Court Opinion

ID: 9666832
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:28:36.113649+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:57:12.414612
License: Public Domain

CLINTON, Judge,
concurring.
As pertinent to the facts here, Y.T.C.A. Penal Code, § 30.05(a)(2) makes it a penal offense if a person “remains on property ... of another without effective consent,” after “receiving notice to depart;” according to id., § (b)(2)(A), “notice means oral or written communication by the owner or someone with apparent authority to act for the owner [.]”1
In my judgment, given the evidentiary facts recited in the opinion of the court of appeals in this case, the area where appellants were when told by peace officers “to leave or face arrest for impeding a passageway,” Langston v. State, supra, at 406, that is, “on the street side of the yellow line,” majority opinion, at 2, n. 3, is certainly the “property of another;” however, the State did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that it was then and there the “property of [Karen Jones].”
In the context of the kind of criminal trespass the State claims appellants committed here, the statutory phrase embraces only “real property of another,” “of” being used in the sense of “owning” such real property.2 There is no evidence that the *723real property on which appellants were located at the time is “property of Karen Jones,” in the senses of “belonging to” or “possessed by” her.
Indeed, the overwhelming weight of the evidence shows that the real property is “property of another,” other than Karen Jones. The court of appeals characterized the property as “a government easement maintained by the city between the clinics’ property and an adjacent street.” Langston, supra, at 407. Thus it clearly is the property of another other than Karen Jones and the clinic.3
Accordingly, I join the judgment of the Court.

. As the Practice Commentary notes, when the former statute prohibiting criminal trespass, article 1377(c), C.C.P.1925, as amended in 1971, was incorporated into the “new” Penal Code in 1973, legislators neglected to prescribe a culpable mental state; while observing that § 6.02(b) and (c) "impart a requirement that at least recklessness be proven,” for reasons given the commentators suggest instead “at least a knowing culpable mental state should be required before the criminal law intrudes into an area already having a civil remedy.”
The Court, apparently not particularly receptive to being all that precise in its analysis. opted for every culpable mental state, i.e., “intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly.” Day v. State, 532 S.W.2d 302, at 306 and n. 3 (Tex.Cr.App.1975) (opinion on original submission). That became the pattern to be used by this Court, e.g., West v. State, 567 S.W.2d 515, at 516 (Tex.Cr.App.1978) — to the extent of denouncing as “fundamental error” a jury charge that omitted "intentionally and knowingly," Holloway v. State, 583 S.W.2d 376 (Tex.Cr.App.1979) — and later, of course, by courts of appeals in, e.g., Johnson v. State, 665 S.W.2d 554, at 556 (Tex.App.-Houston [1st] 1984); Palmer v. State, 764 S.W.2d 332, at 335 (Tex.App.-Houston [1st] 1988), no PDR; and in the instant cause, Langston v. State, 812 S.W.2d 406, at 408 (Tex.App.—Houston [1st] 1991).
Since one cannot "intend" such "circumstances . surrounding his conduct” as "knowledge,” always to require a jury to find "intentionally" as an element as criminal trespass may place an impossible burden on the prosecution.
All emphasis here and throughout this opinion is mine unless otherwise indicated.

. In common usage “of’ is a "function word,” and in a general sense has many connotations; in one particular sense it indicates "a possessive relationship;” "belonging or pertaining to or connected with ...;” as "the right of the possessor." Webster’s New International Dictionary *723(2d Ed.1944) 1689[17]; see also Websters New Collegiate Dictionary (1979) 789[6]. In the latter sense it connotes "owning:" "to possess; to have or hold as property or appurtenance; to have rightful title to, whether legal or natural, as to own a house, a title or prerogative,” Webster’s New International, supra, at 1795[2] (emphasis in original); "to have or hold as property: possess," Websters New Collegiate, supra, at 813[1],

. That personnel from the West Loop Abortion Clinic for which she was director gratuitously "occasionally mowed the grass, cut weeds and cleared trash out of the ditch in this area,” a government easement, Langston, supra, at 407, 408, will not serve in law to convert "property of another" to "property of Karen Jones” or "property of the clinic."
While in my opinion the phrase "property of another" may not implicate the statutory definition of "owner,” even so neither Karen Jones nor the clinic had title to the real property, possession of the real property nor a greater right of possession to it than appellant. The fact of the matter is they and appellant had none of the statutory requisites attributed to an “owner,” and thus no "right” of any nature in or to the real property.