Juarez v. State
| Decision Date | 31 March 2010 |
| Docket Number | No. PD-0666-09.,PD-0666-09. |
| Parties | Jaime Casas JUAREZ, Jr., Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas. |
| Court | Texas Court of Criminal Appeals |
Austin Reeve Jackson, Tyler, for Appellant.
Michael J. West, Asst. Crim. D.A., Tyler, Jeffrey L. VanHorn, State's Attorney, Austin, for State.
The confession and avoidance doctrine applies to the necessity defense.1 Therefore, a defendant must admit to the conduct—the act and the culpable mental state2—of the charged offense to be entitled to a necessity instruction. Juarez's testimony both admitted to and denied the culpable mental state; therefore, the trial judge erred in denying Juarez's request for a necessity instruction. The court of appeals's judgment3 is affirmed and we remand this case to the trial court.
Shortly before dawn on June 10, 2007, Blair Blanford observed three men dressed in black attempting to break into vehicles in his apartment complex's parking lot. After observing the men rifle through an unlocked car, Blanford called 911. Tyler police Officers J.H. Burge, Noe Balderas, and Steve Black were dispatched to the complex. They left their vehicles outside of the complex and walked in so that they could "sneak up" on the three men and "catch them in the act." Officer Burge saw two of the men inside a car and the third standing beside it, with items from the car strewn on the ground. The officers then yelled, "Stop, police." The men ran, and the officers pursued them. Officer Burge chased Juarez while Officers Balderas and Black chased the other two men.
Officer Burge found Juarez sitting on some steps, sweaty and out of breath. Juarez put his hands in the air, but when Officer Burge tried to handcuff him, he pulled away. Officer Burge grabbed Juarez, and both of them fell to the ground with Juarez facing Officer Burge. Officer Burge ordered Juarez to stop resisting and yelled for help. With Juarez now facing the ground, Officer Burge had both of his hands on Juarez's back to keep him from getting up, but Juarez was pushing up with Officer Burge on his back. Officer Burge did not know if Juarez's face went into the ground. He presumed Juarez did not have any trouble breathing because Juarez was saying "foul" things to him. Realizing that no one heard his call for help, Officer Burge tried to radio his location. When Officer Burge removed his right hand from Juarez's back to use his radio, Juarez bit Officer Burge's left index finger. Burge testified that Juarez did this intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly. Officer Burge tried to get Juarez to let go by standing up and hitting him, but Juarez stood up and refused to let Officer Burge's finger go. Finally, when Officer Black arrived and hit Juarez, Juarez released Officer Burge's finger. Officer Black testified that, based on his observations, Juarez's biting of Officer Burge's finger was intentional, knowing, or reckless. Juarez continued to resist arrest by wrestling with and hitting Officer Black. Once Officer Balderas arrived, he and Officer Black were finally able to subdue Juarez and arrest him. Juarez remained belligerent and refused to walk to the patrol car.
Officer Burge was transported to the hospital. He testified that his trigger finger had been lacerated and that it took four weeks to heal. The treating physician described the wound to Burge's left index finger as "significant" and capable of causing permanent disfigurement and protracted loss or impairment.
Juarez testified that he was with his cousin and another man on June 10th. He was the lookout while his cousin and the other man burglarized unlocked vehicles. His cousin told him that someone was peeking around the corner and looking at them, so they took off running. Juarez testified that someone yelled "Stop," not "Stop, police"; therefore, he did not know that he was being pursued by the police. He said that someone jumped on him and slammed him to the ground while he was sitting and trying to catch his breath. He told the person to get off of him. When he heard the radio, he realized that a police officer was on top of him. His mouth was in the dirt, and the officer was pushing his head in the dirt. He was inhaling dirt and felt like he was suffocating. He got the officer's finger in his mouth somehow and bit down to get the officer off of him. "I got his finger in my mouth somehow, and I just bit down to get him off of me, because I felt like I was going to die...." When the officer got up, Juarez got up with him and saw two other officers coming around the corner. He put his hands behind his back and lay down. The officers then began to hit him. On direct-examination, Juarez testified that he did not intend to bite Officer Burge and that he was just concerned for his life. On cross-examination, Juarez testified that he did not intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly bite Officer Burge's finger. He claimed that he did it by accident; he bit down and let it go.
