Court Opinion

ID: 9762939
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:34:11.339578+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:37.951113
License: Public Domain

CLINTON, Judge,
concurring.
We granted the present petition for discretionary review in order to determine whether the Rules of Criminal Evidence have altered the standard of proof by which the proponent of evidence of “other crimes, wrongs, or acts” under Tex.R.Cr.Evid., Rule 404(b), must establish that the accused actually committed that extraneous misconduct. Specifically, the question is whether Tex.R.Cr.Evid., Rule 104(b), has somehow supplanted the “clear proof’ standard this Court finally alighted on *162during the 1980⅛. See McCann v. State, 606 S.W.2d 897 (Tex.Cr.App.1980). During oral argument in this cause, Judge Maloney suggested that the standard for admissibility of Rule 404(b) evidence ought to be tied to the standard we require juries in Texas to impose in deciding whether to consider extraneous misconduct in their deliberations, vis: whether the proponent has proven the accused committed the misconduct to a level of confidence beyond a reasonable doubt. As per his suggestion in oral argument, Judge Maloney now holds for a majority of the Court that as a predicate to admitting evidence of “other crimes, wrongs, or acts,” the trial judge must determine that the jury could reasonably find that the accused committed that misconduct beyond a reasonable doubt.
After oral argument, the State Prosecuting Attorney filed a supplemental brief. Noting Judge Maloney’s suggestion that there is a conceptual link between the standard by which a jury decides whether to consider evidence of extraneous misconduct and the threshold standard by which the trial court makes the decision to admit the evidence in the first instance, the State Prosecuting Attorney argued in his supplemental brief that in light of the Rules of Criminal Evidence, the Court should revisit the jury instruction issue as well. Given Rule 104(b), supra, and the United States Supreme Court’s construction of the federal analogue in Huddleston v. United States, 485 U.S. 681, 108 S.Ct. 1496, 99 L.Ed.2d 771 (1988), the Court should reconsider pre-Rules holdings that juries must be instructed they must find to a level of confidence beyond a reasonable doubt that an accused committed another crime, wrong or act before taking it into account in their deliberations.1 The State Prosecuting Attorney urged us to grant another petition for discretionary review then pending that squarely addressed this question, and consider that petition before or in concert with the present petition. Subsequently, we did grant that petition for discretionary review. See George v. State, No. 006-93, pet. granted April 14, 1993.
Today, without reference to the briefs in George, including that of the State Prosecuting Attorney, the majority simply concludes, relying on long-time precedent, all of which pre-dates the Rules of Criminal Evidence, that jurors still must be instructed to find an accused perpetrated extraneous misconduct beyond a reasonable doubt before they can consider them in their deliberations. From this uncritically accepted premise the majority reasons that it necessarily follows that the standard for admissibility of such evidence is also proof beyond a reasonable doubt, and that the trial court therefore should determine, as a predicate to admissibility of such evidence in the first place, whether a rational jury could conclude, to a level of confidence beyond a reasonable doubt, that the accused committed the extraneous misconduct. Along the way the majority hypothecates that whenever this Court has said in the past that it must be “shown” that the accused committed the extraneous misconduct, and that the proof must be “clear” to be admissible, what we meant all along was that the *163trial court must be able to say that a rational jury could find beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused was the perpetrator. This whole process of reasoning seems to me to be result-oriented, and not a little disingenuous.

I.

