Court Opinion

ID: 9683234
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 13:25:12.846013+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:46.558152
License: Public Domain

ROBERTS, Judge,
concurring.
I join in Part I of Judge Clinton’s opinion, as do all the members of the court.
A majority of the court expressly have declined to join in Part II of that opinion. Part II expresses the views that (A) the evidence was insufficient to show “a probability that the defendant would commit criminal acts of violence that would constitute a continuing threat to society” (as the issue is drawn in Article 37.071(b)(2) of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure), and (B) the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment prevents the State from seeking the death penalty at a retrial of this case. Although they do not say so, I take it that the majority must disagree with the view (A) that the evidence was insufficient rather than with view (B) of the Double Jeopardy Clause. The identical view of the Double Jeopardy Clause was adopted as the holding of the court in Brasfield v. State, 600 S.W.2d 288, 298 (Tex.Cr.App.1980), and no judge dissented. I did not participate in Brasfield v. State, so I take this occasion to express my view of insufficient evidence on special issue (2) of Article 37.071(b).
In Brasfield v. State, 600 S.W.2d 288, 298 (Tex.Cr.App.1980), the court drew its authority from Burks v. United States, 437 U.S. 1, 98 S.Ct. 2141, 57 L.Ed.2d 1 (1978). There the Supreme Court remarked:
“The Double Jeopardy Clause forbids a second trial for the purpose of affording the prosecution another opportunity to *562supply evidence which it failed to muster in the first proceeding. This is central to the objective of the prohibition against successive trials. The Clause does not allow ‘the State ... to make repeated attempts to convict an individual for an alleged offense,’ since ‘the constitutional prohibition against “ ‘double jeopardy’ ” was designed to protect an individual from being subjected to the hazards of trial and possible conviction more than once for an alleged offense.’ Green v. United States, 355 U.S. 184, 187, [78 S.Ct. 221, 223, 2 L.Ed.2d 199] (1957) ....”
437 U.S. at 12, 98 S.Ct. at 2147 (footnote omitted). The court went on to draw a distinction between trial error and insufficiency of evidence. It held that there could be a retrial after an appellate reversal for trial error, which implies nothing about the defendant’s guilt, because both parties have an interest in readjudication. 437 U.S. at 15, 98 S.Ct. at 2149.
“The same cannot be said when a defendant’s conviction has been overturned due to a failure of proof at trial, in which case the prosecution cannot complain of prejudice, for it has been given one fair opportunity to offer whatever proof it could assemble. * * *
* * * “Given the requirements for entry of a judgment of acquittal, the purposes of the Clause would be negated were we to afford the Government an opportunity for the proverbial ‘second bite at the apple.’ ”
437 U.S. at 16-17, 98 S.Ct. at 2149-50 (footnote omitted).
Because there may be a retrial after a reversal for trial error, but not after a reversal for insufficiency of evidence, we have developed a procedural rule which is a natural corollary to Burks: Even though we have found reversible trial error we must still address a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence, because such a ground would bar a retrial. Rains v. State, 604 S.W.2d 119 (Tex.Cr.App.1980); Swabado v. State, 597 S.W.2d 361 (Tex.Cr.App.1980). Accord, e. g., United States v. Meneses-Davila, 580 F.2d 888, 896 (5th Cir. 1978).
In Brasfield v. State, 600 S.W.2d 288 (Tex.Cr.App.1980), the court applied this procedural rule to a ground that challenged the sufficiency of the evidence on special issue (2). (The court had already found reversible trial error in the failure to quash the indictment.) Part II of Judge Clinton’s opinion today would apply this procedural rule again to a claim that the evidence was insufficient on special issue (2). I do not think that the rule is properly applicable to such a claim, for I do not think that reliti-gation of special issue (2) should be barred after a reversal for trial error. Once we have found reversible trial error in a death penalty case, we need not consider a claim that the evidence was insufficient on special issue (2).1
To begin with, it must be remembered that in a case like Brasfield v. State, 600 S.W.2d 288 (Tex.Cr.App.1980), there would be a remand for retrial because of the trial error, regardless of the evidence on special issue (2). The case would not be one like Burks v. United States, 437 U.S. 1, 98 S.Ct. *5632141, 57 L.Ed.2d 1 (1978), in which insufficient evidence of guilt would bar a retrial altogether. If the “objective” of the Double Jeopardy Clause is “the prohibition against successive trials,” 437 U.S. at 11, then the objective would not be achieved by prohibiting the State from relitigating special issue (2). Such a prohibition would only narrow the range of punishment.
More importantly special issue (2) is fundamentally different, not only from the issue of guilt, but even from the other issues of punishment which are drawn in Article 37.071(b)(1) & (3) of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure.
The issue of guilt and those other issues of punishment call for the State to prove historical facts. Did the defendant commit the offense of capital murder? Was his conduct that caused the death of the deceased committed deliberately and with the reasonable expectation that the death of the deceased or another would result?2 Was his conduct in killing the deceased unreasonable in response to the provocation, if any, by the deceased?3 All the events that determine the resolution of those issues will have occurred before the trial; they will have been immutably fixed at the time they happened. If the State fails to prove guilt or deliberateness or unreasonableness, and that failure is detected on appeal, it “cannot complain of prejudice, for it has been given one fair opportunity to offer whatever proof it could assemble.” Burks v. United States, 437 U.S. 1, 16, 98 S.Ct. 2141, 2149-50, 57 L.Ed.2d 1 (1978) (footnote omitted). Nothing could have happened during the interim between trial and appeal to have changed the crime. The alleged murder long will have been over, and “the purposes of the [Double Jeopardy] Clause would be negated were we to afford the Government an opportunity for the proverbial ‘second bite at the apple.’ ” Id. at 17. Therefore the Double Jeopardy Clause should bar relitigation of the historical facts of deliberateness and unreasonableness, just as it bars relitigation of the historical fact of guilt.4
