Court Opinion

ID: 9665814
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 00:57:39.905348+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:19.005231
License: Public Domain

ROBERTS, Judge
(dissenting).
I dissent. The majority’s action in overruling the appellant’s second, third, ninth and tenth grounds of error has no support in law and is, in fact, contrary to holdings of numerous decisions of this Court.
The appellant, properly complying with the requirements of Art. 36.15, V.A.C.C.P., submitted to the court a requested charge to the jury which limited their consideration of evidence of certain extraneous offenses to the questions of identity, intent, motive and scheme. The requested charge would also have instructed the jury not to consider the evidence for any purpose unless it was concluded that appellant had, beyond a reasonable doubt, committed the alleged offenses. The requested instruction was denied.
Under many holdings of our Court, that denial was reversible error. The majority now hold that the evidence was not only admissible (a proposition with which I agree), but that no instructions need be given to the jury regarding it. I cannot agree with this contention.
In Ernster v. State, 165 Tex.Cr.R. 422, 308 S.W.2d 33 (1957) the prosecution was for the offense of misrepresenting a written instrument affecting property, a violation of Art. 1000, V.A.P.C. The instrument on which the charge was based was one of thirteen contracts relating to the sale of a subdivision. At trial, all the contracts were introduced for the purpose of showing intent and the court so limited their use in his charge. However, the court declined to instruct the jury not to consider the extraneous offenses unless they found, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the accused had committed them.
This Court, after considering a number of its prior decisions, held that the failure to properly limit the jury’s consideration of the extraneous offenses required reversal.
In Miller v. State, 122 Tex.Cr.R. 59, 53 S.W.2d 790 (1932), the prosecution was brought under Art. 95, V.A.P.C., the statute involved here. Testimony regarding extraneous transactions was offered, and the court authorized the jury to consider it, if at all, only for the purpose of showing intent. However, the court refused, over the appellant’s objection, to istruct the jury not to consider the matters unless the appellant’s guilt regarding them was shown beyond a reasonable doubt. This Court held that the appellant’s exception to the charge was well taken, and reversed *295the case because of it. See also Curry v. State, 169 Tex.Cr.R. 195, 333 S.W.2d 375 (1960).
These cases, and the authorities cited therein, standing alone, would justify our reversal of the judgment in this case. However, here the court not only failed to require the jury not to consider the extraneous matters unless appellant’s guilt regarding them was shown; he also failed to limit the jury’s use of this evidence to the purpose for which it was introduced.
It is axiomatic in our criminal practice that extraneous offenses, although admissible for certain purposes, must be limited in their use to those purposes, lest an accused be tried for being a criminal generally rather than for having committed a specific, charged offense. Thus, whenever there is a danger that evidence may be appropriated by the jury to an improper purpose, the court should limit their consideration of it to the purpose for which it was admitted. See Thompson v. State, 137 Tex.Cr.R. 168, 128 S.W.2d 821 (1939) and Nichols v. State, 138 Tex.Cr.R. 324, 136 S.W.2d 221 (1940).
In the instant case, the State proved well over two hundred extraneous transactions similar to the one for which appellant was indicted. Appellant made a timely and proper request that the court limit the jury’s consideration of these matters to the purpose of showing intent, method, scheme and design. The court refused the request. The court’s refusal to grant the appellant’s requested charge, or an instruction of similar import, left this evidence before the jury without any limitations of any kind. The jury was instructed that the State was not bound by the date alleged in the indictment, or by the amount of money alleged to have been misappropriated. The effect of this instruction (which was proper), coupled with the refusal to give the requested limiting instruction, was to give the jury over two hundred offenses and tell them they could convict on one. The jury was told, in effect, that the appellant need not be guilty of the offense for which he was indicted in order to be convicted. This has never been the law. See McCall v. State, 14 Tex.App. 353 (Tex.Ct.App.1883) and Long v. State, 11 Tex.App. 381 (Tex.Ct.App.).