Rather than accept the majority’s bald premise — it cannot be called a reasoned conclusion — that even after the effective date of the Rules of Criminal Evidence, juries must be instructed under the reasonable doubt standard, I would first examine and decide that question in George. It is true, as the majority notes, that Rule 104(b) does not on its face purport to set out a particular level of confidence by which the factfinder must find that a conditional fact, upon which the relevance of the proffered item of evidential fact depends, has been established. The rule addresses the preliminary question of “relevancy conditioned on fact,” simply providing that the trial court “shall” admit conditionally relevant evidence upon the introduction of “evidence sufficient to support a finding of the fulfillment of the condition.” See Advisory Committee Notes on Fed.R.Evid. 104(b), Federal Criminal Code and Rules (West 1994), at 215. The rule does not speak to a level of confidence to which a jury must find the condition has been established. That, I presume the majority would reason, is a matter long since settled by the Texas caselaw. And the level of confidence dictated by our caselaw is not the same as that declared,' essentially in ipse dixit, in Huddleston, supra, viz: by a preponderance of the evidence.2 Rather, it is as it has always been, proof beyond a reasonable doubt, as established by the many cases cited in the majority opinion that hold that jury instructions to that effect are necessary.
This is not an implausible argument (if it is, indeed, the majority’s argument);3 but it is not the only one. Arguments could be made, and should at least be entertained, that the Rules of Criminal Evidence contemplate the abolition of the caselaw requirement of a jury instruction that extraneous misconduct be shown to have been perpetrated by the accused to a level of confidence beyond a reasonable doubt before the jury may consider it. We have said that the new rules place a premium on the admission of relevant evidence — even that of “other crimes, wrongs, or acts,” so long as that evidence is not proffered solely for inferences of character conformity. Montgomery v. State, 810 S.W.2d 372 (Tex.Cr.App.1990, 1991) (opinions on original submission and on Court’s own motion for rehearing).

Rules U0U(b) and 10k(a)

Under Tex.R.Cr.Evid., Rule 404(b) evidence of “other crimes, wrongs, or acts” having relevance apart from character conformity may be admissible for proper purposes, if there is any evidence from which a jury could rationally infer the accused committed it. Nothing in the text of Rule 404(b) suggests that any preliminary showing is necessary before such evidence may be introduced; it is subject only to general strictures of Tex. R.Cr.Evid., Rules 402 (hierarchical exceptions) and 403 (balancing special exclusions); Tex.R.Cr.Evid., Rule 104(a) does not require a preliminary finding by the court that the prosecution has proved the act to any level of *164confidence. See Huddleston v. United States, 485 U.S. at 687-689, 108 S.Ct. at 1500-1501, 99 L.Ed.2d at 780-782. If there is any evidence of extraneous misconduct that would tend to make the existence of a fact of consequence more probable or less probable than it would be without that evidence (apart from character conformity) if the accused was the perpetrator, then any evidence the accused was the perpetrator makes that evidence “relevant.” Tex.R.Cr. Evid., Rule 401. Any such evidence should therefore be admitted under Rule 402 (“All relevant evidence is admissible ...”) — again, subject only to the determination whether, inter alia, if the inference that the accused perpetrated the offense is not a particularly compelling one, it ought nevertheless to be excluded because the probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice, under Rule 403.
It would be inconsistent with the emphasis on admissibility of relevant evidence to admit evidence of extraneous misconduct under the above scheme of rules and still instruct the jury that it must find that the accused committed the misconduct to a level of confidence beyond a reasonable doubt before it may give that evidence any probative value whatsoever. As long as the evidence is contemplated by Rule 404(b), relevant under Rules 401 and not more prejudicial than probative under Rule 403, and thus determined admissible pursuant to Rule 104(a); and as long as the jury is clearly instructed it must find all elemental facts to a level of confidence beyond a reasonable doubt, an instruction that it must also find some item of evidentiary fact to that same level of confidence before considering it is arguably superfluous. Neither due process and due course of law, nor the rules themselves, remotely require it. Cf. Santana v. State, 714 S.W.2d 1 (Tex.Cr.App.1986) (due process does not require instruction at punishment phase of capital murder prosecution that jury must find accused committed extraneous offenses beyond a reasonable doubt before considering them in deliberations on special issues, so long as jury is clearly instructed it can only answer ‘yes’ if it finds beyond a reasonable doubt that special issues should be answered that way).

