Court Opinion

ID: 9761922
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:00:06.78563+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:48:50.829756
License: Public Domain

OVERSTREET, Judge,
concurring and dissenting.
I dissent to the majority’s holding on point three, which avers error by the trial court in refusing to submit appellant’s requested punishment jury charge instruction regarding parole law, i.e. that he would not become eligible for parole on a life sentence until he had served 40 years. In view of his age, he would not have become parole eligible until he was over 70 years old. Surely such a fact would be relevant to the jury’s determination of the future dangerousness special issue. And as the majority notes in its discussion of appellant’s supplemental point of error, the jury expressed just such concern during deliberations by asking the trial court whether parole was a possibility in this case. Such is proof positive of the acuteness of this error.
I continue to dissent to the majority’s treatment of this issue. See, e.g., Smith v. State, 898 S.W.2d 838 (Tex.Cr.App.1995)(plu-rality opinion), cert. denied, 516 U.S. 843, 116 S.Ct. 131, 133 L.Ed.2d 80 (1995); Morris v. State, 940 S.W.2d 610 (Tex.Cr.App.1996), cert. denied, — U.S.-, 117 S.Ct. 2461, 138 L.Ed.2d 218 (1997). As I discussed in some detail in my dissent to Rhoades v. State, 934 S.W.2d 113, 131-44 (Tex.Cr.App. 1996), in light of the United States Supreme Court’s holding in Simmons v. South Carolina, 512 U.S. 154, 114 S.Ct. 2187, 129 L.Ed.2d 133 (1994), I believe that the United States Constitution’s guarantees of due process required appellant’s jury be informed of the forty year parole eligibility law.
I also note that four members of the United States Supreme Court have recently commented upon the “[p]erverse[ness]” of our death penalty scheme not letting the jury know when the defendant will become eligible for parole if he is not sentenced to death. Brown v. Texas, — U.S.-, 118 S.Ct. 355, 139 L.Ed.2d 276 (1997). I likewise find rather perverse this Court’s continued approval of keeping jurors ignorant and uninformed of such a critical legal fact when making life and death decisions as to whether the death penalty will be assessed. Capital jurors deserve to be so informed so that they can make an informed decision. Hopefully a majority of this Court will soon realize this; before the *521Supreme Court explicitly informs us via a myriad of our opinions being reversed.
I respectfully dissent to the majority’s discussion and holding as to point of error number three. Otherwise, I concur in the disposition of all the other points.