Court Opinion

ID: 9773692
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 17:54:50.449033+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:56.301446
License: Public Domain

DOUGLAS, Judge
(dissenting).
The majority by its opinion allows counsel for the defense to try the prospective witnesses in advance of the trial. The logical conclusion from such holding is that counsel for the State may try prospective defense witnesses before selecting the jury. Would it now follow the majority opinion for the prosecutor to ask the prospective jurors if a defendant became a witness whether they could believe that he would tell a falsehood from the witness stand? Would not the same question be proper concerning the mother, wife, or other prospective witnesses for a defendant ?
Under our procedure, we now have a two-stage or' bifurcated trial. Under the decision of the majority, it appears that we will probably have a four-stage or quadri-furcated, or at least some sort of hydra-headed trial. The defense may try the credibility of State’s witnesses and the State may try the credibility of defense witnesses before the prospective jurors. After this has been completed, the two-stage trial heretofore adopted by the Legislature will commence.
Witnesses take the oath to tell the truth. After the jurors hear their testimony, it is then for a juror to determine who is credible and not before. Until today this has been the rule.
The majority cites De La Rosa v. State, 414 S.W.2d 668, as its leading case. There the trial court limited the voir dire examination of the jury panel to 30 minutes, The additional questions sought to be propounded by defense counsel in that case were not set out in the opinion. The case was not reversed for the refusal to permit any particular questions. So there will not be any question of what the Court held, the holding is quoted as follows:
“Given the circumstances of this cause, we conclude that the imposition of the strict time limitation was unreasonable, and that the able and learned trial judge fell into error.” (Emphasis supplied)
How is that holding applicable here?
In the present case, the question sought to be propounded to the jury panel was:
“Is there any member of the panel who, regardless of what the evidence showed in any case could not believe that a police officer was telling a wilful falsehood from the witness stand ?”
The conduct of voir dire examination is largely within the discretion of the trial court and except in a clear case of abuse, a ruling on the question that is within such discretionary power will not be reversed by the appellate court. See 35 Tex.Jur.2d, Jury, Section 117, page 172. In Crowson v. State, 364 S.W.2d 698, this Court held that the trial court did not err in refusing to permit the defendant to question prospective jurors on voir dire whether they would give more weight to the testimony of police officers than to the testimony of laymen, absent a showing of injury. In Hunter v. State, 481 S.W.2d 137, we upheld a trial court’s refusal to permit defense counsel to inquire of prospective jurors who admitted knowing the complaining witness whether they would give greater credence to his testimony because they knew him than to that of another witness whom they did not know. We found the question to be improper, stating:
“[t]he question, as framed, was an attempt to require the prospective jurors to *856commit themselves as to how they would pass upon the credibility of the witnesses prior to trial and the receipt of evidence.” Id, at page 138.
The question appellant sought to ask prospective jurors in this case was but another mode of attempting to commit the jury in advance as to the weight they would give the testimony of certain witnesses. As such, the question was improper and abuse of discretion is not shown in the trial court’s refusal to permit it.
It is the duty of the trial courts to confine the examination of prospective jurors within reasonable limits. If this were not so, some trials would never terminate. Grizzell v. State, 164 Tex.Cr.R. 362, 298 S.W.2d 816.
The Hunter and Crowson cases are neither distinguished nor overruled by the majority.
The majority ignores applicable authority to add this (and perhaps any other similar) question to those permissible in the already too long and drawn out jury selection process.
This conviction should be affirmed.