Court Opinion

ID: 9760499
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 00:57:55.292587+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:12.941023
License: Public Domain

KELLER, Judge,
dissenting.
I join Judge Mansfield’s dissenting opinion and add the following:
First, the majority equates non-waivable error with automatic reversible error. The two are not synonymous in spite of Powell, Stine, and Sodipo.1 The majority admits that in Geesa this Court “created” what it here calls an absolute systemic right, and finds no prohibition against mandating reversal for the neglect of that right. Perhaps there is no prohibition, but it is my opinion that this Court should neither create rights nor declare that our creations are immune from a harm analysis.
Moreover, this is a direct evidence case. Thus, the jury charge that was given is the same as would have been given before Geesa. There cannot be harm in giving the very instruction that was given for years in every direct evidence case tried before Geesa.
I respectfully dissent.
MeCORMICK, P.J., and WHITE, J., join.

. We could have, but did not, hold in Marin v. State, 851 S.W.2d 275 (Tex.Crim.App.1993), that such errors were never subject to harmless error analyses.