Hoopes v. State
| Decision Date | 27 April 2018 |
| Docket Number | NO. 03-16-00258-CR,03-16-00258-CR |
| Parties | Douglas Scott Hoopes, Appellant v. The State of Texas, Appellee |
| Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
NO. D-1-DC-15-907033, HONORABLE JIM CORONADO, JUDGE PRESIDING
A jury convicted appellant Douglas Scott Hoopes of the offense of violating a protective order and assessed punishment at 1,265 days' imprisonment.1 The district court rendered judgment on the verdict. In two points of error on appeal, Hoopes asserts that the district court erred in failing to instruct the jury on the statutory defenses of mistake of fact and mistake of law. We will affirm the district court's judgment.
BACKGROUND
Although the conviction now challenged on appeal was founded factually on an incident that occurred in January 2015, the legal issues are framed chiefly by several years of preceding events. The jury heard evidence that beginning in September 2009, Hoopes had beenrestrained by a succession of family-violence protective orders issued under Family Code Chapter 85 and prohibiting him from, among other things, going within 200 yards of his now-ex-wife,2 her residence, and her workplace. These included an order signed on September 15, 2011, that was founded on findings that Hoopes had violated the 2009 protective order during its effective period.3 This order specified an original two-year period of duration (i.e., until September 15, 2013), "unless [Hoopes] is incarcerated on that date, in which case the order will remain in effect for one year after the date of [Hoopes's] release from incarceration."4
Section 25.07 of the Penal Code creates an offense, generally a Class A misdemeanor, where a person has engaged in certain specified conduct that violates a court order issued under statutes that include "Chapter 85, Family Code,"5 the statutory basis for the protective orders that restrained Hoopes. The jury heard evidence that Hoopes had been convicted of protective-order violations he committed not only in 2009, but also again in 2010 and 2011. The first two convictionsyielded Hoopes sentences of 90 and 180 days in county jail, respectively, but the third conviction was enhanced to a third-degree felony by the two prior convictions6 and resulted in a sentence of seven years' imprisonment.7
Hoopes appealed his felony conviction and ultimately prevailed before the Amarillo Court of Appeals.8 The basis for reversal was a sufficiency-of-the-evidence challenge to the State's proof of the specific statutory authority, enumerated within Penal Code Section 25.07, under which the protective order had been issued.9 While acknowledging that the protective order itself "contains several references to the Family Code," the Amarillo court concluded that the evidence nonetheless fell short of enabling the jury reasonably to infer "the specific Family Code provision under which [the order] was issued from among those listed in [Penal Code] section 25.07(a)."10 In light of thatperceived failure of proof, the court rendered judgment acquitting Hoopes of his felony conviction based on the 2011 violation.11
The Amarillo court issued its opinion in May 2014, and the State thereafter unsuccessfully sought rehearing and then review by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.12 Consequently, mandate did not issue until January 12, 2015, following which Hoopes was released from prison on January 15, 2015. In the meantime, on June 24, 2014 (after the Amarillo court's opinion had issued but before the further appellate proceedings had concluded), the district court, citing a then-anticipated release date of August 30, 2014, had signed an order formally extending the underlying protective order (which, as noted, had already stated a duration until one year after Hoopes was released from incarceration) "until August 30, 2015, one year after [Hoopes's] release from incarceration." The order cited as its basis the Chapter 85 provision governing the duration of protective orders issued thereunder.13
With this prologue, the jury heard further evidence that on January 16, 2015—the day after Hoopes was released from prison—he had called his ex-wife and informed her that he was going to meet her at her workplace at a state office building in downtown Austin, one of the prohibited locations specified in the protective order. Hoopes later arrived at the building and was subsequently arrested for violating the protective order.
Hoopes was thereafter charged by indictment with violating the protective order, and in turn Penal Code Section 25.07, through his conduct on January 16, 2015. As with his most recent conviction that had been overturned by the Amarillo court, the alleged offense was aggravated to a felony based on Hoopes's previous misdemeanor convictions for violations in 2009 and 2010. At trial, Hoopes did not contest that his conduct on January 16, 2015, would have violated the terms of the protective order, assuming that order had remained in effect. Rather, Hoopes's focus, as relevant to this appeal, was to develop the predicate for the submission of either or both a "mistake of fact" or "mistake of law" defense as to whether the protective order was still in effect when Hoopes made his fateful building visit in January 2015.14 To that end, Hoopes presented testimony professing the contemporaneous belief that the Amarillo court's ruling had overturned or rendered ineffective not only his conviction under Section 25.07, but also the underlying protective order, leaving him unrestrained by any protective order thereafter.15 The district court refused to submit either defense to the jury.
As noted, the jury subsequently found Hoopes guilty of violating the protective order as alleged and assessed punishment at 1,265 days' imprisonment. The district court rendered judgment accordingly. This appeal followed.
STANDARD OF REVIEW
"A defendant is entitled to an instruction on any defensive issue raised by the evidence, whether that evidence is weak or strong, unimpeached or uncontradicted, and regardless of how the trial court views the credibility of the defense."16 "However, '[t]he issue of the existence of a defense is not submitted to the jury unless evidence is admitted supporting the defense.'"17 "Therefore, if the evidence, when viewed in the light most favorable to the defendant, does not establish the defense, the defendant is not entitled to an instruction on the issue."18 "[T]he evidence must be such that it will support a rational jury finding as to each element of the defense."19 "In determining whether a defense is supported by the evidence, 'a court must rely on its own judgment, formed in the light of its own common sense and experience, as to the limits of rational inferencefrom the facts proven.'"20 "The requirement that the evidence must rationally support a jury finding before a defensive instruction is required serves to preserve the integrity of the jury as the factfinder by ensuring that it is instructed as to a defense only when, given the evidence, that defense is a rational alternative to the defendant's criminal liability."21 "If a jury were instructed as to a defense even though the evidence did not rationally support it, then the instruction would constitute an invitation to the jury to return a verdict based on speculation."22 "Whether a defense is supported by the evidence is a sufficiency question reviewable on appeal as a question of law."23
ANALYSIS
Mistake of Fact
In his first point of error, Hoopes asserts that the district court erred in denying his request for an instruction on the defense of mistake of fact. The statute governing the mistake-of-fact defense provides that "[i]t is a defense to prosecution that the actor through mistake formed a reasonable belief about a matter of fact if his mistaken belief negated the kind of culpability required for commission of the offense."24 Thus, a mistake-of-fact defense is a "defense" in the sense thatit inferentially rebuts the mens-rea element of the State's case.25 "When he raises evidence of a mistaken belief as to the culpable mental state of the offense, a defendant is entitled to an instruction on mistake of fact upon request."26 However, the defense "applies only with respect to elements that require proof of a culpable mental state."27 Therefore, "an instruction on mistake of fact is limited to any culpable mental state required for the offense."28
Here, Hoopes was charged with violating Section 25.07 of the Penal Code, which provides in relevant part that a person commits an offense if, in violation of an order issued under Chapter 85 of the Family Code, the person knowingly or intentionally goes to or near the residence or place of employment or business of a protected individual as specifically described in the order.29 The Court of Criminal Appeals has held that, 30 The court further held that although the statute requiresthe State to prove that the defendant had "some knowledge of the protective order," the statute does not require the State to prove that the defendant "knew its provisions."31
In this case, the State presented evidence that Hoopes intentionally went to his ex-wife's place of employment and that he had knowledge of the protective order. This evidence included Hoopes's own testimony on cross-examination:
Additional evidence included the protective order itself, which indicated that...
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