Bules Wi(b) and 10k(b)

In contrast to determining preliminary questions of admissibility of evidence for purposes of Rule 404(b) under Rule 104(a), see ante, Rule 104(b) governs conditional admissibility of, inter alia, Rule 404(b) evidence of “other crimes, wrongs or acts.” As the Supreme Court pointed out in Huddleston:
“Evidence is admissible under Rule 404(b) only if it is relevant.... In the Rule 404(b) context, similar act evidence is relevant only if the jury can reasonably conclude that the act occurred and that the defendant was the actor. See United States v. Beechum, 582 F.2d 898, 912-913 (CA5 1978) (en banc). In the instance case, the evidence that petitioner was selling the televisions was relevant under the Govemments’s theory only if the jury could reasonably find that the televisions were stolen.”
Id., 485' U.S. at 689, 108 S.Ct. at 1501, 99 L.Ed.2d at 782 (emphasis added). Thus evidence of the extraneous offense was conditionally admissible subject to introduction of other evidence “connecting it up” with the requisite condition of fact.4 In determining *165whether the proponent of the evidentiary item conditionally admitted has introduced sufficient evidence to fulfill the condition and thereby meet Rule 104(b), “the trial court neither weighs credibility nor makes a finding that the [proponent] has proved the conditional fact ... [; t]he court simply examines all of the evidence in the case and decides whether the jury could reasonably find the conditional fact,” according to the Supreme Court, “by a preponderance of the evidence.” Ibid., at 690,108 S.Ct. at 1501, 99 L.Ed.2d at 782-88. If the preponderance standard is somehow inherent in the language of Rule 104 itself,5 it is arguably anomalous for this Court, having adopted the federal rule, to hold that jurors must yet be instructed to find the conditional fact beyond a reasonable doubt.
By these arguments the caselaw is anachronistic, and should be interred in favor of application of respective rules, reasonably construed under developing law.
We would best resolve these arguments, if not in George itself, then at least at the same time that we consider George. Instead, by essentially assuming in this cause an answer to the issue squarely raised in George, we pretermit any real analysis once we do come to resolve that petition. Indeed, it would not surprise me if the Court were to decide, consistent with its conclusory holding today, to dismiss the petition in George as having been improvidently granted. If the issue regarding jury instructions is really as cut and dried as the majority seems to think, it would appear we have put the State Prosecuting Attorney to the significant trouble of briefing George for naught.

II.

