Davis v. State

I would reverse this case on the basis of the trial court’s failure to allow the appellant to test the prosecutor’s good faith in impeaching the appellant at the punishment hearing through the use of offenses committed while the appellant was a juvenile.

The record reflects that the appellant’s sister, Dorothy Jean Nash, testified at the punishment hearing concerning the appellant’s reputation in the community. When asked what that reputation was, she replied that “everybody seemed to like him.”

On cross-examination the prosecutor asked Mrs. Nash if she had heard “that on December 19 of 1967…