Ellis v. State
| Decision Date | 02 July 1986 |
| Docket Number | No. 69210,69210 |
| Citation | 726 S.W.2d 39 |
| Parties | Edward Anthony ELLIS, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee. |
| Court | Texas Court of Criminal Appeals |
Appeal is taken from a conviction for capital murder. V.T.C.A. Penal Code, Sec. 19.03(a)(2). After finding appellant guilty, the jury returned affirmative findings to the special issues under Art. 37.071(b), V.A.C.C.P. Punishment was assessed at death.
Appellant challenges the sufficiency of the evidence to prove one of the elements of the aggravating offense of burglary; specifically, that appellant's entry of the victim's apartment was without her effective consent. 1 See V.T.C.A. Penal Code Sec. 30.02(a).
There were no eyewitnesses to the offense. No one saw appellant enter or leave the apartment. The evidence was circumstantial. However, the standard for reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence on appeal is the same for direct and circumstantial evidence cases: to view the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict to determine whether any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. Garrett v. State, 682 S.W.2d 301 (Tex.Cr.App.1984); McGoldrick v. State, 682 S.W.2d 573 (Tex.Cr.App.1985); Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 2783, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979). Lack of consent to enter is an element of burglary that may be proven by circumstantial evidence. Prescott v. State, 610 S.W.2d 760, 763 (Tex.Cr.App.1981).
The deceased was a seventy-four year old woman who lived alone in an apartment complex in Houston. Appellant had been the maintenance man at the complex, and as such had access to master keys to all the apartments. Sometimes he went alone to have copies of keys made for the manager. Appellant was fired from his job a few months before the offense. The day he moved out of the apartments the office was broken into and some keys stolen. Some of the apartment locks in the complex were rekeyed after this burglary, but the one on the deceased's front door was not among them. Some time after appellant's firing the deceased's apartment was painted, including her front door. She also hired a neighbor of hers to thoroughly clean her apartment once a week, including scrubbing the inside of the front door. The neighbor, Susan Canales, testified at trial that she had last given the door such a cleaning approximately a week and a half before the offense. After the victim's death appellant's fingerprints were found on the inside of her apartment front door.
Jewelry was stolen in the burglary of the deceased's apartment and her car was taken as well. A witness testified that a few days after the offense appellant had been trying to sell jewelry and a car matching the description of those items taken in the burglary.
Susan Canales, the neighbor who cleaned the deceased's apartment, was also a good friend of the deceased's who saw her or talked to her nearly every day. Knowing that appellant had had access to the master keys and that he had been seen in the neighborhood of the apartments at least once since his firing, Canales had warned the deceased and made her promise that she would not open her door to appellant if he appeared. Over the years of their friendship, Canales testified, the deceased had never broken a promise to her.
In addition the jury heard testimony from Bill Scott, who had been incarcerated with appellant in the Harris County Jail while both were awaiting trial on unrelated charges. (Before the instant trial Scott was acquitted of the attempted murder with which he had been charged; there was no charge pending against him at the time of trial and no deal had been made in exchange for his testimony.) Scott testified that appellant had admitted to him that he had committed the burglary and murder, having gone to the deceased's apartment with the intention of stealing money and jewelry. The jury could readily have inferred that the deceased would not willingly have admitted him for that purpose, and that therefore his entry must have been without her consent or that her consent was induced by fraud or force. V.T.C.A. Penal Code, Sec. 1.07(a)(12)(A). The evidence was sufficient for a reasonable trier of fact to have found that appellant entered the deceased's apartment without her effective consent. Ground of error one is overruled.
In his third ground of error, appellant contends that the trial court excluded prospective juror Bradshaw in violation of Witherspoon v. Illinois, 391 U.S. 510, 88 S.Ct. 1770, 20 L.Ed.2d 776 (1968) and Adams v. Texas, 448 U.S. 38, 100 S.Ct. 2521, 65 L.Ed.2d 581 (1980). We set out the pertinent portions of the voir dire, as follows:
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