Crumpton v. State

• Decision Date: 09 December 2009
• Docket Number: No. PD-1634-07.,PD-1634-07.
• Parties: Lindsey Alyn CRUMPTON, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas.
• Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals

301 S.W.3d 663

Lindsey Alyn CRUMPTON, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas.

No. PD-1634-07.

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.

December 9, 2009.

Rehearing Denied February 3, 2010.

Robert Udashen, Dallas, for Lindsey Alyn Crumpton.

Amy Sue Melo Murphy, Jeffrey L. Van Horn, State's Attorney, Austin, for The State of Texas.

WOMACK, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which JOHNSON, KEASLER, HERVEY, and COCHRAN, JJ., joined.

The issue is the propriety of a deadly-weapon finding in a judgment of guilt of the offense of criminally negligent homicide. The Court of Appeals upheld the finding. Crumpton v. State, No. 05-06-01673-CR, 2007 WL 2460085 (Tex.App.-Dallas 2007) (not designated for publication).

The one-count indictment alleged (and the evidence showed) that the appellant did "cause the death of an individual . . . by driving her motor vehicle, a deadly weapon . . . to . . . strike and collide with the complainant's motor vehicle."

The jury's verdict was, "We, the jury[,] find the defendant guilty of criminally negligent homicide, as included in the indictment."

The jury's verdict was a finding that the defendant used a deadly weapon. One reason is that the verdict expressly found the defendant guilty of the offense "as included in the indictment." The indictment expressly alleged that the defendant committed the offense with "a deadly weapon." The verdict's reference to the indictment therefore constituted a finding that that allegation was true.

Another reason is that a verdict of homicide necessarily is a finding that a deadly weapon was used. The statutory definition of "deadly weapon" includes "anything that in the manner of its use . . . is capable of causing death . . . ." Penal Code section 1.07(a)(17)(B). Having found that the defendant was guilty of homicide, the jury necessarily found that the defendant used something that in the manner of its use was capable of causing—and did cause—death. Therefore the verdict was an adequate basis for the trial court's entry of the deadly-weapon finding in the judgment.

Today's decision is consistent with, and was foreshadowed by, our decision in Blount v. State, 257 S.W.3d 712 (2008), in which we held that an allegation that the defendant committed or attempted to commit aggravated assault was adequate notice that there would be an issue of his exhibition or use of a deadly weapon since each manner of committing aggravated assault involves the use of a deadly weapon.

A dissenting opinion¹ makes two points, neither of which rebuts our reasoning. One is that, in Ex parte Beck, this court said in dicta that, "had the jury not answered a special issue that the gun was a deadly weapon there would have been no affirmative finding of deadly weapon made, even upon the return of `guilty as charged in the indictment.'" But the statement in Beck was based on a holding that we expressly rejected just last year in Blount. The Beck opinion said that "where there is no allegation in the indictment which comports with the definition of deadly weapon as set out in § 1.07(a)[17](B) [of the Penal Code], the defendant is clearly not put on notice that there will be an issue in the case concerning use or exhibition of a deadly weapon."² In Blount we held the opposite, as we have said above.

The dissenting opinion's other point is that a verdict's finding of "guilty as charged in the indictment" (or, in this case, "as included in the indictment") may not be a finding that a deadly weapon was used. Again, this reasoning is inconsistent with Blount and the express language of the deadly-weapon statute. If a deadly weapon is anything that is capable of causing death or serious bodily injury, and the indictment alleges that the defendant caused death or serious bodily injury, and the jury finds the defendant guilty as charged in the indictment, the verdict is necessarily a finding that a deadly weapon was used.

The only thing that today's decision adds to our holding in Blount is the decision that the jury's verdict was an adequate basis for the trial court's entry of the affirmative finding in the judgment under the statutes which require such findings.³ This decision follows naturally and easily from the holding of Blount.

The difficult question (which neither dissenting opinion addresses) would be: In the face of such statutory requirements for deadly-weapon findings, how could a jury convict a defendant of a homicide (and a trial court enter a judgment for that offense) without finding that a deadly weapon was used? There might be a possibility of an illogical and inconsistent act of clemency by a jury, which might have the power to so act in answering a special verdict about the use of a deadly weapon. But in this case the jury entered a verdict which affirmatively supports the trial court's judgment that a deadly weapon was used.

We affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.

