Court Opinion

ID: 9676847
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 05:36:03.744177+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:51.851423
License: Public Domain

BENAVIDES, Judge,
concurring.
In Young v. State, (Tex.Crim.App. No. 0384-90, delivered April 1,1992) (opinion on rehearing, Benavides, J., dissenting), I espoused a position generally inconsistent with that of the Court in the instant cause. As relates to appellant’s comparison analysis argument, I believed, and still do believe, that the now famous Tompkins footnote should have controlled disposition of Young and that voir dire testimony does not automatically become evidence at a Batson hearing, even more so jury cards. Evidence should be introduced at the Bat-son hearing. Thus, it seems to me even more certain that juror questionaires which were not a part of the voir dire examination conducted in the trial judge’s presence should likewise not be considered evidence pertinent to the Batson question unless specifically offered for such purpose at the Batson hearing itself. It seems fitting, therefore, that I take the opportunity to explain in a separate opinion my understanding of an appellate judge’s responsibility to the authoritative decisional law of his State.
When Young was decided, a view which I did not favor became the law in Texas. I am now obliged to enforce that law just as I would any other. The fact that I disagreed with it then, and continue to disagree with it now, is of little more consequence than the fact of my disagreement with some laws enacted by the legislature or other decisions of this Court with which I was not in accord. My clear duty as a citizen and as a judicial officer is to obey and enforce those laws as they are, not as I would have them to be.
Young is the law. I would it were not so, but it is. Therefore, at least until some of my brethren who joined Young come to believe that it was wrongly decided or should be reexamined, or until such time as my own view commands a majority of this *558Court, I am resigned to accept that my opinion of the matter is in the minority and should not control disposition of like questions in any courts of Texas. Hence, I do not think it amiss to join the Court in this cause and to author its written opinion.