Even if one does accept uncritically the premise that the jury must still be instructed to find the accused committed extraneous misconduct beyond a reasonable doubt before considering it, it does not necessarily follow that the trial judge must determine a rational jury could find he did beyond a reasonable doubt as a predicate to admitting the evidence. This is a Rule 104(b) problem, and on its face the rule requires no such predicate. In the context of evidence of “other crimes, wrongs, or acts,” Rule 104(b) mandates tentative admission of an evidentiary item (assuming it is otherwise admissible under Article IV of the Rules) so long as there is “evidence sufficient to support a finding [that the condition has been fulfilled].” But even as the plurality itself seems to recognize, Rule 104(b) does not prescribe a particular level of confidence by which it must be found that the condition has been fulfilled.6
In the absence of an articulated level of confidence in Rule 104(b), the majority holds that “beyond a reasonable doubt” is appropriate, at least in the extraneous misconduct context, because that is the level of confidence the caselaw requires the jury to have. The plurality believes “it makes no sense” to adopt a standard for admissibility of extraneous misconduct evidence that embraces a level of confidence requirement any less rigorous than that which we require of jurors themselves. Maj. op. at 158-59. “Presumably,” the majority continues, “the standard of admissibility and the jury instruction were intended to mirror one another.” Id. That, of course, entirely begs the question.
I do not read the cases culminating in the McCann “clear showing” test to prescribe a standard for admissibility that includes a determination by the trial court whether the jury could make a finding that the accused committed extraneous misconduct to any particular level of confidence — much less a finding of fulfillment of a requisite condition. The fact is, the standard of admissibility has never “mirrored” the jury instruction. The basis for the majority’s contrary “presump*166tion” seems to consist only of some minimal cross-pollination between the admissibility cases and the jury charge cases, and one of several definitions of the word “clear” given in Black’s Law Dictionary. But.it seems to me the caselaw describing the standard for admissibility of extraneous misconduct describes what the character of the evidence must be before it may be admitted, not to what level of confidence it could reasonably persuade a jury. See, e.g., Williams v. State, 38 Tex.Cr.R. 128, 41 S.W. 645, at 648 (1897) (“... before evidence of an extraneous crime can be offered, some cogent evidence should be adduced of appellant’s connection therewith_”); Walton v. State, 41 Tex.Crim. 454, 55 S.W. 566, at 567 (1900) (“... there should have been some testimony indicating with a reasonable degree of certainty that appellant was guilty” of the extraneous offense); Denton v. State, 42 Tex.Crim. 427, 60 S.W. 670 at 672 (1901) (same as Walton); Glenn v. State, 76 S.W. 757, at 758 (Tex.Cr. App.1903) (before evidence of extraneous misconduct can be admitted, “there must be pertinent testimony tending to show that appellant” is the one who committed it, citing Williams); Fountain v. State, 90 Tex.Crim. 474, 241 S.W. 489, at 491 (1921) (that accused committed extraneous offense “must be shown ... with reasonable certainty”); Hooks v. State, 97 Tex.Crim. 480, 261 S.W. 1053, at 1054-55 (1924) (Opinion on appellant’s motion for rehearing) (same as Glenn); Wells v. State, 118 Tex.Crim. 355, 42 S.W.2d 607, at 608 (1931) (that accused perpetrated extraneous offense must be “satisfactorily shown” to justify admissibility); Shepherd v. State, 143 Tex.Crim. 387,158 S.W.2d 1010, at 1011 (1942) (same as Wells); Clark v. State, 145 Tex.Crim. 63,165 S.W.2d 747 (1942) (that accused perpetrated extraneous offense must be “shown”); Carmean v. State, 163 Tex.Crim. 218, 290 S.W.2d 240 (1956) (citing, at one point or another, all of the above); Tomlinson v. State, 422 S.W.2d 474 (Tex.Cr.App.1968) (State must be “prepared to prove that the accused committed” extraneous misconduct); Landers v. State, 519 S.W.2d 115, at 118 (Tex.Cr.App.1975 (Opinion on State’s motion for rehearing) (quoting 23 Tex.Jur.2d, Evidence, § 194, at p. 294, for the proposition that the accused must be “shown to have been [the] perpetrator” of an extraneous offense before it can be admitted); Fentis v. State, 528 S.W.2d 590, at 592 (Tex.Cr.App.1975) (that accused committed extraneous misconduct “must be shown with some degree of certainty before evidence of [it] can come in”); Tippins v. State, 530 SW.2d 110, at 111 (Tex.Cr.App.1975) (before the State may introduce evidence of extraneous misconduct, it must be “prepared to clearly prove that the accused committed” it); Eanes v. State, 546 S.W.2d 312, at 315 (Tex.Cr.App.1977) (echoing Tomlinson and Landers ).
When McCann crystallized these many articulations of the standard by which to measure admissibility of extraneous misconduct evidence into a “clear showing” test, it did not thereby incorporate a level of confidence component. Instead, the McCann test simply identified what the character of the evidence should be. That evidence must “show” or even “prove” does not necessarily suggest it must persuade to any specific extent, but simply that it provide sufficient substance to support an inference, and to support it “with some degree of certainty.” The language of Rule 104(b) was neither intended to, nor on its face does it, change this “clear showing” standard.
I concur in the result reached by the majority. I do not indulge the majority’s fiction, however, that in its first opinion in this cause the court of appeals was really applying a beyond a reasonable doubt standard, asking itself whether the trial court erred to conclude the jury could reasonably find beyond a reasonable doubt that appellant was the ‘Wesley” in the notebook in State’s exhibit number 76. I would simply hold that the court of appeals applied the correct “clear showing” standard on original submission, and reinstate that judgment on authority of Arcila v. State, 834 S.W.2d 357 (Tex.Cr.App.1992).
Accordingly, I concur in the result, but not the opinion of the majority.
MeCORMICK, P.J., joins this opinion.