The charge requested by the appellant has been considered to be a proper one in a number of cases, many of which involved prosecutions under Art. 95, V.A.P.C. See Nees v. State, 402 S.W.2d 186 (Tex.Cr.App.1966); Vernon v. State, 170 Tex.Cr.R. 150, 338 S.W.2d 728 (1960); Sims v. State, 169 Tex.Cr.R. 466, 334 S.W.2d 818 (1960); Miller v. State, supra; McKinney v. State, 104 Tex.Cr.R. 315, 283 S.W. 798 (1926); Brackenridge v. State, 27 Tex.App. 513, 11 S.W. 630, 4 L.R.A. 360 (1889) and Campbell v. State, 163 Tex.Cr.R. 545, 294 S.W.2d 125 (1956) and cases there cited.
The majority opinion’s reliance on the proposition that limiting charges are not required when the extraneous offenses are admitted to prove a main issue in the case is misplaced. That proposition is, essentially, correct and I do not quarrel with it. It has an established history in our law. See Dillard v. State, 477 S.W.2d 547 (Tex.Cr.App.1971); Davidson v. State, 22 Tex.App. 372, 3 S.W. 662 (1886) and Hall v. State, 31 Tex.Cr.R. 565, 21 S.W. 368 (1893).
However, the proposition has often been expanded by imprecise language to embrace matters not originally contemplated as within its scope. Thus, as was observed in the dissenting opinion on appellant’s Motion for Rehearing in Lacy v. State, 424 S.W.2d 929 (Tex.Cr.App.1968) at p. 935:
“It should be borne in mind, however, that a distinction between motive and intent should be obeserved with relation to the question of limiting the evidence. It is not necessary to limit evidence that is a part of the offense and which tends to show the motive actuating the party at the commission of the offense, whereas a collateral crime not growing out of the offense in question and which is introduced for the purpose of illustrat*296ing the intent with which the crime charged was done should be limited in the court’s charge.”
This distinction has historically been recognized, so that the proposition relied upon by the majority was seen as an exception to the rule, rather than the rule itself. In Hall v. State, supra, when the appellant challenged the use of extraneous offenses to show motive, the Court said:
“The authorities cited by appellant sustain the proposition that when independent, contemporaneous crimes, or crimes showing system, are adduced and relied on to connect the accused with the offense on trial, or to develop res gestae, or to show intent, they should be restricted to their proper office by appropriate instructions. This rule grows out of the necessity of protecting the accused against conviction of an offense not charged in the indictment, and to guard him from prejudice that might occur on account of such crimes being admitted as evidence . . .” (Emphasis added)
Both the necessity for the distinction and the distinction itself are discussed in the opinion on Motion for Rehearing in Weaver v. State, 46 Tex.Cr.R. 607, 81 S.W. 39 (1904), wherein the Court said, at p. 44:
“As used in the authorities in this court and other courts, there is a distinction; that is, the courts hold that evidence which is part and parcel of the offense, which tends to show the motive actuating the party at the time of the commission of the offense, is not necessary to be limited, whereas a collateral crime, not growing out of the crime in question, is introduced for the purpose of illustrating the intent with which the act was done, and this court has uniformly held that such testimony should be limited, because the jury might appropriate the testimony for other purposes than that for which it was legally introduced.”
See also the opinion on Motion for Rehearing in Harrelson v. State, 60 Tex.Cr.R. 534, 132 S.W. 783 (1910).
In Dillard v. State, 477 S.W.2d 547 (Tex.Cr.App.1971), the question was again one of admissibility. The jury was instructed to consider the evidence only on the issue of identity. We held, although the position was not urged by the State, that the evidence was also admissible to show malice, and stated that no limiting charge was necessary as to evidence proving a “main issue.” That statement, though too broad, was correct. The early cases establishing that no limiting instructions need be given as to evidence showing motive equated malice with motive, so that it was often said that evidence showing either need not be limited. See Millican v. State, 63 Tex.Cr.R. 440, 140 S.W. 1136 (1911). At the same time, they required that evidence showing intent be limited. See Hall v. State, supra, and Weaver v. State, supra. This is the proper rule.
It is no answer to rely on broad language while ignoring the precise and well-explained rulings of the authorities cited herein unless the majority regard that long line of cases as overruled. If they do so, they are in error, for those cases advance the better rule.
I dissent to the disposition of this case and would reverse and remand for the errors disclosed by appellant’s second, third, ninth and tenth grounds of error.