Opinion

Boutwell v. State

  • 719 S.W.2d 164
  • 1985 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 1338
Court
Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas
Filed
Apr 24, 1985
Status
Published
Author
Miller
On the bench
Clinton, Miller, Teague, McCormick, Davis, Campbell, Onion, White
Cited by
177 cases
Authority
More cited than 10.6%

Overruled — as noted by a later court

noting that in prosecutions for sex offenses against children, “extraneous acts between the complainant and the defendant are usually more probative than prejudicial”

How later courts described this case

  • noting that in prosecutions for sex offenses against children, “extraneous acts between the complainant and the defendant are usually more probative than prejudicial”
  • noting extraneous sexual offenses between a defendant and a third party are not always inadmissible if they are relevant to a material issue in the case, and the relevancy value outweighs its prejudicial potential
  • recognizing that such offenses may be admitted under the Williams analysis
  • recognizing an exception for admission of extraneous sexual acts between a defendant and a minor complainant under res gestae

Written by the judges who cited it.

Later courts went against this

  • Overruled — as noted by a later court

    Shortly after Mannie, the Court of Criminal Appeals held that the rule in Boutwell was no longer valid, noting that even in Boutwell, the rule had "received only a small plurality of the votes” and that it had already questioned the rule's validity in cases since Boutwell.
    medium confidence
  • Abrogated on other grounds by Vernon v. State, 1992 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 204 (1992)

    Mannie v. State, 738 S.W.2d 751, 758-59 (Tex. App.-Dallas 1987, pet. ref’d) (Thomas, J., concurring) (discussing Boutwell v. State, 719 S.W.2d 164, 173 (Tex. Crim. App. 1985) (op. on reh’g), abrogated by Vernon v. State, '841 S.W.2d 407, 410 (Tex. Crim.
    Court of Criminal Appeals of TexasNov 4, 19922 citing opinionsother groundsRead it

The opinion

MILLER, Judge,

concurring.

I join the majority opinion in its handling of the admissibility of extraneous offenses. I write only to question the continued viability of cases such as Coleman v. State, 632 S.W.2d 616 (Tex.Cr.App.1982) at least in so far as they sponsor a blanket rule that grounds of error raised in supplemental brief are not properly before an appellate court.

In this case the Austin Court of Appeals granted appellant permission to file his supplemental brief containing five new grounds of error and addressed those grounds of error. The motivation of the Austin Court of Appeals is commendable. Originally this case was a direct appeal to the Court of Criminal Appeals. In 1981 it was transferred to the Austin Court of Appeals when that court, as well as all of the other intermediate appellate courts in Texas, gained criminal jurisdiction. The case had still not been submitted 1 to the Austin Court of Appeals by 1983. In this interim three-year period of time some 50 volumes of West Publishing Company’s Southwestern Reporter Second Edition were published. They naturally contained numerous cases involving the law of extraneous offenses.

While the Austin Court of Appeals was not obligated to allow the filing of a supplemental brief containing new grounds of error it chose to do so. Having chosen to do so and having granted permission to the appellant to raise new grounds of error, the Austin court quite properly acquired jurisdiction to dispose of these grounds. 2 This is a far different situation from that in which appellant seeks to force additional grounds of error onto an appellate court against its will by the filing of a supplemental brief. In such a situation, Coleman, supra, has merit.

Therefore, I do not

“agree that under Coleman, supra, appellant’s contentions were not properly before the Court of Appeals and thus are *188 not properly before this Court.” (Opinion, p. 173.)

However, since the majority opinion does reach the grounds of error and correctly analyzes and disposes of them, I join the remainder of the majority opinion.

. "Submitted” refers to the movement of a case from the office of the clerk of an appellate court to the judges of the appellate court for disposition. Submission is normally done simultaneously with oral argument, if requested by the parties.

. It is worthy of note that nothing in the new , Texas Rules of Appellate Procedure, effective September 1, 1986, prohibits such an action.

This is a copy of a public record, reproduced as it was published. It is not legal advice, and it may not be the version a court would rely on. Check the official source before you cite it.

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