Court Opinion

ID: 9675443
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:54:12.412995+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:12:46.773184
License: Public Domain

ROBERTS, Judge,
concurring.
Although I agree with the result the majority opinion reaches, I feel compelled to comment upon one aspect of the majority opinion.
The majority overrules the appellant’s contention that jury misconduct occurred at the punishment stage of the trial. In so doing, the majority concludes that the appellant “ . . . may not now impeach that verdict by showing the reasons for the conclusion reached.”
Essentially, the majority does not allow the appellant to examine the mental processes of the jurors. The majority, however, fails to recognize that their current position is inconsistent with the majority opinion in Ex Parte Green, 548 S.W.2d 914 (Tex.Cr.App.1977). In Green the defendant asserted a prior conviction for murder without malice as a bar to a subsequent prosecution for a related charge of murder with malice. The defendant contended that the jury’s verdict at his first trial, where the jury found him guilty as a principal of murder without malice, was an implied acquittal of the charge of murder with malice at the second trial since the murder occurred simultaneously with the murder which formed the basis of the prior conviction.
*779In Green the majority held that the defendant’s claim was unfounded, and concluded that the jury at the defendant’s first trial did not base its verdict upon a factual determination of the defendant’s malice. The majority supported its conclusion with the testimony of a juror from the first trial who testified that “ . . . the jury’s verdict was not based on a true finding of no malice, but was based upon Petitioner’s youth, his cooperation with the police, and his lack of participation in the actual killing . Ex Parte Green, supra at 918.
Thus, this Court sanctioned an inquiry into the jury’s mental processes in order to support a subsequent conviction. In the present case, the majority refuses to allow the appellant to inquire into juror Miller’s mental process in a similar effort to sustain a conviction. In Montemayor v. State, 543 S.W.2d 93, 99 (Tex.Cr.App.1976) (Dissenting Opinion of Judge Douglas on State’s Motion for Rehearing), it was stated that “[a] good rule of evidence works both ways.” Regardless of whether the rule is evidentiary or otherwise, this Court should not sanction rules of law which are used to defeat a defendant’s contentions in one instance and ignored when they might benefit a defendant in another. Rather, this Court should attempt to be consistent with its previous decisions and not ignore previous inconsistent decisions.
Moreover, adherence to the rule in Green —that an explanation of a jury’s mental process to explain a verdict is permissible— would not, in my opinion, affect the outcome of the present case.
This conclusion necessarily follows since Miller decided to vote for a twenty-year sentence only after the trial judge’s note was given to the jury. Moreover, there is no allegation that any other juror decided to change his vote. Cf. Martinez v. State, 533 S.W.2d 20 (Tex.Cr.App.1976). The appellant cannot complain of action to which he acquiesced, particularly when these are not sufficient allegations of jury misconduct.
For the above reasons, I concur only in the result reached by the majority.