Holiness v. State
| Decision Date | 01 October 2021 |
| Docket Number | 06-21-00039-CR |
| Parties | DEMONDRE DESHAWN HOLINESS, Appellant v. THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee |
| Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
Do Not Publish
Date Submitted: September 13, 2021
On Appeal from the 8th District Court Hopkins County, Texas Trial Court No. 2027955
Before Morriss, C.J., Burgess and Stevens, JJ.
A Hopkins County jury convicted Demondre Deshawn Holiness of unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon and assessed a punishment of ten years' imprisonment. See Tex Penal Code Ann. § 46.04 (Supp.). On appeal, Holiness argues that the evidence is legally insufficient to support the jury's verdict of guilt and that definitions in the trial court's jury charge constituted an impermissible comment on the weight of the evidence.[1] Because we find that legally sufficient evidence supported the jury's verdict and that there was no jury charge error, we affirm the trial court's judgment.
Police officers arrested Holiness after he engaged them in a high-speed chase in a vehicle stolen from David Trigiani. Troy Farmer, a private citizen, testified that the stolen vehicle pulled up in front of his house and that Holiness "jumped out, looked at [him], reached back in the car[ ] . . . grabbed something . . . [, and] then proceeded to run" from peace officers. According to Farmer, Holiness was wearing a backpack as he fled.
Sean Hoffman, an officer with the Sulphur Springs Police Department, said that he had heard from other officers that "something was thrown" and "a gun [was] mentioned later on as [they] started searching." Thomas Colt Patterson, a deputy with the Hopkins County Sheriff's Office (HCSO), testified that other officers at the scene of Holiness's arrest asked him for help in locating a weapon "that might have been stashed or thrown into the wood line or taller grass" where the stolen vehicle was found. Patterson could not locate the gun.
Jason Lavender, a deputy with the HCSO, testified that he found rifle ammunition and a box of .38 caliber pistol ammunition in the stolen BMW. Trigiani testified that no one in his family owned a gun and that he did not purchase any ammunition.
Kenneth Dean, a jail administrator for the HCSO, testified that the jail used a call recording system to record inmate calls. Holiness's jailhouse calls were admitted into evidence. On one recording, Holiness can be heard telling a friend, "[G]o get my gun, bro," and "[G]o get my pole." He can also be heard giving his friend directions to the gun's location between two particular bushes, stating that he does not want someone else to find it, and directing his friend to get the "pole" before it rains. Shea Shaw, an HCSO investigator, testified that the term "pole" is often used to refer to a gun.
"In evaluating legal sufficiency, we review all the evidence in the light most favorable to the trial court's judgment to determine whether any rational jury could have found the essential elements of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt." Williamson v. State, 589 S.W.3d 292, 297 (Tex. App.-Texarkana 2019, pet. ref'd) (citing Brooks v. State, 323 S.W.3d 893, 912 (Tex. Crim. App. 2010) (plurality op.); Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319 (1979); Hartsfield v. State, 305 S.W.3d 859, 863 (Tex. App.-Texarkana 2010, pet. ref'd)). “Our rigorous legal sufficiency review focuses on the quality of the evidence presented.” Id. (citing Brooks, 323 S.W.3d at 917-18 (Cochran, J., concurring)). "We examine legal sufficiency under the direction of the Brooks opinion, while giving deference to the responsibility of the jury 'to fairly resolve conflicts in testimony, to weigh the evidence, and to draw reasonable inferences from basic facts to ultimate facts.'" Id. (quoting Hooper v. State, 214 S.W.3d 9, 13 (Tex. Crim. App. 2007) (citing Jackson, 443 U.S. at 318-19; Clayton v. State, 235 S.W.3d 772, 778 (Tex. Crim. App. 2007)).
"Legal sufficiency of the evidence is measured by the elements of the offense as defined by a hypothetically correct jury charge." Id. at 298 (quoting Malik v. State, 953 S.W.2d 234, 240 (Tex. Crim. App. 1997)). "The 'hypothetically correct' jury charge is 'one that accurately sets out the law, is authorized by the indictment, does not unnecessarily increase the State's burden of proof or unnecessarily restrict the State's theories of liability, and adequately describes the particular offense for which the defendant was tried.'" Id. (quoting Malik, 953 S.W.2d at 240).
The State introduced the March 2019 underlying state jail felony conviction resulting in a sentence of six months' confinement in state jail, as well as Holiness's April 16, 2019, jail intake photographs, which proved that Holiness was within five years of any release from confinement, and Holiness admitted on dash camera footage that he was recently released from custody.[2] Yet, because no firearm was found, Holiness challenges the sufficiency of the evidence showing that he possessed any firearm.
Holiness admits that a recorded jailhouse call, which was admitted into evidence, established that he had a firearm. During the call, Holiness told his friend that he threw his weapon on the ground and instructed him to go between two specific bushes to retrieve it. Holiness told his friend to get the gun, which he called a "pole," before it rained because he did not want to lose it or have others find it. Holiness then instructed the friend to pawn the weapon.
Even so, Holiness argues that the corpus delecti rule precludes a finding that he possessed a firearm based solely on his extrajudicial confession. See Miller v. State, 457 S.W.3d 919, 920 (Tex. Crim. App. 2015); see also Fisher v. State, 851 S.W.2d 298, 302 (Tex. Crim. App. 1993). The term "corpus delicti" means the "harm brought about by the criminal conduct of some person." Gribble v. State, 808 S.W.2d 65, 70 (Tex. Crim. App. 1990). The Court of Criminal Appeals has explained the corpus delicti rule, stating, "When the burden of proof is 'beyond a reasonable doubt,' a defendant's extrajudicial confession does not constitute legally sufficient evidence of guilt absent independent evidence of the corpus delicti." Hacker v. State, 389 S.W.3d 860, 865 (Tex. Crim. App. 2013).
The corroborating evidence requirement ensures that a person admitting to a crime is not convicted without independent evidence that the crime occurred. Salazar v. State, 86 S.W.3d 640, 644 (Tex. Crim. App. 2002). "The corroborating evidence need not prove the underlying offense conclusively; there simply must be some evidence that renders the commission of the offense more probable than it would be without the evidence." McCann v. State, 433 S.W.3d 642, 646 (Tex. App.-Houston [1st Dist.] 2014, no pet.) (citing Gonzales v. State, 190 S.W.3d 125, 131 (Tex. App.-Houston [1st Dist.] 2005, pet. ref'd)). Harris v. State, 521 S.W.3d 426, 428 (Tex. App.-Amarillo 2017, pet. ref'd) (). We must, therefore, consider whether independent evidence existed to support the jury's finding that Holiness possessed a firearm.
Here, Farmer testified that Holiness reached back into the stolen BMW to grab something before running away. Although Farmer did not see the item grabbed, Hoffman testified that other officers on the scene of the chase said that "something was thrown," and Patterson was asked for help in locating a weapon that "might have been stashed or thrown." While neither Trigiani nor his family owned any weapons, ammunition was found inside the stolen vehicle. We find that this evidence corroborated Holiness's statements that he threw a gun in between two bushes during the chase. As a result, we find that sufficient evidence supported the jury's finding of guilt, and we overrule Holiness's first point of error.
"We employ a two-step process in our review of alleged jury charge error." Murrieta v. State, 578 S.W.3d 552, 554 (Tex. App.-Texarkana 2019, no pet.) (citing Abdnor v. State, 871 S.W.2d 726, 731 (Tex. Crim App. 1994)). "Initially, we determine whether error occurred and then evaluate whether sufficient harm resulted from the error to require reversal." Id. (quoting Wilson v. State, ...
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