Court Opinion

ID: 9681577
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 07:52:50.150292+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:34.514900
License: Public Domain

MANSFIELD, Judge,
concurring.
I concur in the result. With respect to appellant’s point of error number twenty, it is my opinion that the testimony of the director of the rehabilitation program at Star House where the complainant was employed at the time of his death was not victim impact evidence as contemplated by the Supreme Court in Payne v. Tennessee, 501 U.S. 808, 111 S.Ct. 2597, 115 L.Ed.2d 720 (1991). The testimony — which was brief — was that the complainant had done well in a state hospital drug rehabilitation program which was why the director considered him as a good candidate for the internship program at Star House. There was no testimony as to the complainant’s character or that he was a “good person.” Accordingly, the State “did not open the door” to evidence of the complainant’s bad character, i.e. his prior convictions.
*560With respect to appellants point of error number twenty-two, it is my opinion that the sexual preference of the victim in a capital murder trial is irrelevant and thus inadmissible if, at the time of the commission of the offense, the defendant did not know the sexual preference of the victim. The victim’s sexual preference would only be relevant, and admissible as such, if it is shown by the defendant, at the guilt-innocence phase, that the victim’s sexual preference was a significant factor in his defense. Such a determination should be made by the trial court outside the presence of the jury. See Nelson v. State, 848 S.W.2d 126 (Tex.Crim.App.1992), cert. denied, 510 U.S. 830, 114 S.Ct. 100, 126 L.Ed.2d 66 (1993).