The special issue drawn in Article 37.-071(b)(2) is different. It is not one of historical fact. Shippy v. State, 556 S.W.2d 246, 250 (Tex.Cr.App.1977). Rather it is one of present fact, at best:5 whether there is now, at the time of trial, a probability that the defendant would commit criminal acts of violence that would constitute a continuing threat to society. This fact is not immutably fixed. If we find on appeal that the proof offered at trial was insufficient, things may well have happened during the interim between trial and appeal to change the probability in question; indeed, it is almost inevitable that the appellant will have changed. He will have aged if nothing else, and probably by more than a year. He will have been confined on death row in the Ellis Unit of the Texas Department of Corrections under conditions that could produce change in the most resilient psyche. See, generally, B. Jackson & D. Christian, Death Row (1980). Any number of moral, intellectual, emotional, and behavioral changes may have occurred in him. Although the State had at his trial “one fair opportunity to offer whatever proof it could assemble” about his probable conduct at that time, it will have had no opportunity to offer proof about his probable conduct at the time of his retrial. To borrow the Chief Justice’s proverb, the State has had one bite at the apple but by the time of retrial the apple may have become an orange. Because special issue (2) involves a different factual perspective, it should bear a different relationship to the Double Jeopardy *564Clause-a relationship that is less like that prescribed for the guilt issues in Burks v. United States, 437 U.S. 1, 98 S.Ct. 2141, 57 L.Ed.2d 1 (1978), and more like that prescribed for the punishment issues in North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U.S. 711, 89 S.Ct. 2072, 23 L.Ed.2d 656 (1969).
In Part II of Pearce6 the question was, after a reversal for trial error, “what constitutional limitations there may be upon the general power of a judge to impose upon reconviction a longer prison sentence than the defendant originally received.” 395 U.S. at 719, 89 S.Ct. at 2077. The court held that neither the Double Jeopardy Clause nor the Equal Protection Clause imposed an absolute bar to a more severe sentence upon reconviction.
“A trial judge is not constitutionally precluded, in other words, from imposing a new sentence, whether greater or less than the original sentence, in the light of events subsequent to the first trial that may have thrown new light upon the defendant’s ‘life, health, habits, conduct, and mental and moral propensities.’ Williams v. New York, 337 U.S. 241, 245 [69 S.Ct. 1079, 1082, 93 L.Ed. 1337]. Such information may come to the judge’s attention from evidence adduced at the second trial itself, from a new presen-tence investigation, from the defendant’s prison record, or possibly from other sources. The freedom of a sentencing judge to consider the defendant’s conduct subsequent to the first conviction in imposing a new sentence is no more than consonant with the principle, fully approved in Williams v. New York, supra, that a State may adopt the ‘prevalent modern philosophy of penology that the punishment should fit the offender and not merely the crime.’ Id., at 247 [69 S.Ct. at 1083].”
395 U.S. at 723, 89 S.Ct. at 2079. (The court also held that, to guard against a court’s penalizing a defendant for having successfully appealed his first conviction, due process requires the record to affirmatively show that the new sentence is “based upon objective information concerning identifiable conduct on the part of the defendant occurring after the time of the original sentencing proceeding.” 395 U.S. at 726, 89 S.Ct. at 2081. This requirement does not apply when it is a jury rather than a judge that assesses punishment at the retrial, at least when the jury has not been given improper and prejudicial information about the prior sentence and when the same punishment is being sought under the same jury instructions. Chaffin v. Stynchcombe, 412 U.S. 17, 93 S.Ct. 1977, 36 L.Ed.2d 714 (1973). In such cases the possibility of vindictiveness is de minimis.)
It has already been held that the jury’s task in answering special issue (2) is like that which faces any sentencing authority. Jurek v. Texas, 428 U.S. 262, 274-276, 96 S.Ct. 2950, 2957-58, 49 L.Ed.2d 929 (1976) (opinion of Stevens, J.). The reasoning of North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U.S. 711, 89 S.Ct. 2072, 23 L.Ed.2d 656 (1969), is as applicable to sentencing by the jury as by the judge. Therefore I would hold that after a reversal for trial error the State may again seek the death penalty regardless of the sufficiency of the evidence on special issue (2) at the first trial. In cases in which we have found reversible trial error, we should not even address a claim that the evidence on special issue (2) was insufficient.7
*565If one focuses on the results of cases, it might seem strange that a defendant can be exposed again to the death penalty after the State fails in its proof on special issue (2), while a defendant who pleaded guilty cannot be exposed to retrial after the State botches the plea ceremony. Thornton v. State, 601 S.W.2d 340 (Tex.Cr.App.1980). But this is the logical consequence of our truly execrable8 statutory scheme of asking jurors to find beyond a reasonable doubt that there is a probability that a person will commit a certain kind of criminal act in the future. Would that Texas had never started down this absurd path.9 Despite my wishes I must accept perforce that due process countenances this scheme. Having been forced to swallow the due process camel, I cannot strain at the double jeopardy gnat.

