Court Opinion

ID: 9776249
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 19:28:32.785022+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:36.277009
License: Public Domain

TIJERINA, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent.
In the case at bar, on three separate occasions appellant was found by a jury to be incompetent to stand trial and was committed to Rusk State Hospital. The diagnosis by Dr. Richard Cameron, the county psychiatrist, Dr. James P. Grigson, and Dr. Betty Lou Schroeder, county clinical psychologist, was schizophrenia, paranoid type, and that appellant was legally insane on the date of the commission of the offense. The stipulation between the State and appellant’s attorney that appellant was legally insane at the time of the commission of the offense as the term is defined under TEX.PENAL CODE ANN. § 8.01, supra, states in part:
*590[T]hat immediately prior to such date and specifically on such date of July 4, 1976, and at the time of the offense set forth in the indictment herein, said defendant, as a result of mental disease and defect, was incapable of conforming his conduct to the requirements of the law that he is alleged to have violated in the indictment herein. It is agreed ... that such stipulation ... will be admissible in any and all future Court proceedings concerning this offense....
This stipulation was approved by the court.
In Graham v. State, 566 S.W.2d 941 (Tex.Crim.App.1978), the appellant had only one previous commitment to a State mental hospital, and his state of mind after the offense was rational in that he expressed remorse, apologized to his victim, and drove her to within one block of her residence. In the instant case, following the murder of the victim, appellant was found inside a trash dumpster with both his wrists slashed, unable to communicate. Police Sergeant James Calvert testified:
Q: A bizarre and unusual thing was finding him lying with his wrists cut and covered with garbage?
A: That’s what I saw, yes, sir.
Appellant cites Kiernan v. State, 84 Tex. Crim. 500, 208 S.W. 518 (1919) as authority supporting his contention of insufficient evidence to establish beyond a reasonable doubt the necessary culpable mental state. In Kiernan, five physicians testified that the appellant was insane; other witnesses testified as to facts immediately before and after the killing, but none were asked as to appellant’s mental condition. Further, the State did not put on any witnesses to prove the sanity of appellant. The Court stated:
We are loath to disturb the case on the finding on the facts, and do not believe we should do so in cases where there is merely conflict of testimony; but when we are convinced that the verdict is clearly against the overwhelming weight and preponderance of the testimony, we do not feel at liberty to close our eyes to that fact out of deference to the verdict of the jury.
* * * * * *
Our merciful and just law makes it a necessary condition precedent to guilt that the act must have been that of a sane man, and not that of one irresponsible, and when all the witnesses on that point ... agree as to the fact of appellant’s insanity, and there is absolutely no contradiction of that fact in the record, we cannot allow the conviction to stand.
Kiernan v. State, 208 S.W. at 519.
In the case at bar, the entire medical history and records with the stipulations by the State and appellant as to appellant's mental condition, were admitted as evidence. The record clearly shows that the State did not ask any of the State’s witnesses for an opinion as to appellant’s sanity.
Appellant further contends that the evidence is insufficient to support a conviction under the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States. Constitution. In In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 90 S.Ct. 1068, 25 L.Ed.2d 368 (1970), the Supreme Court held that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment protects a defendant in a criminal case against conviction, “except upon proof beyond a reasonable doubt of every fact necessary to constitute the crime with which he is charged.” In re Winship, 397 U.S. at 364. The Winship decision thus stands for the proposition that no person shall be made to suffer the onus of a criminal conviction except upon sufficient proof—defined as evidence necessary to convince a trier of fact beyond a reasonable doubt of the existence of every element of the offense. In Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560, (1979), the United States Supreme Court stated: “[T]he relevant question is whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.” Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. at 319, 99 S.Ct. at 2789.
*591Here an essential element of the offense of murder is the culpable mental state of appellant at the time of the commission of the offense, i.e., that he, appellant, intentionally and knowingly murdered the victim. I have viewed the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution and find, after considering the entire record, that there was insufficient evidence to establish beyond a reasonable doubt the culpable mental state of appellant. I would sustain appellant’s grounds of error number one, two, and three.
The fourth and fifth grounds of error are concerned with the effect of the stipulation, by the parties, on the insanity question. Appellant contends the court erred in admitting evidence in contravention of the stipulation, and that the stipulation established as a matter of law the fact of appellant’s insanity.
In addressing this specific question we learn from 9 J. WIGMORE, EVIDENCE §§ 2588, 2590 (1981), the following:
An express waiver made in court or preparatory to trial by the party or his attorney conceding for the purposes of the trial the truth of some alleged fact, has the effect of a confessory pleading, in that the fact is thereafter to be taken for granted; so that the one party need offer no evidence to prove it and the other is not allowed to disprove it. This is what is commonly termed a solemn ... or judicial admission or stipulation.... The vital feature of a judicial admission is universally conceded to be its conclusiveness upon the party making it, i.e., the prohibition of any further dispute of the fact by him and of any use of evidence to disprove or contradict it.
The stipulation between the State and appellant specifically states that appellant was legally insane at the time of the commission of the offense as the term is defined by TEX.PENAL CODE ANN. § 8.01, supra, and further provides that the stipulation will be admissible in any and all future court proceedings concerning the offense. The trial court had previously approved this stipulation and it was admitted as part of the record without objection. The Supreme Court in Gevinson v. Manhattan Construction Co., 449 S.W.2d 458, 466 (Tex.1969) has pronounced the Texas rule on this question as follows:
A true judicial admission is a formal waiver of proof and is usually found in the pleadings or in a stipulation of the parties_ The vital feature of a judicial admission is its conclusiveness on party making it. It not only relieves his adversary from making proof of the fact admitted but also bars the party himself from disputing it. [Authority omitted]
It thus appears that courts will not release parties from a stipulation unless it is shown that the matter stipulated is untrue. In the instant case the State did not withdraw the stipulation, and once a matter is stipulated, it should not be inquired into further unless vacated by consent or set aside by the court. Valdes v. Moore, 476 S.W.2d 936, 940 (Tex.Civ.App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 1972, writ ref’d n.r.e.), held that a judicial admission establishes the admitted element as a matter of law. I conclude that the State agreed to the fact of appellant’s insanity at the time of the commission of the offense and was thus bound by the stipulation, and that the stipulation as approved by the court established appellant’s insanity as a matter of law. Accordingly, having found the evidence insufficient, I would reverse and order appellant discharged. See Greene v. Massey, 437 U.S. 19, 98 S.Ct. 2151, 57 L.Ed.2d 15 (1978).