Court Opinion

ID: 9681599
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 07:53:05.439904+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:34.722995
License: Public Domain

MALONEY, Judge,
concurring.
I concur in the disposition of points of error six and seven, and otherwise join the opinion of the Court. In his sixth point of error, appellant complains that he did not receive adequate warnings pursuant to Tex. Code Grim. Proc. Ann. art. 38.22, § 3 prior to making his videotaped oral statements. In resolving this point, the majority discusses whether § 3 requires warnings to be given by the individual “to whom the statement is made.” This epistle is unnecessary to the disposition of this point of error for two reasons. First, as the majority notes in footnote six, the record supports the trial court’s finding that appellant’s polygraph examination and Hidalgo’s questioning of. appellant constituted a single, continuous interrogation. In view of this finding, the warnings administered prior to the polygraph examination, a fact which is undisputed, also extended to the videotaped oral statements. Second, appellant does not argue in his brief that his statement was taken in violation of § 3 because the warnings were not given by the individual “to whom the statement is made.” Review of the statement of facts reveal that such an objection was lacking in the trial court as well. I would overrule this point of error by concluding that the record supports the trial court’s finding that the warnings appellant received prior to the polygraph examination extended to Hidalgo’s interview of appellant.
In point of error seven, appellant alleges that his videotaped oral statements and his third written statement were taken in violation of Texas law because they were the products of an illegal warrantless arrest. I agree with the majority’s determination that the arrest was illegal. I further agree with the majority that the error was harmless. In addition to holding the error harmless, however, the majority finds that appellant’s statements were admissible because “the taint between the arrest and appellant’s custodial statements [was] sufficiently attenuated.” Majority op. at 262. Discussion of the attenuation doctrine is unnecessary because appellant’s incriminating statement was made before the illegal arrest. Nonetheless, the majority relies upon Bell v. State, 724 S.W.2d 780, 788 n. 4, for the proposition that “a custodial confession may sometimes be motivated by a precustodial event, ...,” which in this case was appellant’s preeustodial admission to being present at the murder scene. Majority op. at 262. The majority’s reliance on Bell is unpersuasive. The statement in Bell is a quote from Justice Stevens’ concurring opinion in Dunaway v. New York, 442 U.S. 200, 220, 99 S.Ct. 2248, 2260-2261, 60 L.Ed.2d 824 (1979) in the context of a discussion of the vagaries of the “temporal proximity” factor. Bell, 724 S.W.2d at 788. The only place this language is found in our caselaw appears in footnote four in Bell addressing the same issue.
For the foregoing reasons, I concur only with points of error six and seven, and otherwise join the opinion of the Court.