Court Opinion

ID: 9762546
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:26:16.079956+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:35.298846
License: Public Domain

BENAVIDES, Justice,
concurring.
I concur with the result reached by the majority. I cannot agree, however, with the majority’s opinion regarding appellant’s contention, by point of error three, that the State improperly introduced extraneous matters in its jury argument during the punishment phase of trial. Appellant argues that the State’s comments inflamed the jury such that the jury was prejudiced when sentencing her. The majority did not address appellant’s complaint regarding the introduction of extraneous matters, but instead, simply dismissed the statements made by the prosecution as proper arguments for assessing a lengthy prison sentence and cited in support of its holding Williams v. State, 575 S.W.2d 30, 33-34 (Tex.Crim.App.1979).
The majority’s reliance on Williams is misplaced. Rose and Robert Williams entered a store and assaulted a customer and an employee during the course of a robbery. The prosecutor argued to the jurors in Williams that the sentence that they handed down was to be a deterrent to crime and that a million people in the county were relying on the jurors to protect them “from the Rose and Robert Williams prowling the street....” Williams, 575 S.W.2d at 33-34. The prosecution did not argue facts outside of the record.
In this case, however, appellant specifically complains of two statements which the prosecutor made during jury argument which inferred that she sold drugs to children. Taken in context, the remarks are as follows:
[Y]ou don’t know what a good Sheriff you’ve got — he had this man out there and that man got that little packet of cocaine. And that’s just one packet that one of your children didn’t get in this county.
I’ve been visiting with you folks now for a little over thirty years and I’m real proud of Goliad County as well as the other counties in my district and it just incenses me to see these people selling dope in any of the counties I’ve got because it just tears my heart out every-time I see some youngster that’s gotten dope because somebody like this defendant gave it or sold it to them.
There was no evidence adduced during the guilt-innocence phase of trial or during the punishment phase that appellant sold drugs to children; appellant sold cocaine to an adult. Appellant was found guilty of one drug sale which took place in the bar at the Antler’s Inn. There was no evidence that children frequented this bar or loitered outside the bar or near the bar. There was no evidence which would give rise to an inference that children purchased drugs in this bar or purchased drugs from appellant when she was working in this bar.
It does not follow that because appellant sold cocaine once to an adult in a bar and children live in the same town and county as the appellant, that appellant would have sold the packet of cocaine to one of those children or that appellant ever sold drugs to a child. These inferences, however, are those suggested to the jury by the prosecutor’s statements, inviting the jury to speculate that appellant would have or did sell drugs to the children of Goliad County. Counsel in argument may draw from the facts in the evidence all inferences that are reasonable, fair, and legitimate. Allridge v. State, 762 S.W.2d 146, 156 (Tex.Crim.App.1988). It is impermissible for the prosecutor to call upon the jury to speculate as to other activities of the accused, not shown by the evidence, and to consider them in reaching a decision. Walker v. State, 664 S.W.2d 338, 340 (Tex.Crim.App.1984). I do not regard the prosecutor’s comments as reasonable deductions in light of all the evidence presented and consider them to be outside the record and imper*516missible. See Allridge, 762 S.W.2d at 156; Walker, 664 S.W.2d at 340-41.
Nonetheless, I would find that the complaint on appeal has been waived because appellant failed to object to the improper argument or request an instruction to disregard. See Briddle v. State, 742 S.W.2d 379, 390 (Tex.Crim.App.1987) cert. denied, — U.S. -, 109 S.Ct. 543, 102 L.Ed.2d 573 (1989).
Although I recognize current public anti-drug sentiment and in particular the justifiable concern to protect children from the temptation of drug use, I do not believe that the prosecutor’s suggestion that the appellant sold drugs to children created such a prejudice that it could not be removed by an instruction to disregard. Likewise, I believe the prosecutor’s invitation to go outside the record is not so strong that it could not have been removed by a trial court’s instruction to remain within the record. Any tendency to ignite the fire of prejudice in the minds of the jurors by the improper argument here would have been dampened by a direct instruction from the trial court to disregard the argument. In the light of appellant’s failure to object at trial to the State’s improper arguments, I must concur in the result reached by the majority.