the prosecutor asked Lloyd to confirm or deny statements read by the prosecutor from Lloyd’s confession. Lloyd refused to answer the questions, but the prosecutor continued until he had read the entire confession. The confession inculpated the defendant. The Supreme Court held that reading the confession to the jury was the equivalent of admitting the confession in evidence, and concluded that the defendant’s inability to cross-examine Lloyd concerning the confession “plainly denied [him] the right of cross-examination secured by the Confrontation Clause.” Id. at 380 U.S. 419, 85 S.Ct. 1077.
*936In Bruton v. U. S., 391 U.S. 123, 88 S.Ct. 1620, 20 L.Ed.2d 476 (1968), the Supreme Court again held that the admission of a co-defendant’s confession denied the defendant his right of cross-examination. The Supreme Court viewed the admission of the confession as so prejudicial that it held the error was not cured by the trial court’s instruction to the jury to disregard the confession in determining the defendant’s guilt or innocence.
Still later, in Chambers v. Mississippi, supra, the Court held that the application of the Mississippi voucher rule to prevent the defendant from cross-examining a state’s witness operated to deny the defendant his rights under the Confrontation Clause. The Court stated:
. . . The right of cross-examination is more than a desirable rule of trial procedure. It is implicit in the constitutional right of confrontation, and helps assure the “accuracy of the truth-determining process.” Dutton v. Evans, 400 U.S. 74, 89, 91 S.Ct. 210, 220, 27 L.Ed.2d 213 (1970); Bruton v. United States, [supra]. It is, indeed, “an essential and fundamental requirement for the kind of fair trial which is this country’s constitutional goal.” Pointer v. Texas, [supra]. Of course, the right to confront and to cross-examine is not absolute and may, in appropriate cases, bow to accommodate other legitimate interests in the criminal trial process. E. g., Mancusi v. Stubbs, 408 U.S. 204, 92 S.Ct. 2308, 33 L.Ed.2d 293 (1972). But its denial or significant diminution calls into question the ultimate “ ‘integrity of the fact-finding process’ ” and requires that the competing interest be closely examined. Berger v. California, 393 U.S. 314, 315, 89 S.Ct. 540, 541, 21 L.Ed.2d 508 (1969).
Id. at 410 U.S. 295, 93 S.Ct. 1046.
In the present case the competing state interest in applying Art. 34.24, supra, is to insure that the jury does not receive a false impression by hearing only a part of the evidence concerning an event. As we have seen, that interest was not well served, and in fact was done a positive disservice, by the admission of Mabra’s first confession. Thus the state interest in this case, if existent at all, is minimal. Moreover, even if the state interest in presenting the whole picture were well served by the admission of Mabra’s first confession, appellant’s inability to cross-examine Mabra in order to measure the accuracy of the confession, combined with the extremely prejudicial nature of the matters asserted in the confession, would outweigh the state’s interest. Compare Bruton v. U. S., supra.
Douglas, Bruton, and Chambers teach us that when a state evidentiary or procedural law operates to deny a defendant his basic right to confront and cross-examine witnesses, the state law must give way in the absence of a convincing state interest in favor of the application of the law. The admission of Mabra’s first confession in this case denied appellant his right to confront and cross-examine witnesses, and no competing state interest under Art. 38.24 was served. The admission of the confession was error of a constitutional dimension.
Contrary to the position of the majority, the error was not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. The majority’s discussion of the matter indicates that it relies on the strength of the State’s case regarding appellant’s guilt or innocence in determining that any error was harmless. Appellant’s guilt or innocence, however, was never in question; appellant pleaded guilty to the jury. The sole task of the jury in this case was to make two determinations:
(1) whether the conduct of appellant that caused the victim’s death was committed deliberately and with the reasonable expectation that the death of the victim or another would result; and
(2) whether it was probable that appellant would commit criminal acts of violence that would constitute a continuing threat to society.
Evidence was adduced at appellant’s trial solely to aid the jury in making these two determinations.
The question for our consideration is whether the jury would have found the state’s case on punishment significantly less persuasive had Mabra’s first confession been excluded from evidence. Cf. Schneble *937v. Florida, 405 U.S. 427, 92 S.Ct. 1056, 31 L.Ed.2d 340 (1972). If there is a reasonable possibility that the confession contributed to either of the jury’s two affirmative answers to the special issues set forth above, the error is not harmless. Cf. Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967); Schneble v. Florida, supra.
The state’s case largely consisted of the testimony of four persons to whom appellant bragged that he shot the deceased. The state presented no eyewitness testimony concerning the offense. Appellant took the stand and testified that although he participated in the offense, he was not the triggerman. Appellant contradicted the testimony of the state’s witnesses by denying that he told them he shot the deceased. In order to bolster its case that appellant did the shooting, the state introduced Ma-bra’s first confession placing on appellant the entire responsibility for the robbery and murder, and exculpating Mabra.
Mabra’s first confession was the only evidence introduced by the state concerning the actual commission of the offense. It was important to the state’s case on special issue number one, as it provided the jury with information on the deliberateness of appellant’s conduct, and on the expectation that death would result from his conduct. Appellant’s admissions to the four state’s witnesses shed no light on the circumstances of the offense, and thus were not significantly probative of the deliberateness of appellant’s conduct. Appellant’s testimony and confession cast doubt on the deliberateness of his conduct that resulted in the victim’s death.
Moreover, in affirming the testimony of the state’s witnesses that appellant was the triggerman, the confession almost certainly had an impact on the jurors’ minds with respect to special issue number two. Juries undoubtedly (and reasonably) view trigger-men as constituting a greater threat to society than nontriggermen. Appellant’s testimony and confession raised an issue as to who was the triggerman. Mabra’s confession tended to resolve that issue against appellant, and in so doing undoubtedly influenced the jury’s determination of special issue number two.
It must be stressed that a jury’s inquiries on the punishment issues are qualitatively different from its inquiry on guilt or innocence. The issues to be resolved at the punishment phase are much less precise. Key terms in the punishment issues such as “deliberateness” and “probability” have never been defined, and undoubtedly they are subject to varying interpretations. Predicting future dangerousness is at best imprecise, and often mere speculation. The range of evidence admissible at the punishment stage is largely determined by the trial court in its discretion. See Art. 37.-071(a), V.A.C.C.P. Thus the jury has a wide range of factors to consider in resolving the punishment issues. Given the imprecise nature of the inquiries on punishment, and the corresponding potential for disagreement among jurors on the determination of the special issues, it is unreasonable to conclude that the error in admitting Mabra’s confession was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.
In conclusion, the state’s case on punishment was not overwhelming. There was ample room, absent Mabra’s confession, for the jury to have answered at least one of the two special issues in the negative, thereby limiting appellant’s punishment to life imprisonment. The majority errs in concluding that the error was harmless.
This case should be reversed and remanded for a new trial. I dissent.
ROBERTS, J., joins in dissent.