Texas Supreme Court labels immigration status as a "flammable" issue in a jury trial

Strasburger & Price LLP
Brad Kizzia

USA
April 29 2010

Don't assume that it will be easy to admit a witness' illegal immigration status into evidence after the Texas Supreme Court 's recent TXI Transportation Company vs Hughes decision. The Hughes case involved a wrongful death action arising out of a four-person fatality accident. The alleged cause of the accident was a TI employee who also happened to be an illegal immigrant who obtained a commercial Texas driver's license using a fake Social Security number. The jury found for the plaintiffs and the trial court awarded compensatory damages of $15.7 million and assessed exemplary damages in the amount of $6.6 million. In a 7-1 decision, the Texas Supreme Court reversed and remanded the case for a new trial because the driver's illegal immigrant status should not have been admitted into evidence under the facts of this case.

The Court ruled that the admission of driver's illegal immigration status violated Texas Rule of Evidence 608(b), which generally precludes evidence of specific conduct for purposes of attacking a witness' credibility. More importantly, the Court also found that the evidence was "plainly calculated to inflame the jury" and that any possible relevance was outweighed by its potential to prejudice the jury. The immigrant truck driver's negligence was "hotly contested" and he had a clean driving record. Pointing out that the plaintiffs sought to call attention to the driver's illegal immigration status whenever they could, the Court declared: "Such appeals to racial and ethnic prejudices, whether explicit and brazen or veiled and subtle, cannot be tolerated because they undermine the very basis of our judicial process."

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