Court Opinion

ID: 9772392
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 17:16:43.937516+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:44.023197
License: Public Domain

HOWELL, Justice,
concurring.
I concur that the case must be reversed and remanded. I concur that the presumption created by TEX.PEN.CODE, § 81.-03(c)(3) meets the constitutional requirements of County Court of Ulster County v. Allen, 442 U.S. 140, 99 S.Ct. 2213, 60 L.Ed.2d 777 (1979). However, the charge in this case failed to caution the jury that they could not rely upon of the presumption alone and that they must aquit in the absence of substantial other evidence of knowledge on the part of the defendant that the property received by him had been stolen. Without corrobative evidence, the jury could have disbelieved all other evidence and could have convicted upon the presumption alone. A close reading of Ulster clearly reflects that a so called “permissive” presumption may not be employed in this manner. I believe that this proposition was sufficiently raised by appellant’s brief and that it should be addressed in view of a possible re-trial.
Concerning a criminal presumption, Ulster has cautioned us as follows:
The value of these evidentiary devices, and their validity under the due process clause vary from case to case, however, depending of the strength of the connection between the particular basic and elemental facts involved and on the degree to which the device curtails the fact finder’s freedom to assess the evidence independently. Nonetheless, in criminal cases, the ultimate test of any device’s constitutional validity in a given case remains constant: the device must not undermine the factfinder’s responsibility at trial, based on evidence adduced by the State, to find the ultimate facts beyond a reasonable doubt.
Ulster at 156, 99 S.Ct. at 2224 (emphasis added).
The Supreme Court required that in analyzing a “purely permissive” presumption, “that there be ample evidence in the record other than the presumption to support a conviction,” and further stated that:
The trial judge’s instructions in the case below make it clear that the presumption was merely a part of the prosecution’s case, that it gave rise to a permissive inference available only in certain circumstances, rather than a mandatory conclusion of possession, and that it could be ignored by the jury even if there was no affirmative proof offered by defendant in rebuttal.... In short, the instructions plainly directed the jury to consider all the circumstances tending to support or contradict the inference that all four occupants of the car had possession of the two loaded hand guns and to decide the matter for itself with*92out regard to how much evidence the defendants introduced.
Ulster at 160-162, 99 S.Ct. at 2226-2227 (emphasis added). The court proceeded to analyze the evidence and to draw distinctions between so called “mandatory” and “permissive” presumptions. The court concluded:
Respondents’ argument again overlooks the distinction between a permissive represumption on which the prosecution is entitled to rely as one not necessarily sufficient part of its proof and a mandatory presumption which the jury must accept....
[I]n the former situation, the prosecution may rely on all of the evidence in the record to meet the reasonable doubt standard. There is no more reason to require a permissive statutory presumption to meet a reasonable doubt standard before it may be permitted to play any part in a trial than there is to require that degree of probative force for other relative evidence before it may be admitted. As long as it is clear that the presumption is not the sole and sufficient basis for a finding of guilt, it need only satisfy the test described in Leary [v. United States, 395 U.S. 6, 89 S.Ct. 1532, 23 L.Ed.2d 57 (1969)].
Ulster at 166-167, 99 S.Ct. at 2229-2230.
Ulster does not directly address itself to the sufficiency of the charge, but it does thoroughly discuss a charge which the Supreme Court considered to be sufficient. Logic alone dictates the proposition that if appellant Willis is to be precluded from a facial attack upon the presumption in this case, he may not be convicted upon the basis of the presumption alone. The same logic dictates that the jury must be so instructed. At a new trial of this case, the jury must be charged that it may not base a finding of knowledge that the property was stolen solely upon the statutory presumption and that it must acquit unless it finds on the basis of independent corroba-tive evidence that the presumption, as applied to the facts of this case makes it more reasonable than not to believe that the defendant, at the time he appropriated the property, knew it to be stolen.
Nothing less than a charge to this effect will preclude the possibility that a jury will base a finding of guilty knowledge upon the presumption standing alone. Ulster prohibits the fact finder from doing so.
The conclusion is reinforced by examining the Ulster dissent, Ulster at 168, 99 S.Ct. at 2230, and the majority’s response thereto, Ulster at 167, n. 29, 99 S.Ct. at 2229, n. 29. The four man dissent argued that the jury might have rejected all of the prosecution’s evidence and convicted on the basis of the presumption alone. The five man majority branded this reasoning as “not plausible” and analyzed the evidence at length to illustrate that the jury could not reasonably have acted on the presumption alone.
Properly read, the Ulster majority presented the following analysis: (1) There was ample evidence to convict, even in the absence of the presumption; (2) The trial court carefully explained to the jury that it could not convict solely on the strength of the “permissive” presumption, and that it must acquit unless it found other credible evidence to corroborate and it affirmatively believed such evidence; And, (3) ergo, the dissenters’ argument that the jury might have disbelieved the other evidence and might have convicted on strength of the presumption alone is “not plausible.”
The final conclusion to be drawn from Ulster is that “permissive” presumptions may not be employed except under circumstances where it is “not plausible” for the jury to convict to the strength of the presumption alone. Instructions are mandatory making it clear that the presumption may not be resorted to unless the jury finds corroboration from other affirmative evidence.
ON MOTION FOR REHEARING