Campbell v. State

• Citation: 382 S.W.3d 545
• Decision Date: 31 August 2012
• Docket Number: No. 03–11–00834–CR.,03–11–00834–CR.
• Parties: Travis CAMPBELL, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee.
• Court: Court of Appeals of Texas

382 S.W.3d 545

Travis CAMPBELL, Appellant,

v.The STATE of Texas, Appellee.

No. 03–11–00834–CR.

Court of Appeals of Texas, Austin.

Aug. 31, 2012.

Lisa C. McMinn, State Prosecuting Attorney, Kathryn A. Scales, Assistant District Attorney, Austin, TX, for The State.

Sue Berkel, Law Office of Sue Berkel, Austin, TX, for Appellant.

Before Justices PURYEAR, HENSON and GOODWIN.

OPINION

DIANE M. HENSON, Justice.

A jury convicted appellant Travis Campbell of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. SeeTex. Penal Code Ann. § 22.02 (West 2011). Pursuant to an agreement with the State regarding punishment, the trial court sentenced Campbell to four years' imprisonment. In his sole issue on appeal, Campbell argues that the trial court erred by improperly admitting Facebook messages that the State contended were created by Campbell. We affirm the judgment of the trial court.

BACKGROUND

At the time of the incident giving rise to Campbell's arrest, Campbell was sharing a house with his girlfriend, Ana B., and her two young children. ¹ On February 26, 2011, the night before the incident, the couple had gone out for dinner and drinks at a local restaurant. At trial, Ana and Campbell presented wholly different accounts of the events following that outing.

According to Ana, Campbell became upset during dinner when Ana received a Facebook message on her phone from one of Campbell's male friends. Following dinner, the couple returned home, and Campbell continued to question Ana about the message. Eventually, Campbell left to go to a party while Ana remained at the house. Ana testified that when Campbell returned, at approximately four in the morning, he woke her and began questioning her again about the Facebook message.

In response to Campbell's questioning, Ana told Campbell to leave and tried to push him off the bed with her feet. According to Ana, Campbell then took off his clothes and approached Ana suggesting he wanted to have sex with her. When Ana resisted, Campbell hit her several times in her face and chest with her cell phone. Ana testified that Campbell then left the room and came back with a two-pronged fork and a knife. Holding the fork to Ana's side, Campbell told Ana to text a profane message to the male friend who had sent Ana the earlier message. Campbell hit Ana in the face with the handle of the fork when she refused. Ana recalled at trial that Campbell also held a knife to her neck and threatened to kill her if she did not “lick his ass.” Ana testified that when she refused, Campbell forced her to have vaginal, anal, and oral sex with him. Afterwards, according to Ana, Campbell threatened Ana's life and hit her repeatedly until she blacked out. When she awoke, Ana grabbed some clothes, kicked a screen off her bedroom window, and jumped out. Ana then ran to her neighbor's house, who upon her request drove her to her aunt's house a few miles away. Shortly thereafter, Deputy Rick Lane with the Travis County Sheriff's Office arrived at Ana's aunt's house, and Ana reported to Lane that she had been sexually assaulted by Campbell.

The next day, Ana went to Saint David's Hospital so that a sexual assault examination could be performed. Julie Gibbs, the sexual assault nurse examiner, testified that Ana had “quite a large amount of injuries, majority to her face, [and] multiple lacerations.” Gibbs testified that Ana had lacerations on her nose and the side of her face, redness to her breast, bruising on her neck and left arm, broken capillaries in the back of her throat, and redness to the vaginal area. Gibbs also stated that the bruise on Ana's arm had three little scabs in the center and that Ana had told her “this was from a kitchen two-prong fork.”

At trial, Campbell took the stand in his own defense and told a very different story. Campbell acknowledged that he and Ana were arguing when they went out for dinner. However, Campbell testified that the argument had begun the night before, when Ana had left her children with him but did not return when she said she would. According to Campbell, Ana was angry with him during dinner because he had threatened to end their relationship over the matter.

According to Campbell, he and Ana went home after dinner and had consensual sex. Campbell denied that he ever forced Ana to have sex. Campbell testified that when he returned home from the party, Ana was intoxicated and mad at him for threatening to end their relationship. Campbell stated that Ana then retrieved the meat fork from the kitchen, held it up to him, and began to hit him in the face. Campbell admitted striking Ana, but explained that he did so only after she had repeatedly hit him. Campbell testified that he then left the house and Ana followed him, falling and injuring herself on the exterior stairs, as he drove away.

