Court Opinion

ID: 9763468
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:46:08.703823+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:43.821016
License: Public Domain

McCORMICK, Presiding Judge,
dissenting.
I dissent to the majority’s disposition of appellant’s second ground for review, and the remedy the majority provides as a result of sustaining that ground for review. I would dismiss appellant’s petition for discretionary review as improvidently granted or affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
In disposing of appellant’s second ground for review, the majority opinion addresses the question of whether Dal Bosco had a right to assert the Fifth Amendment privilege. However, it appears appellant’s major complaint in the trial court and the Court of Appeals is that Dal Bosco could only assert the privilege in open court before the jury.1 See Reese v. State, 846 S.W.2d 437, 440 (Tex.App.-Houston [14th Dist.] 1992) (trial judge refused appellant’s request to require Dal Bosco to assert the privilege in open court before the jury); see also majority opinion (appellant claims reversible error because the trial court refused to require Dal Bosco to testify before the jury). Even the majority opinion acknowledges that:
“Appellant’s counsel agreed that Dal Bosco had a right to claim ‘the 5th’ but urged that he could only assert that right in open court before the jury.”
Therefore, appellant apparently conceded the validity of Dal Bosco’s Fifth Amendment claim, and it appears the majority reverses on an issue that never was adequately presented to either the trial court or the Court of Appeals. See Tex.R.App.Proc. 52(a).
In addition, the majority relies on Norman v. State, 588 S.W.2d 340 (Tex.Cr.App.1979), cert. denied, 446 U.S. 909, 100 S.Ct. 1836, 64 L.Ed.2d 261 (1980). However, Norman is distinguishable. In Norman, the defendant timely presented to the trial court “some twenty-four questions” the defendant wanted to ask on the issue of a “vicarious” entrapment defense. Norman, 588 S.W.2d at 344-45. This was necessary to inform the trial court and a reviewing court of the “materiality and relevancy” of the questions to determine whether the defendant was denied his Sixth Amendment right to present a defense. Norman, 588 S.W.2d at 345. Here, it appears appellant declined the trial court’s invitation to question Dal Bosco further until the hearing on appellant’s new trial motion, which was too late; see Tex.R.App.Proc. 52(a). Therefore, Norman does not support the result the majority reaches today.
Finally, the majority remands this case to the Court of Appeals to conduct a harm analysis pursuant to Tex.R.App.Proc. *33881(b)(2). However, it appears to me the Court of Appeals has, in effect, conducted a harm analysis when it determined that Dal Bosco’s testimony adduced at the new trial hearing was reflective and cumulative of other evidence which was insufficient to raise an entrapment defense.
“Also, upon examining Dal Boseo’s testimony in the hearing on the motion for new trial, we find no new or different evidence would have resulted from his testimony, as it was fairly reflective and cumulative of Officer Rankin’s earlier statements.” Reese, 846 S.W.2d at 440.
Remanding this case for a harm analysis is an exercise in futility and a waste of judicial resources. Appellant’s petition for discretionary review should either be dismissed as improvidently granted or the judgment of the Court of Appeals should be affirmed. Because neither of these events occur, I dissent.
CAMPBELL and WHITE, JJ., join this dissent.

. This claim lacks merit. Victoria v. State, 522 S.W.2d 919 (Tex.Cr.App.1975).