Miranda, Christopher

IN THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS
OF TEXAS
NO. PD-1340-18
CHRISTOPHER MIRANDA, Appellant
v.
THE STATE OF TEXAS
ON STATE’S PETITION FOR DISCRETIONARY REVIEW
FROM THE EIGHTH COURT OF APPEALS
EL PASO COUNTY
YEARY, J., filed a concurring opinion in which SLAUGHTER, J., joined.
CONCURRING OPINION
Today the Court continues along a jurisprudential course of extending, yet again, a
court-invented common-law exception to the court-invented common-law doctrine known
as the corpus delicti rule. See Majority Opinion at 10–11 (describing the common-law
corpus delicti rule, as well as the “closely-related-offenses” exception lately adopted by
Miller v. State, 457 S.W.3d 919 (Tex. Crim. App. 2015)). When the exception does not
apply, the doctrine can lead to an acquittal under circumstances for which an acquittal is
MIRANDA — 2
not justified. This is more than unfortunate. Rather than continue to chart this anomalous
course, I would exercise our prerogative to simply jettison the court-invented common-law
doctrine that generates this anomaly in the first place. Neither Texas statutes nor any
recognized constitutional principle of due process or due course of law requires the rule.
Though courts in Texas have imposed it for decades, the Legislature has never seen fit to
codify it. Certainly, Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307 (1979), does not require it. And
neither should the Court.
I respectfully concur in the result.
FILED: April 21, 2021
PUBLISH