. In Huddleston v. United States, supra, the defendant argued that under Fed.R.Evid., Rule 104(a), the trial judge should have made a preliminary finding that all material aspects of any “other crimes, wrongs, or acts” the Government tendered under Fed.R.Evid., Rule 404(b), had been established by a preponderance of the evidence prior to admitting them into evidence. The Supreme Court rejected this argument, holding instead that such a preliminary finding of admissibility of extraneous misconduct is not called for under Rule 104(a). In the Rule 404(b) context, however, it noted that "similar act evidence” is not relevant unless “the jury can reasonably conclude that the act occurred and that the defendant was the actor.” Evidence that Huddleston was selling television sets was relevant only if the jury could reasonably find that the sets were stolen, thus raising the question of “conditional relevance” under Fed.R.Evid., Rule 104(b). In that, the trial court neither weighs credibility nor makes a finding that the conditional fact has been proven, but examines all the evidence and simply decides whether the jury could reasonably find the conditional fact, i.e., that the televisions were stolen, by a preponderance of the evidence. The State Prosecuting Attorney urges us to adopt the Huddleston level of confidence standard, and likewise hold that under our Rule 104(b), the trial court need only find that a rational jury could find all predicate facts by a preponderance of the evidence, not by clear and convincing evidence, as appellant contends, or beyond a reasonable doubt, as the majority today holds.

. Justice Rehnquist cites only 21 C. Wright & K. Graham, Federal Practice and Procedure § 5054, p. 269 (1977), for the proposition that the trial court must decide under federal Rule 104(b) whether a juty could find the condition upon which admissibility of a conditional fact depends by a preponderance of the evidence. The Court had earlier determined that Rule 104(a) questions should be resolved by a preponderance standard, but expressly reserved the question of what standard should prevail under Rule 104(b). See Bourjaily v. United States, 483 U.S. 171, at 176, n. 1, 107 S.Ct. 2775, at 2779, n. 1, 97 L.Ed.2d 144, at 153, n. 1. While that portion of Professors Wright and Graham’s treatise cited by Justice Rehnquist in Huddleston does indeed opine that the trial judge should make a determination whether the jury could rationally find what it calls the "preliminary fact,” it does not say he must determine that they could find that preliminary fact to any particular level of confidence. The Supreme Court thus appears to have imposed the preponderance standard sans authority, and without explanation.

. If it is the majority’s argument, it at least has the virtue of being responsive to the State Prosecuting Attorney’s position that we should adopt the Supreme Court’s construction of Fed.R.Evid., Rule 104(b) in Huddleston.

. As the advisory committee on proposed rule 104 explained:
"In some situations, the relevancy of an item of evidence, in the large sense, depends upon the existence of a particular preliminary fact.... [I]f a letter purporting to be from Y is relied upon to establish an admission by him, it has no probative value unless Y wrote or authorized it. Relevancy in this sense has been labelled ‘conditional relevancy.' Problems arising in connection with it are to be distinguished from problems of logical relevancy, e.g., evidence in a murder case that the accused on the day before purchased a weapon of the kind used in the killing, treated in Rule 401.
"... Accepted treatment, as provided in the rule, is consistent with that given fact questions generally. The judge makes a preliminary determination whether the foundation evidence is sufficient to support a finding of fulfillment of the condition. If so, the item is admitted. [But 'after all the evidence on the issue is in,' subject to further determination of the jury's role vis a vis the "fulfillment” issue.]”
Federal Criminal Code and Rules, (West 1994) at 215; Huddleston, supra, at 690, n. 7, 108 S.Ct. at *1651501-1502, n. 7, 99 L.Ed.2d at 783, n. 7, quoting 21 C. Wright & K. Graham, Federal Practice and Procedure § 5054, pp. 269-270 (footnotes omitted) (emphasis added).

. But see n. 2, ante. Cf. Bourjaily v. United States, 483 U.S. 171, at 175, 107 S.Ct. 2775, at 2778, 97 L.Ed.2d 144, at 152 (1987) (The Federal Rules ... nowhere define the standard of proof the court must observe in resolving [Rule 104(a) ] questions.")

. “Neither the federal nor Texas rules of evidence specify what quantum of proof governs admissibility when the relevancy of the evidence is contingent upon the fulfillment of a conditional fact under rule 104(b).” Maj. op. at 160.