Marin v. State

In Marin v. State, 851 S.W.2d 275, 279-80 (Tex.Crim.App.1993), the Court identified and defined the three categories of rights belonging to litigants. The first category, "absolute requirements and prohibitions" or "systemic" rights, are those rights "which are essentially independent of the litigants' wishes. Implementation of these requirements is not optional and cannot, therefore, be waived or forfeited by the parties. The clearest cases of ... systemic requirements are laws affecting the jurisdiction of the courts." Marin, 851 S.W.2d, at 279. Systemic requirements "are to be observed even without partisan request" and cannot "lawfully be avoided even with partisan consent." Id., at 280. Therefore, an appellant may "complain that an absolute requirement or prohibition was violated, and the merits of his complaint on appeal are not affected by the existence of a waiver or forfeiture at trial." Id. The Court suggested that "our system may be thought to contain rules of three distinct kinds: (1) absolute requirements and prohibitions; (2) rights of litigants which must be implemented by the system unless expressly waived; (3) rights of litigants which are to be implemented upon request." Marin, 851 S.W.2d at 279. The Court stated that most "of the myriad evidentiary and procedural rules comprising our system" are of the last type and therefore fell squarely within the scope of former Rule 52(a). Marin, 851 S.W.2d at 278. Nevertheless, some rights, including some constitutional ones, are properly located under the second identified category. Rights of this variety are not subject to forfeiture strictly because a defendant failed to object at trial: Some rights are widely considered so fundamental to the proper functioning of our adjudicatory process as to enjoy special protection in the system. A principle characteristic of these rights is that they cannot be forfeited. That is to say, they are not extinguished by inaction alone. Instead, if a defendant wants to relinquish one or more of them, he must do so expressly.Marin, 851 S.W.2d at 278-79. Therefore, a Texas appellate court must address the merits of a claim which is rooted in one the rights located in the second Marin category, unless expressly waived, even where the claim is brought for the first time on appeal. See Marin, 851 S.W.2d at 279. In sum, the court of criminal appeals recognized that a defendant's rights arose from distinct rules that generally fall into one of three categories: (1) absolute requirements and prohibitions; (2) rights which must be implemented by the system unless expressly waived; (3) rights which are implemented only upon request and therefore can be forfeited. Id. The court noted that the third category includes rights that arise from rules that are optional at the request of a defendant. Id. at 278. Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 33.1 applies only to these rights; the judge must implement them only on request of a party, and they will be forfeited if no complaint is made at trial. Id. at 280. Ordinary objections to evidence and procedural benefits are included in this category. Id.