DocketNumber： AP-74,574
Filed Date： 2/15/2006
Status： Precedential
Modified Date： 9/15/2015
As I understand it, appellant's defense at trial was that he was not guilty of capital murder but was guilty only of murder, claiming he murdered the victim during an altercation and took his truck and other property merely as an after-thought. To this end, appellant, through his cross-examination of Sheriff's deputy Prince, sought to establish that Prince fabricated a portion of appellant's written statement to Prince where appellant claimed to have told his brother Billy that he planned to murder the victim for his vehicle. The prosecution rebutted this defensive theory on re-direct examination of Prince with Prince's testimony that brother Billy gave the police an unfabricated statement that was "very consistent" with appellant's statement to Prince. This evidence, therefore, apparently was offered, not for the hearsay purpose of supporting the truth of the matter asserted in brother Billy's statement, but for the nonhearsay purpose of proving that Prince did not fabricate the critical portion of appellant's statement that he planned to murder the victim for his vehicle. (1)
In its disposition of points of error two and three, the Court assumes that Prince's testimony was offered for the hearsay purpose of supporting the truth of the matter asserted in brother Billy's statement, and then decides that the admission of this testimony violated appellant's confrontation rights under Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (2004). The Court nevertheless decides that any error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt essentially because appellant stole other items besides the victim's truck.
This, however, has little, if anything, to do with whether the admission of brother Billy's statement for its hearsay purpose was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt given appellant's defense in this case. Appellant never disputed that he stole the victim's property. His defense was that he did not form the intent to steal any of the victim's property until after he murdered the victim. This being appellant's defense, that portion of his statement to the police where he claimed to have planned to murder the victim for his vehicle took on added significance to the prosecution's case that appellant murdered the victim as part of a robbery. A jury could have considered the substance of brother Billy's statement to have been critical evidence to prove this if the jury doubted whether appellant formed the intent to steal the victim's property after the murder and whether Prince fabricated critical portions of appellant's statement. Any error in admitting brother Billy's statement for its truth may have been harmless beyond a reasonable doubt, but not because appellant stole other items besides the victim's truck.
I would dispose of points of error two and three by deciding that the admission of Prince's testimony did not violate appellant's Sixth Amendment Confrontation Clause rights since the record supports a finding that brother Billy's statement was not offered for its truth but for the nonhearsay purpose of rebutting appellant's defensive theory that Prince fabricated critical portions of appellant's statement. See Crawford, 541 U.S. at 59 n.9 (Confrontation Clause does not bar use of testimonial statements for purposes other than establishing the truth of the matter asserted) citing Tennessee v. Street, 471 U.S. 409, 411, 417 (1985) (defendant's Sixth Amendment Confrontation Clause rights not violated by admission of accomplice's confession for nonhearsay purpose of rebutting defendant's testimony that his own confession was coercively derived from the accomplice's confession). The substantive Confrontation Clause claim presented in points of error two and three is controlled by Street which was cited with approval in Crawford, 541 U.S. at 59 n.9.
With these comments, I concur in the Court's judgment.
Hervey, J.
Filed: February 15, 2006
Publish
1. Based on the portions of the record set out in the
Court's opinion, it could be argued that the prosecution offered brother Billy's
statement for its truth (inadmissible purpose) and not to rebut appellant's
defensive theory that Prince fabricated portions of appellant's statement
(admissible purpose). This, however, is of no consequence since appellant did
not request the trial court to limit the evidence to its proper purpose.
See Tex. R. Evid. 105(a) (court's admission without limitation of
evidence admissible for one purpose but inadmissible for another purpose is not
ground for complaint on appeal in absence of request that evidence be limited to
its proper scope).