Court Opinion

ID: 9772060
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 17:06:30.760475+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:41.939561
License: Public Domain

PHILLIPS, Judge,
dissenting.
The majority concludes that “ ‘knowing participation’ in an assemblage under the statute includes the requirement that the defendant know that the conduct of the assemblage is resulting in unlawful activity.” It then holds that charging the jury in the language of the statute, i. e. solely in terms of a “knowing participation,” is sufficient to convey this requirement. I cannot agree.
The very problem with this statute is that it is subject to being read overbroadly. We all agree that the statute’s scope must be limited. Further, most of us agree on the interpretation that saves the statute. Having reached this point, however, the majority falters, and fails to require that the jury be charged in accordance with the restricted interpretation of the statute. Instead, the majority holds that it is sufficient to instruct the jury in the facially overbroad language of the statute.
Members of juries are going to have the same problem interpreting the statute as we have had. They, like us, will be prone to read the statute too broadly. If they do, a defendant may well be convicted for participating in a lawful assembly that later degenerates, without the continued participation of the defendant, into a riotous assembly. It does no good whatsoever to interpret the statute strictly if we are not going to require the trial court to apply the strict interpretation. The defendant may prevail on appeal, but we will have been denied his opportunity to win at the trial level, where the battle is supposed to be fought.
In order to apply the statute in a valid manner, the trial court must not authorize the jury to convict a defendant if it finds only that the defendant “knowingly” participated in the assembly. The court must go further and require the jury to find that *634the defendant participated in the assembly knowing that it is resulting in conduct creating an immediate danger of damage to property or injury to persons. The prudent trial judge will charge the jury in this manner.1
The majority today refuses to require the trial court to do its duty, and sanctions the submission of a jury instruction that does not properly state the law. I dissent to the majority’s action.

. The prudent judge will also grant motions to quash indictments that fail to allege the offense in terms that comport with our restrictive interpretation of the statute. See Haecker v. State, 571 S.W.2d 920 (Tex.Crim.App.1978).