. When there is no reversible trial error we should consider a claim that the evidence was insufficient on special issue (2). If the evidence were insufficient the judgment should be reformed to confinement for life Oust as the trial court should have entered a directed verdict of no on the special issue) and affirmed. In Evans v. State (Tex.Cr.App. No. 60,016 Sept. 10, 1980) (Roberts, J., dissenting) 1 argued that this court had the authority and the duty to reform a judgment when only one verdict was available under the law. It is even more clear that such an action should be taken when the only error is insufficient evidence on special issue (2). The alternative of reversing and remanding for an entirely new trial would not only be a pointless relitigation of a judgment of guilt that was free from error; it might also offend the prohibition against successive trials that is the objective of the Double Jeopardy Clause, Burks v. United States, 437 U.S. 1, 11, 98 S.Ct. 2141, 2147, 57 L.Ed.2d 1 (1978). See generally Breed v. Jones, 421 U.S. 519, 532-533, 95 S.Ct. 1779, 1787, 44 L.Ed.2d 346 (1975) (Part III-A). Such a case would be unlike Brasfield v. State, 600 S.W.2d 288 (Tex.Cr.App.1980), in that the retrial of such a case would be the result of insufficient evidence rather than trial error.

. Tex.Code Crim.Pro. art. 37.071(b)(1).

. Tex.Code Crim.Pro. art. 37.071(b)(3).

. This same reasoning explains why this court was clearly wrong, in my view, to hold that the issue of a prior conviction could be relitigated on retrial because it is merely “an historical fact.” Porier v. State, 591 S.W.2d 482, 484 (Tex.Cr.App.1979). Except for special issue (2) in a capital case, every factual issue in a criminal trial is one of historical fact.

.Many people view it as an issue of predicting future “facts.” See, e. g., Jurek v. Texas, 428 U.S. 262, 274-276, 96 S.Ct. 2950, 2957-58, 49 L.Ed.2d 929 (1976) (opinion of Stevens, J.).

. The question in Part I of Pearce was whether the Double Jeopardy Clause required a state to give a reconvicted defendant credit for punishment that had been exacted because of his earlier, overturned conviction.

. At this time it appears that we soon may have a decision on the constitutionality of imposing a death penalty at retrial when a life sentence had been given in the first trial. See Bullington v. Missouri, - U.S. ——, 101 S.Ct. 70, 66 L.Ed.2d 21, 28 Crim.L. 4045 (1980), granting cert. to State ex rel. Westfall v. Mason, 594 S.W.2d 908 (Mo.1980) (death sentence did not violate Constitution). In my view the death sentence in that case should be set aside because the jury in the first trial apparently found either that the aggravating circumstances were not proved or that they were outweighed by the mitigating circumstances, and the Double Jeopardy Clause would be violated if those historical facts were reliti-gated just as it would be violated if Texas’ special issues (1) and (3) were relitigated. If *565the Supreme Court so held, the question of whether special issue (2) could be relitigated after a reversal for trial error would stiil be open, because special issue (2) is not an issue of historical fact as are Missouri’s aggravating and mitigating circumstances.

. See generally, Jurek v. State, 522 S.W.2d 934, 943 & 946 (Tex.Cr.App.1975) (opinions of Odom & Roberts, JJ.); Black, “Due Process for Death,” 26 Cath.U.L.Rev. 1 (1976).

. Representative Robert Maloney, who drafted the conference committee’s bill that became law, has testified that special issue (2) was intended to determine whether the defendant “was just a flat mean person .... ” Perini, “Evidence of Parole as Material to Special Issue No. 2-And Other Unusual Ideas,” at 24, in Criminal Defense Lawyers Project, Capital Murder Defense Course (1978). In my view, the statute would have been much better if that language had been used.