Leonard, William Thomas
Leonard, William Thomas
Opinion
IN THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS OF TEXAS NO. PD-0551-10 WILLIAM THOMAS LEONARD, Appellant v. THE STATE OF TEXAS ON STATE’S PETITION FOR DISCRETIONARY REVIEW FROM THE ELEVENTH COURT OF APPEALS TARRANT COUNTY H ERVEY, J., filed a concurring opinion in which K ELLER, P.J., and K EASLER, J., joined.
CONCURRING OPINION I join the Court’s opinion, but I write separately to comment that the dissent disregards a key part of our holding in Hernandez v. State, 116 S.W.3d 26 (Tex. Crim.
App. 2003). In Hernandez, we emphasized that appellate courts may not be “independent scientific sleuths to ferret out the appropriate scientific materials.” Id. at 31. The trial court is the proper venue for the presentation of scientific articles and learned treatises.
Leonard concur - 2 Id. at 30. After all, “[t]he trial court hearing is the main event for Daubert/Kelly gatekeeping hearings; it is not a try-out on the road to an appellate scientific seminar.” Id. Although the dissent cites to Hernandez, it does precisely that which we prohibited by relying on Professor Faigman’s Modern Scientific Evidence and the National Research Council’s The Polygraph and Lie Detection, materials not presented to the trial court.
“An appellate court that consults scientific literature on its own initiative thrusts itself into the position of a fact finder–a position appellate courts traditionally do not occupy and for which they are ill-suited.” Hernandez, 116 S.W.3d at 32 (Keller, P.J., concurring).
With these comments, I join the Court’s opinion.
Hervey, J.
Filed: March 7, 2012 Publish
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.