Hill v. State, No. 2-06-094-CR (Tex. App. 3/22/2007)
| Decision Date | 22 March 2007 |
| Docket Number | No. 2-06-094-CR.,2-06-094-CR. |
| Parties | RONALD MICHAEL HILL, Appellant v. THE STATE OF TEXAS, State. |
| Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
Appeal from the 396th District Court of Tarrant County.
Panel B: LIVINGSTON, DAUPHINOT, and HOLMAN, JJ.
In two points, appellant Ronald Michael Hill appeals his conviction for murder, asserting that the trial court should have granted his motion for a new trial because he alleges that he was incompetent at trial and that the trial court erred by failing to determine whether he was voluntarily absent during trial. We affirm.
Appellant, a married father of four in his thirties, had an account with the same dating service phone chat line as his fifteen-year-old victim. The evidence at trial indicated that Appellant cut the victim's throat on March 15, 2005, after she told him that she would keep the baby if pregnant with his child.2 Appellant was charged with murder and initially pled not guilty and true to the repeat offender allegation for aggravated robbery.
On the first day of trial, after court adjourned after empaneling and instructing the jury, Appellant was seen showing his family a handwritten note. The note stated
Evon, Kesha, Momma, y'all have to go and get Quashunda. They want her to take the stand. She can't be allowed to do that. You'll need to get her and take her to Grandma's house until the trial is over. She cannot testify at all. And I will have to have someone to claim the pregnancy test, someone to say I was sexually involved with them during the month of February and they thought they was pregnant because they missed the cycle. It was a one-time deal and nothing else. The case goes away with that, and one person who could be used is Visa or Christie. Otherwise, I'm in trouble.
Quashunda is Appellant's sixteen-year-old daughter. She testified that Appellant called her and asked her to tell his current wife, Sharnise, that he had bought the pregnancy test and condoms for Quashunda, explaining that he did not want Sharnise to know that he was having an affair. Quashunda did so, but then told her mother, Appellant's ex-wife, about what her father had asked her to do. The next day, she gave a written statement to the police about her father's request. The Appellant's note was retrieved from him.3 The next day, Appellant chose to change his plea to guilty.
The trial judge thoroughly admonished Appellant before allowing him to change his plea, and then asked Appellant's attorney if Appellant's plea change was made with his consent. Appellant's attorney indicated that it was. The trial judge then reiterated to Appellant the seriousness of the change, stating,
You understand, [Appellant], that if you enter this plea in front of the jury, that I will instruct the jury at the conclusion of the trial to find you guilty and the jury will . . . have a single issue as to what the punishment is to be assessed. Do you understand that?
Appellant replied, "yes." The trial judge then informed Appellant of the punishment range and asked if Appellant understood. Appellant said that he did. Finally, the trial judge asked him, "Knowing all of these things, do you still wish to plead guilty?" Appellant said, "yes," and the trial judge accepted his plea. In his opening statement, Appellant's attorney explained the plea change to the jury, saying that,
[Appellant chose], for whatever reason, to attempt to get some people to not tell the truth in this case and to secrete a witness from you so that you would not hear from her, and he has been caught in that. That changes this case from a circumstantial one. And that is the reason for his change of plea.
After the State's first three witnesses testified, Appellant's attorney asked the trial court to instruct Appellant on how to behave and to work with him. He stated that after Appellant pled guilty, he initially refused to look at the State's exhibits, photographs of the inside of the victim's home, and after that,
[H]e's again kind of basically shut down. I don't know what words to use to describe it. . . . He is sitting at the table staring at the table or keeping his eyes closed. He's nonresponsive to me when I try to speak with him. If I nudge him because he appears to maybe be asleep, he doesn't respond in any way as a rule. He's been reluctant to stand when the Court's ordered him to stand. . . . This case is not over. There are many things that [Appellant] can do to lessen the effect of his actions that he has now acknowledged. There are things that he can do to make things worse.
The court instructed Appellant to look at him when addressed, to sit with his head up, and to work with his attorney. Appellant orally acknowledged these instructions.
