Rogers v. State

Relative to point of error number eight, the majority concludes that the last sentence in Article 37.071(a), V.A.C.C.P., authorizes a defendant to argue the deterrent effect of the death penalty only within the confines of the case on trial. Implicit within that conclusion is the determination that the statutory authorization that the “state and the defendant or his counsel shall be permitted to present argument for or against the sentence of death,” id., does nothing more than grant to the State and the defendant a right they already possessed: the right to argue, on the State’s part, that…