Pringle v. State

• Decision Date: 19 June 1974
• Docket Number: No. 48460,48460
• Citation: 511 S.W.2d 35
• Parties: Kenneth Ray PRINGLE, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee.
• Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals

Page 35

511 S.W.2d 35

Kenneth Ray PRINGLE, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee.

No. 48460.

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.

June 19, 1974.

Rehearing Denied July 17, 1974.

John Ellis, Dallas, for appellant.

Henry Wade, Dist. Atty., & Richard W. Wilhelm, Asst. Dist. Atty., Dallas, and Jim D. Vollers, State's Atty., Austin, for the State.

OPINION

ODOM, Judge.

Appellant was convicted of robbery; punishment was assessed at life. The sufficiency of the evidence is not challenged.

By his first ground of error, appellant contends the trial court erred in admitting State's Exhibits 2 and 3, a shirt and jacket, into evidence, because they were not shown to have belonged to him. The exhibits were shown to have been found in the vicinity of the robbery shortly after it occurred. The jacket fit the description given by the victim of what the robber was wearing and the shirt fit the description of that worn by appellant, seen by the used car salesman who sold appellant the car used in the robbery. Appellant's objections go to the weight of the evidence rather than its admissibility. See e.g. Alejandro v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 394 S.W.2d 523.

Next appellant contends the interrogation of witness Goss constituted fundamental error by the State. The only objections raised at trial were that the questions were leading, called for a conclusion, and were immaterial and irrelevant. The objections were sometimes sustained and sometimes not, but the objection to the only question that was answered was sustained and the jury instructed to disregard. Ordinarily such action will render the questioning harmless 'unless the error is one of so serious a nature that the harm could not be removed,' Chapman v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 503 S.W.2d 237. We are unable to say the error was of so serious a nature in this instance.

Appellant's third ground of error contends improper argument was made at the guilt stage of the trial. The court sustained appellant's objection and instructed the jury to disregard, but denied a motion for mistrial. The argument before the objection was:

'All right now, Mr. Street talked about me and my partner in the case. You know that he said that I was in the courtroom and I brought Davis to the courtroom and had him look in here to see if he could identify the defendant. Well, that is all quite true, I brought the man to the door of the courtroom and asked him because I had never had a confrontation in my presence between the witness and the defendant. I'm certainly not going to apologize for wanting to bring my witness into the courtroom and show him the defendant and make sure and satisfy my own mind that this is the man before I come in here and conduct a jury trial and try to have anyone sent to the penitentary (sic). And I will not apologize for it. And I will tell you something else, if there is any suspicion in Mr. Street's mind that I in some way tainted or brainwashed Mike Davis, Mr. Street can put me on that witness stand and ask me anything he wants to about my actions in regard to this case, but there is a problem there because when he does that, Mr. Ovard then would ask me some questions. I could tell you folks some things about this case that you don't know yet. See, because that is a two edged sword. I will submit to you that if Mr. Street thought if I would have done anything improper--'

Although the argument was improper insofar as portions of it amounted to testimony by counsel, we think the prompt instruction by the trial court was sufficient to render the error harmless.

Finally, appellant alleges improper argument during the punishment stage of the trial. The complained of argument, in context, was:

'You've got to rehabilitate him if you can. Now I seriously question whether anybody is going to have any success rehabilitating this defendant. If he can be rehabilitated, if there is any hope that he can, I would sincerely ask you to assess his penalty at life in the penitentary (sic), and a sentence of life so they will have an opportunity down there to have him long enough to rehabilitate him. I submit to you that if you...