Later the same day, Appellant's attorney asked that the record reflect that Appellant had decided to voluntarily absent himself, acknowledging that the trial court had acceded to his request to have Appellant examined by a doctor. He described Appellant's behavior:
[Appellant] is drooling at my table, both on me, my feet, and the papers and the table. He's acting as though he's suddenly nodding off and then jerks to wakefulness in such a startling manner as to cause the bailiffs to worry about him as perhaps that he's about to get up and leave. He is sniffling and crying and whining. And I think that for those reasons his presence is actually a detriment to him at this point and so I agree with his decision [to voluntarily absent himself].
The trial court granted his request and added,
The record will also reflect that the Court during the break asked the physician from the Tarrant County Jail to come over and examine [Appellant]. The doctor indicated to the Court that [Appellant], although somewhat disoriented, posed no medical concern to the doctor in that he was able to stand, extend his arms[,] to function physically as well as mentally. He had some delay as far as being able to focus, but the doctor felt even if he wished to continue physically in the court, there would be no medical concern on behalf of the doctor for [Appellant's] well-being.
The examining physician, Dr. Alan Byrd, who was the Medical Director for Correctional Health Services at the Tarrant County Jail, filed an affidavit that stated that he examined Appellant's general condition in a holdover room off the courtroom and that:
My observation at that time was that generally [Appellant] was sitting upright, quietly[,] in no obvious distress. I asked him some general questions to which he responded appropriately. I listened to his chest and felt his pulse and did not feel he was in any acute distress. I asked him to stand and walk for me[,] which he did slowly but appropriately. He was able to follow verbal commands that I gave him. I then reported my findings to the Judge and told him I did not think [Appellant] had a life threatening condition and in general[,] based on my limited evaluation[,] his condition was stable.
The next day, before trial resumed, Appellant's attorney informed the trial court that Appellant was still behaving oddly, by refusing to make eye contact, acting as though he were asleep, drooling, speaking in a cross between gibberish and baby talk, and "acting as though he was in sort of a catatonic state." He concluded by informing the trial court of Appellant's decision not to attend trial that day because his family was not there and added
I do not think he is in a bad state as he was yesterday, even though he presented that behavior [to the deputy]. And it's my opinion that he may possibly be malingering in some respects to that. I think that's the opinion the doctor shared with Your Honor yesterday. However, he did make sense. He did make a decision, and it's his to make, and it was that he did not wish to attend the trial.
Appellant changed his mind later that day and returned to the trial. Outside the presence of the jury, Appellant's attorney told the trial court, "Upon being informed that his family was now present in the courtroom, my client changed his mind about attending his trial." Appellant was convicted by the jury and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Appellant's motion for new trial included his averment that he did "not recall pleading guilty and was not mentally stable to understand or react to anything that morning [March 1, 2006, the day after jury selection]" and that he was unable to respond to any questions or motions of any sort. At the hearing on this motion, Appellant testified that to relax during trial, he had purchased and taken antipsychotic medication from other inmates the day after jury selection. He testified that he did not recall changing his plea to guilty and that he had been unaware of anything going on around him at trial and had not been able to assist his attorney in the defense of his case.
A two-page document from Dr. Kelly Goodness, containing her conclusion as a medical psychological expert with regard to Appellant's competence, was admitted into evidence at the hearing. Her report contained Appellant's assertions that he had ingested six 300-milligram Seroquel tablets and six 100-milligram Elavil tablets on the day he pled guilty, and as a consequence, had no recall of any events between the time that he ingested the medication at eight a.m. that day until approximately five or six p.m. that evening. She opined that Appellant was competent to enter a guilty plea, stating:
• [Appellant's] description of amnesia on the day he entered his plea does not mesh well with what would be expected with ingesting what he has claimed to have ingested. . . . At a minimum, it would take some time for the medication to work its way through his system before providing a sedating effect significant enough to prevent the encoding of memories. Moreover, [Appellant] provided some contradictory...
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