Court Opinion

ID: 9667142
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:36:37.93352+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:35.365521
License: Public Domain

MILLER, Judge,
dissenting.
Justice Brookshire is correct in his dissenting opinion in the Court of Appeals below. Sossamon v. State, 740 S.W.2d 543 *350(Tex.App.-Beaumont 1987). Therein he says
“Appellant’s argument on appeal is that the police took advantage of his confession to bring him into court where the victims of the crime identified him as one of three men who robbed them at gunpoint. Therefore, it is clear that Appellant seeks to have this court suppress the identity evidence as the tainted fruit of an illegally-obtained confession. It is not the fruit of any confession, because the victims knew the “face” or “identity information” immediately after the crime as to who assaulted them long before the confessions were made.”
(Emphasis added.)
At this point I could go into an analysis counter to the majority’s analysis of Pichon v. State, 683 S.W.2d 422 (Tex.Cr.App.1984), United States v. Crews, 445 U.S. 463, 100 S.Ct. 1244, 63 L.Ed.2d 537 (1980), etc. but I shall not. The majority looks with blinders to the third element of in-court identification as set out in Pichón (to-wit that the defendant is physically present in the courtroom) because this defendant was physically present in the courtroom solely because he gave a confession which was admittedly involuntary under Jackson v. Denno, 378 U.S. 368, 84 S.Ct. 1774, 12 L.Ed.2d 908 (1964) and Fisher v. State, 379 S.W.2d 900 (Tex.Cr.App.1964). Having reevaluated Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963), I simply cannot imagine that even the 1963 United States Supreme Court contemplated an event such as this to be encompassed within the “fruit of the poison tree” doctrine.
Therefore, I dissent to part III-B of the majority opinion.