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Mansfield v. State

The defendant did not have to take the stand to establish his probation eligibility because his father had already done so by saying that the defendant had never been convicted of a felony. The defendant could have declined to testify and relied solely upon the testimony he had successfully elicited from his father to support the submission of the issue of probation. Court of Criminal Appeals, No. PD-1263-08, 03-17-2010

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Keller, P.J., delivered the opinion of the Court in which Meyers, Womack, Keasler, Hervey, and Holcomb, JJ., joined. Johnson, J., filed a concurring opinion in which Price and Cochran, JJ., joined.

The trial court refused to allow defense counsel to ask appellant’s father if appellant had ever been placed on felony probation. Appellant subsequently took the stand to testify that he had not been placed on felony probation before. He was impeached by the State with evidence of extraneous bad acts, and he was asked whether he accepted the jury verdict of guilt, to which he responded, “No.” The jury sentenced him to 20 years. The Court of Appeals rejected appellant’s complaint on appeal, holding that the father’s proffered testimony was inadmissible due to lack of personal knowledge.*fn1

We granted appellant’s petition to address whether the court of appeals’s holding was correct, but in its brief on discretionary review, the State points out a wrinkle in the case: Appellant’s father testified, without objection, that appellant had never been convicted of a felony. The following occurred:

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