Coleman v. State
| Decision Date | 16 January 2020 |
| Docket Number | No. 02-18-00471-CR,02-18-00471-CR |
| Parties | TERRENCE COLEMAN, Appellant v. THE STATE OF TEXAS |
| Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
On Appeal from the 158th District Court Denton County, Texas
Before Kerr, Birdwell, and Bassel, JJ.
A jury found Appellant Terrence Coleman guilty of burglary of a habitation with the intent to commit sexual assault and assessed his punishment at ninety-nine years' confinement. See Tex. Penal Code Ann. §§ 12.42(c), 30.02. He raises two issues on appeal.
First, Coleman argues that the trial court erred by denying his requests for a mistrial due to the admission of extraneous-offense evidence and his inability to properly prepare for trial. We conclude that the trial court did not err by denying his motions for mistrial. As to the admission of extraneous-offense evidence, Coleman waived error, if any, by not objecting each time the State referred to the evidence during its opening statement, by being the first party to offer such evidence at trial, and then by not objecting to such evidence when the State introduced it at other points during the trial. The trial court also did not abuse its discretion by admitting the evidence because it was relevant to rebut Coleman's defense of consent and to explain how Coleman had become a suspect in the burglary, and the evidence was not substantially outweighed by unfair prejudice.
The trial court also did not err by denying Coleman's motions for mistrial regarding an inability to prepare for trial when he based these motions on the trial court's prior denial of his multiple oral motions for continuance. Because it was within the trial court's discretion to deny an oral motion for continuance, the trial court did not err by denying Coleman's subsequent oral motions for mistrial.
Second, Coleman argues that the trial court erred by denying his requested new trial because the punishment assessed violates both the United States and Texas Constitutions as being excessive, cruel, and unusual. After conducting a threshold inquiry as to whether there is an inference that the punishment assessed is grossly disproportionate to the crime, we conclude that there is no such inference in this case.
Accordingly, we affirm.
The State charged Coleman with having committed, on or about April 15, 2016, burglary of a habitation with the intent to commit sexual assault, credit-card abuse against an elderly person, and fraudulent use or possession of identifying information against an elderly person.2
The theft-related offenses involved Coleman's alleged use of stolen credit cards at a Valero gas station in Lewisville, Denton County, Texas to buy beer and cigarettes on April 15, 2016, prior to the burglary later that day. The cards came from an elderly woman's purse, which Coleman had allegedly stolen earlier that morning at a Tom Thumb in Coppell. Surveillance videos from the Valero and Tom Thumb captured clear images of the suspect and showed the same Toyota Camry at both locations. The Valero surveillance videos also showed the Toyota heading north, toward Denton, when it left the station.
The burglary took place in Denton around 4:00 p.m. at the Ridge apartments, an apartment complex with a largely college-student population. According to the complainant's trial testimony, a black male whom she had never seen before—who smelled strongly of cigarettes, and who wore navy blue or black sweatpants, a black hoodie, a white shirt, and a white hat—pushed his way into her apartment and sexually assaulted her. This was a stranger-on-stranger offense. The perpetrator took steps to conceal his identity, such as by making sure that he did not leave anything behind, taking a used condom and condom wrapper with him, making the complainant wash a t-shirt that he had used to wipe himself, and threatening to hurt the complainant if she told anyone. Surveillance videos showed the same Toyota involved in the theft-related offenses at the Ridge apartments when the burglary occurred, but it was not until later that Denton investigators discovered how the vehicle connected Coleman to both the theft-related offenses and the burglary.
The purse-theft investigation by Coppell detectives ultimately led to Coleman's identification by Denton detectives as the suspect in the burglary. Coppell detectives created a Crime Stoppers Bulletin using the theft-related surveillance videos. After they received tips naming Coleman, Coppell investigators contacted his probation officer, who positively identified Coleman from the theft-related surveillance.3
A few days later, Coleman's probation officer received a bulletin about the burglary; she noticed the burglary had been committed on the same date as the theft-related offenses and also noticed similarities between both offenses' suspect and vehicle descriptions. She then contacted the Denton detective investigating the burglary and provided him with Coleman's name. The Denton detective traced the Toyota's location on April 15, 2016, which led him to identify Coleman as a suspect for the burglary. Coleman was arrested and during a May 2016 interview with a Denton detective, Coleman denied having been in Denton on April 15, 2016, and denied having had sexual contact with anyone at the Ridge apartments. Years later, when the burglary went to trial and after the State had obtained DNA evidence linking Coleman to the offense, he admitted to being at the apartments and having had sex with the complainant—but he claimed it was consensual.
On the first day of trial, prior to voir dire, Coleman asked the trial court to sever the theft-related offenses from the burglary. The State replied that even if the cases were severed, it would go into the theft-related offenses in the burglary trial because those other offenses had led the police to identify Coleman for the burglary. At Coleman's repeated request, the trial court granted the severance, proceeding to trial on only the burglary.
Just prior to opening statements the following day, the trial court held a hearing outside the presence of the jury on Coleman's motion in limine and on the State's request to go into the theft-related offenses during its opening statement. The State argued that it wanted to go into these other offenses for purposes of identification as they were part and parcel of the same offense and same course of conduct, and for purposes of identity, intent, and opportunity. Overruling Coleman's motion in limine, the trial court ruled that the State could go into these offenses for identification purposes and to explain how it had linked Coleman to the offense for which he was on trial.
In support of his first issue on appeal, Coleman cites four oral motions for mistrial relating to extraneous-offense evidence or his inability to prepare for trial during the guilt-innocence phase.4 The trial court denied each motion. We will discuss each motion in our analysis below.
After the jury found Coleman guilty of burglary in the guilt-innocence phase, the jury found that the enhancement paragraph (prior felony conviction for conspiracy to commit bank theft) was true and assessed his punishment at ninety-nine years' confinement during the punishment phase. See Tex. Penal Code Ann. §§ 12.42(c), 30.02. The trial court then entered judgment accordingly.
The trial court held a hearing on Coleman's motion for new trial during which he argued that his offense involved "no real violence" and that the assessed punishment was excessive and unconstitutional under the United States and Texas Constitutions, basing his argument on a summary of other cases involving lesser punishments and more violence than his offense. The trial court denied the motion.
In support of his first issue, Coleman argues that the trial court erred by denying his motions for mistrial based on the admission of extraneous-offense evidence. He cites two oral motions for mistrial that he made on this basis: one during the State's opening statement and a second during the State's direct-examination of Detective Jason Acker—a Coppell detective who had investigated the purse theft.5 Coleman contends that the extraneous-offense evidence was irrelevant, inflammatory, and unduly prejudicial and that it allowed the jury to convict him for being a criminal generally.
Before turning to the merits, we state our interpretation of the arguments that Coleman makes on appeal. Although he argues generally about the supposedly prejudicial effect of extraneous-offense evidence at trial, he specifically states that the trial court erred by denying his motions for mistrial. Thus, Coleman cabins our review to the issue of the refusal to grant his motions for mistrial. In other words, he does not assign error based on the claim that the trial court erroneously overruled any objections that he asserted to the admission of any specific extraneous-offense evidence under Texas Rules of Evidence 401, 403, or 404(b). And although Coleman had argued against the admission of the extraneous-offense evidence when he presented his motion in limine pretrial, the trial court's overruling of his motion in limine preserved nothing for our review. See Swilley v. State, 465 S.W.3d 789, 795 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth 2015, no pet.) (citing Geuder v. State, 115 S.W.3d 11,...
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