Carlile v. State
| Docket Number | 02-19-00468-CR |
| Decision Date | 24 November 2021 |
| Parties | Jason Wayne Carlile, Appellant v. The State of Texas, Appellee |
| Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
Do Not Publish Tex.R.App.P. 47.2(b)
On Appeal from the 78th District Court Wichita County, Texas Trial Court No. 61, 562-B
Before Birdwell, Bassel, and Womack, JJ.
Appellant Jason Wayne Carlile appeals his convictions for aggravated sexual assault and sexual assault. We affirm.
Carlile was indicted for two counts of aggravated sexual assault of a minor we will refer to as Kate and seven counts of sexual assault of a minor we will refer to as Laura.[1] See Tex Penal Code Ann. §§ 22.011, .021. He was arrested in November 2018. The trial court later dismissed the last count of sexual assault.
The early stages of the prosecution proceeded without incident. The State produced batches of potentially exculpatory documents on at least four occasions. In May 2019, Carlile requested a continuance, the State did not oppose, and the continuance was granted. In August 2019, Carlile filed another motion for continuance in which he alleged that two of his four retained mental health experts would be unavailable on the scheduled trial date and that they needed additional time to review the case files. At the hearing on the motion, the State warranted that it had fulfilled its discovery duty, stating on the record, "We have turned everything over in this case." This continuance was granted as well, and the case was reset for December 9, 2019.
However as the trial setting drew near, the State produced two more batches of documents, one on November 19 and another on November 26. Carlile again moved for a continuance, citing the need for additional time to investigate the newly produced records and to retain experts to review them. Carlile also filed a motion to recuse, which was promptly denied. After an evidentiary hearing-the details of which we discuss later-the trial court denied Carlile's motion for continuance on December 3, 2019. The trial court later entered findings that most of the documents were straightforward and concerned subjects already known to the defense. According to the court's findings, Carlile had not established what additional time to investigate the documents would achieve, and he had not shown his diligence in investigating the documents. The belated production of documents and the denial of Carlile's motion for continuance are the subject of his first three issues on appeal.
Carlile's attorneys then moved to withdraw, claiming that they were unprepared for trial. The trial court denied the motion to withdraw on December 3.
On December 4, voir dire began. However, Carlile filed a mandamus petition in this court on the same day, and our stay brought the trial to a halt. In his filings, Carlile threatened that if he were not granted mandamus relief in the form of a continuance, his attorneys would purposefully take no part in the trial in order to create a violation of his right to effective assistance and ensure reversal on appeal. After review, we denied mandamus relief.
On December 8, Carlile petitioned for mandamus relief in the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. In his filings, Carlile repeated his threat to boycott the trial if he were not granted relief. The court denied relief.
Once the mandamus proceedings concluded, trial resumed, and the State broached the topic of Carlile's threat to refrain from participating in the trial. The trial court offered Carlile time to confer with his attorneys about this plan, but after a fifteen-minute conference, Carlile's attorneys announced that they still did not plan to participate.
With Carlile's attorneys abstaining, the State and the trial court conducted a formal trial essentially on their own. During voir dire, the State screened the venire for prejudice. The State called and questioned several witnesses, and at one point, it initiated a hearing on the admissibility of its own expert. After the State rested, it asked the trial court to admonish Carlile about his Fifth Amendment rights and his right to testify. The nonparticipation of Carlile's attorneys is the subject of his fourth issue on appeal.
After hearing the evidence, the jury found Carlile guilty on both counts of aggravated sexual assault and six counts of sexual assault. For the counts of aggravated sexual assault, the jury assessed punishment at life imprisonment and a fine of $10, 000. For the counts of sexual assault, the jury assessed punishment at twenty years and a fine of $10, 000. The trial court sentenced Carlile accordingly, with the sentences to run consecutively.
In his first and second issues on appeal, Carlile argues that the State violated his rights by belatedly turning over hundreds of pages of records from the FBI and a clinic that treated the complainant Kate. According to Carlile, the untimely production of these documents violated Brady v. Maryland, [2] the Michael Morton Act, [3] his due process rights, [4] and the prosecutor's duty to see that justice was done.[5]
The State responds that Carlile did not preserve these complaints. We agree with the State.