HERVEY, J., filed a concurring opinion, in which KEASLER and COCHRAN, JJ., joined.

KELLER, P.J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which PRICE and HOLCOMB, JJ., joined.

MEYERS, J., filed a dissenting opinion.

HERVEY, J., filed a concurring opinion in which KEASLER and COCHRAN, JJ., joined.

The court of appeals decided that the jury's application-paragraph findings and the verdict form constituted an express deadly-weapon finding under this Court's decision in LaFleur v. State, 106 S.W.3d 91 (Tex.Cr.App.2003).¹ I agree.

The charged manslaughter-offense indictment, in relevant part, alleged that appellant recklessly caused the complainant's death "by driving her motor vehicle, a deadly weapon" into the complainant's vehicle. The contested issue at trial was whether appellant drove her motor vehicle recklessly or negligently. In the jury-charge application paragraph on the lesser-included offense of criminally negligent homicide, the jury was instructed to find appellant guilty of "criminally negligent homicide as included in the indictment" if it found that appellant caused the complainant's death by criminal negligence. In its verdict form, the jury found appellant "guilty of criminally negligent homicide, as included in the indictment."

Although the jury-charge application paragraph on the lesser-included offense of criminally negligent homicide did not precisely track the language of the indictment, as was the case in Lafleur,² I believe that the reasoning of Lafleur still applies to this case. In this case, the reference in the application paragraph to the indictment with its "included in the indictment" language brings this case within Lafleur, because this was the equivalent of instructing the jury to find appellant guilty of criminally negligent homicide if it found that appellant negligently caused the complainant's death "by driving her motor vehicle, a deadly weapon" into the complainant's vehicle. See Lafleur, 106 S.W.3d at 99 ("In this case, the combination of: 1) the indictment which alleged `a deadly weapon: to wit, a firearm'; 2) the jury charge application paragraph of the lesser-included offense of manslaughter that required a finding, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the appellant used `a deadly weapon: to-wit, a firearm'; and 3) the jury's verdict, that appellant was guilty of the lesser-included offense of manslaughter, contained an express finding that appellant used a firearm, which is a deadly weapon per se, to cause the complainant's death.").

I believe that an examination of the manslaughter indictment, the application paragraph on the lesser charge of criminally negligent homicide, and the verdict form indicates that the jury could not have found appellant guilty of criminally negligent homicide without also expressly deciding that she drove her "motor vehicle, a deadly weapon." See Lafleur, 106 S.W.3d at 98 (purpose of ensuring an "express finding" of a deadly weapon is satisfied by looking to the explicit requirements of the application paragraph, the indictment and the verdict form). Any other decision would exalt "form over substance to no discernible jurisprudential purpose." See Lafleur, 106 S.W.3d at 98.

In addition, I agree with the Court's opinion that the reasoning of this Court's decision in Blount v. State³ supports a decision that "a verdict of guilt in a homicide case may be an affirmative finding that a deadly weapon was used, since causing death by an act (as distinguished from an omission) necessarily requires the use of a deadly weapon." See Maj. op. at 664. With these comments, I join the Court's opinion deciding that the jury made an express finding that appellant used a deadly weapon.⁴

KELLER, P.J., filed a dissenting opinion in which PRICE, and HOLCOMB, JJ., joined.

Whether the defendant has notice that a deadly weapon finding may be entered, and whether the jury actually makes a deadly weapon finding, are entirely separate issues. The Court conflates the two issues, relying upon a notice case—Blount v. State¹—to establish that an affirmative finding was actually made. The problem is that Blount relied squarely upon Ex parte Beck² for its notice holding,³ and Beck specifically explained that its holding with respect to notice did not affect the requirements for making an affirmative finding:

At this juncture, it is appropriate to comment on Judge Clinton's concurring opinion which concludes that it is Polk v. State, 693 S.W.2d 391 (1985), which is being modified or overruled. Such a notion might lead to some confusion if left unrebutted.

To understand the difference between notice and affirmative finding, it is helpful to mentally compartmentalize the "notice of a deadly weapon issue" apart from the "affirmative finding issue." The concept of notice that there will be a deadly weapon issue in the case is the concern of today's majority opinion and of Ex Parte Patterson, supra [740 S.W.2d 766 (Tex.Crim.App.1987)]. This notice concept is totally divorced from the "affirmative finding of a deadly weapon" body of law that has emerged...