Court Opinion

ID: 9777761
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 20:23:42.516985+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:17:27.812171
License: Public Domain

OPINION DISSENTING TO DENIAL OF APPELLANT’S MOTION FOR LEAVE TO FILE MOTION FOR REHEARING WITHOUT WRITTEN OPINION
CLINTON, Judge.
The Court continues to compound the error of the decision in Russell v. State, 665 S.W.2d 771 (Tex.Cr.App.1983) by again refusing to reconsider the continued viability of King v. State, 553 S.W.2d 105 (Tex.Cr.App.1977) which held we need not provide instructional guidance to capital juries on the meaning and import of “deliberately” as employed in the first special punishment issue.
When written, the primary underpinning of King (that “deliberately” is a simple word of and by itself, and jurors know the common meaning of it) appeared to be sound; but developments over the intervening years have illuminated a need to recon*271sider that position. See Russell, supra, at 783, n. 8 (Opinion dissenting). Indeed, the Court has even acknowledged that to construe “intentionally” to be the equivalent of “deliberately” “would render Art. 37.-071(b)(1), [V.A.C.C.P.] a nullity. Under such a [construction the deliberateness question] would be a useless thing in that a finding of an intentional ... murder would be irreconcilable with a finding that the defendant’s conduct was not committed deliberately.” Heckert v. State, 612 S.W.2d 549, 550-551 (Tex.Cr.App.1981).
While this statement from Heckert is absolutely correct and unquestionably compelled by logic, it is ironic indeed that in the same year King was written, the Court noted in Blansett v. State, 556 S.W.2d 322, 327, n. 6 (Tex.Cr.App.1977) that a finding the killing was intentional was irreconcilable with the jury’s negative answer on the deliberateness question.
If in 1977 the members of this Court believed “deliberateness” was the same thing as “intentional,” all the collective legal training notwithstanding, how can we any longer seriously suggest that jurors, without the least bit of assistance, will, in every case not apply it the same way as Blansett — a way Heckert now acknowledges would be unconstitutional?
I can appreciate the fact that once a decision has been made, it is very difficult to reconsider it — particularly when to do so could invalidate a number of past convictions. But it seems to me that when we can clearly see a substantial error in past decisions which is rendering trials unfair and unconstitutional, that the alternative to correcting it ourselves is infinitely more disastrous to the finality and integrity of our capital convictions, as the consequences of Adams v. Texas, 448 U.S. 38, 100 S.Ct. 2521, 65 L.Ed.2d 581 (1980) and Estelle v. Smith, 451 U.S. 454, 101 S.Ct. 1866, 68 L.Ed.2d 359 (1981), should illustrate.
Rather than setting precedent which might invalidate some past capital convictions, the majority instead perpetuates precedent which risks invalidation of not only past convictions, but also every future capital conviction in which jury guidance on “deliberateness” is requested.
Many careful Texas trial judges and prosecutors protected the integrity of capital convictions in their courts by refusing to apply the V.T.C.A. Penal Code, § 12.-31(b) oath and the limitations announced in Witherspoon v. Illinois1 as “separate and independent grounds for exclusion” of capital jurors in spite of the approval given by this Court,2 simply because it was apparent to them that such an application was unconstitutional and unfair. Likewise, it behooves careful trial officials to exercise the same degree of independent thought in instructing capital juries on the import of “deliberateness.” See Williams v. State, 674 S.W.2d 315, 322, n. 6 (Tex.Cr.App.1984).
For the reasons stated in the dissenting opinion in Russell, supra, I remain convinced that the Court’s refusal to reconsider this matter in light of experience and clear indications of confusion is resulting in an unconstitutional application of Article 37.071 in many capital cases.
I dissent.
TEAGUE, J., joins.

. 391 U.S. 510, 88 S.Ct. 1770, 20 L.Ed.2d 776 (1968).

. See Moore v. State, 542 S.W.2d 664 (Tex.Cr. App.1976) and its progeny.