"The burden of preserving error for appellate review rests on the party challenging the trial court's ruling," usually the appellant. Spielbauer v. State, 622 S.W.3d 314, 318 (Tex. Crim. App. 2021). The burden is placed on the complaining party in order "to prevent blindside attacks on the trial court's rulings." Id.
Preservation requires a timely, specific objection or request. Dixon v. State, 595 S.W.3d 216, 223 (Tex. Crim. App. 2020). "An objection or request is sufficiently specific if the trial court is aware of the complaint or if the grounds are apparent from the context." Gonzalez v. State, 616 S.W.3d 585, 591 (Tex. Crim. App. 2020), cert. denied, No. 21-5327, 2021 WL 5043646 (Nov. 1, 2021). Magic words are not required, but the litigant must let the trial court know what he wants and why he feels himself entitled to it clearly enough for the judge to understand him. Id. A general objection will not preserve error unless the legal basis is obvious to the trial court and opposing counsel. Id. "A complaint is obvious if there are statements or actions on the record that clearly indicate what the judge and opposing counsel understood the argument to be." Id. (internal quotation omitted). "Parties are not permitted to bootstrap a constitutional issue from the most innocuous trial objection, and trial courts must be presented with and have the chance to rule on the specific constitutional basis for admission because it can have such heavy implications on appeal." Golliday v. State, 560 S.W.3d 664, 670 (Tex. Crim. App. 2018) (internal quotation omitted).
Carlile filed a four-page motion for continuance, but it did not mention any of the grounds he argues on appeal. At the hearing, Carlile's attorneys spoke at length about the underpinnings of their motion, and they cross-examined multiple witnesses concerning the need for a continuance. But at no point in the hearing did Carlile's attorneys mention, in connection with the FBI file or clinic record, any of the grounds he now raises on appeal. Nor did the context of the hearing make any of those grounds obvious. Rather, Carlile's arguments in the motion and at the hearing revolved solely around garden-variety continuance concerns: the need for more time to investigate the new documents and the leads they purportedly contained. Without a timely and specific objection or request, nothing is preserved for our review. See Dixon, 595 S.W.3d at 223. "A reviewing court should not address the merits of an issue that has not been preserved for appeal." Ahn v. State, No. 02-17-00004-CR, 2017 WL 6047670, at *6 (Tex. App.-Fort Worth Dec. 7, 2017, no pet.) (mem. op., not designated for publication) (declining to review the merits of unpreserved Brady and Michael Morton Act arguments); see Gonzalez, 616 S.W.3d at 594 (); Martinez v. State, No. 08-14-00130-CR, 2016 WL 4447660, at *6 n.5 (Tex. App.- El Paso Aug. 24, 2016, pet. ref'd) () (same as to Article 2.01 argument).
Because Carlile's first and second issues are not preserved, we overrule them without respect to their merit.
In his third issue, Carlile complains that the trial court erred by denying his motion for continuance after the State produced new documents shortly before trial. He asserts that the denial of a continuance deprived him of his rights to a fair trial and effective assistance of counsel.
Carlile filed his motion for continuance on November 27, 2019. He alleged that the district attorney had recently provided him with 252 pages of new FBI records pertaining to the case as well as 121 pages of new clinical records concerning Kate's treatment at Rose Street Mental Health Treatment. Carlile requested additional time to investigate the psychiatric care providers who were named in the Rose Street records and to retain experts to review the discovery. When the motion was filed, voir dire was set to begin the following week, on December 3. Carlile had previously sought and obtained two continuances.
At the hearing on Carlile's motion, the State gave a timeline of events through witnesses and unchallenged factual representations on the record.[6] By early November, the State believed it had turned over all the necessary discovery to the defense- "everything that we had in our possession," the State's investigator testified. However, later in November, the State learned of a previously unknown FBI file concerning a 2006 investigation of Carlile no sexual abuse was disclosed...
To continue reading
Request your trial