Miller, Christopher Adrian

IN THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS

OF TEXAS

NO. PD-0038-14

CHRISTOPHER ADRIAN MILLER, Appellant v. THE STATE OF TEXAS

ON STATE’S PETITION FOR DISCRETIONARY REVIEW

FROM THE SECOND COURT OF APPEALS

TARRANT COUNTY M EYERS, J., filed a dissenting opinion.

DISSENTING OPINION The majority states that “strict application of the corpus delicti rule is unnecessary” when the multiple crimes confessed to “are sufficiently proximate that the underlying policy reason for the rule is not violated.” Really? Just two months ago, this same majority was called upon in Butcher v. State, No. PD-1662-13, 2015 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 39 (Tex. Crim. App. Jan. 28, 2015), to look at the “underlying policy reason” of the safe release provision of the kidnapping statute. There, however, the majority was quick to avoid any

Miller dissent - Page 2 resolution of that particular question and dispatched with any attempt to apply the legislature’s actual intent with the provision, to promote the safe release of kidnapping victims.

There is no valid reason to erode the corpus delicti rule here and now. It has been a tenet of our state’s judicial system and still serves the important purpose of protecting those who, for any number of reasons, may give a false confession. While changing the rule in the way the majority does might be an attractive solution in this case, I believe it largely removes the protection that the rule was meant to ensure.1

Unfortunately, just as they have done in the past, the majority is retroactively applying their new doctrine in Appellant’s case.2 I disagree with the majority’s altering of the corpus delicti rule and, therefore, I respectfully dissent.

Meyers, J.

Filed: April 15, 2015 Publish