At the conclusion of trial, the jury found Campbell “not guilty” of all three counts of aggravated sexual assault as alleged in the indictment. SeeTex. Penal Code Ann. § 22.021 (West 2011). However, the jury found Campbell guilty of one count of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, a fork.²See id.§ 22.02. In accordance with the State's agreement with Campbell, the court imposed a sentence of incarceration for four years. This appeal followed.

In his sole issue on appeal, Campbell complains that the trial court erred in admitting evidence that was not properly authenticated and was harmful to his defense. Specifically, Campbell contends that the trial court erred in admitting a printout of Facebook messages purportedly sent by Campbell to Ana and identified at trial as State's Exhibit 14. Campbell argues that the only authentication evidence presented prior to the admission of the exhibit was Ana's testimony that she received these Facebook messages from Campbell a few days after the alleged assault, that she did not send them to herself, and that she did not have access to Campbell's Facebook account after the incident. Campbell asserts that there is no evidence that the messages are in fact from his Facebook account. Campbell contends that the trial court's admission of these messages was harmful error because the exhibit was “a crucial piece of evidence establishing the aggravated assault with the fork.”

The State counters that the trial court did not err in admitting the Facebook messages because the State presented sufficient evidence to support a finding that the messages were sent by Campbell. Alternatively, the State contends that if there was any error in admitting the messages, it was harmless.

APPLICABLE LAW AND STANDARD OF REVIEW

Under rule 104(a) of the Texas Rules of Evidence, whether or not to admit evidence at trial is a preliminary question to be decided by the court. Tex.R. Evid. 401(a); Tienda v. State, 358 S.W.3d 633, 638 (Tex.Crim.App.2012). Only relevant evidence is admissible. Tex.R. Evid. 401, 402. The issue of authentication—that the proffered evidence is what the proponent claims it to be—arises when “the relevancy of any evidence depends upon its identity, source, or connection with a particular person, place, thing, or event.” Shea v. State, 167 S.W.3d 98, 104 (Tex.App.-Waco 2005, pet. ref'd). Evidence has no relevance if it is not authentically what the proponent claims it to be. Tienda, 358 S.W.3d at 638.

The requirement of authentication or identification is a condition precedent to admissibility and is satisfied by evidence sufficient to support a finding that the matter in question is what the proponent claims it is. Tex.R. Evid. 901(a). Whether the proponent of evidence has satisfied the threshold requirement of authenticity is one of the preliminary questions to be decided by the court. Tienda, 358 S.W.3d at 638. However, rule 901 “does not erect a particularly high hurdle, and that hurdle may be cleared by circumstantial evidence.” Peter T. Hoffman, Texas Rules of Evidence Handbook, Article IX at 948 (8th ed. 2008–09) (quoting United States v. Chin, 371 F.3d 31, 37 (2d Cir.2004)). The proponent of evidence does not need to “rule out all possibilities inconsistent with authenticity, or to prove beyond any doubt that the evidence is what it purports to be.” Id. In fact, in performing its gate-keeping function under rule 104, the trial court itself need not be persuaded that the proffered evidence is authentic. Tienda, 358 S.W.3d at 638. Rather, the ultimate question of whether an item of evidence is what the proponent claims is a question for the fact finder. Id. In a jury trial, the preliminary question for the trial court to decide is simply whether the proponent of the proffered evidence has supplied facts that are sufficient to support a reasonable jury determination that the evidence is authentic. Id.; see also Manuel v. State, 357 S.W.3d 66, 74 (Tex.App.-Tyler 2011, pet. ref'd) (“The proponent must only produce sufficient evidence that a reasonable fact finder could properly find genuineness.”).

An appellate court reviews a trial court's decision as to whether evidence is properly authenticated for an abuse of discretion. Tienda, 358 S.W.3d at 638. A trial court does not abuse its discretion when it reasonably believes that a reasonable juror could find that the evidence has been authenticated. Druery v. State, 225 S.W.3d 491, 502 (Tex.Crim.App.2007). If the trial court's ruling is at least “within the zone of reasonable disagreement,” we will not interfere. Id.

DISCUSSION

Rule 901 of the Texas Rules of Evidence provides a nonexclusive list of methods for authentication of evidence. See Tex.R. Evid. 901. For example, evidence may be authenticated by testimony from a witness with knowledge that a matter is what it is claimed to be. Id. R. 901(b)(1). Evidence may also be authenticated by “appearance, contents, substance, internal patterns, or other distinctive characteristics, taken in conjunction with circumstances.” Id. R. 901(b)(4). In the context of communications, the authentication issue that generally arises is whether the evidence...