Juarez was charged with aggravated assault on a peace officer with a deadly weapon. Juarez pled not guilty and requested a jury trial. At the guilt-phase charge conference, Juarez requested an instruction on the necessity defense,4 claiming that he had raised the issue. The trial judge denied the request because, among other things, Juarez denied the culpable mental state when he denied biting Officer Burge intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly. The jury later found Juarez guilty and sentenced him to fifty years' confinement and assessed a $5,000 fine.
Juarez appealed the trial judge's refusal to instruct the jury on necessity.5 The State argued that Juarez was not entitled to the instruction because he refused to admit to all of the elements of the offense, in particular, the culpable mental state, which is a prerequisite for a necessity instruction.6 The Tyler Court of Appeals disagreed and held that a defendant need admit only the prohibited act, not the applicable mental state accompanying the prohibited conduct.7 The court determined that Juarez's testimony admitting to the act (i.e., the biting), even if by accident, was sufficient to entitle him to a necessity instruction.8 The court then held that the error was harmful.9 As a result, it reversed the trial court's judgment and remanded the case for a new trial.10
We granted the State's petition for discretionary review to determine whether a defendant is required to admit to all of the elements of a charged offense, including the applicable culpable mental state, to be entitled to a necessity defense instruction.
The State contends that caselaw establishes that a defendant is required to admit to all elements of an offense before offering a defense like necessity. Because Juarez denied biting Officer Burge intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly, the State contends that his testimony negated only the mens rea element of the offense.
This case involves the long-standing legal doctrine of confession and avoidance.11 We have defined the doctrine's requirements in two distinct ways. First, we have said that a defendant must admit to all elements of a charged offense before the defendant will be entitled to a defensive instruction.12 Alternatively, we have said that a defensive instruction is required when "the defendant's defensive evidence essentially admits to every element of the offense, including the culpable mental state...."13 Over the years, we have applied the doctrine in cases where the defendant asserted necessity,14 self-defense,15 or the Good Samaritan defense.16 But we have observed that the doctrine does not apply when the defensive issue, by its terms, negates the culpable mental state.17 The affirmative defense of mistake of fact is one example.18
The confession and avoidance doctrine originated in English common law during the Fourteenth Century in relation to civil-case pleading requirements.19 A justification, used to challenge a plaintiff's specific allegation, was asserted in a special traverse in the form of a plea of confession and avoidance.20 One scholar has explained the common law civil pleading process as follows:
Under common law pleading requirements, the parties pleaded against each other until they joined issue on a question of law or fact. Each time one party pleaded, the other had an opportunity to demur, to deny the truth of his opponent's allegations, or to introduce new matter and thus to confess and avoid the claim. In the earliest days of common law, unlike our modern era, denial and confession and avoidance were strict alternatives. The common law's nurturance of special pleas made contingent claims common. Parties could, and frequently did, confess and avoid the pleas of their opponents.21
Today, the doctrine still exists in our state civil-law jurisprudence.22
The doctrine of confession and avoidance appears to have been formally introduced into our criminal-law jurisprudence in 1952, in Kimbro v. State.23 In that case, we rejected the appellant's claim that drinking a half pint of whiskey after he was arrested constituted an affirmative defense to driving while intoxicated.24 We explained that the defendant's claim constituted a denial of the charge, and citing a New York civil case, we said: "an affirmative defense was defined, in part, as meaning a new matter, assuming the complaint to be true, which constitutes a defense to it."25
In general, our application of the confession and avoidance doctrine over the past sixty years has been somewhat inconsistent. In numerous cases, we have held that a defendant who denied one element of a charged offense was not entitled to a defensive issue instruction.26 In those cases, we noted that the defendants mounted a defensive theory based on trial strategy designed to negate only...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Holowatsch v. State
...is contradicted or is not credible." Krajcovic v. State, 393 S.W.3d 282, 286 (Tex. Crim. App. 2013) (citing Juarez v. State, 308 S.W.3d 398, 404-05 (Tex. Crim. App. 2010)). As alleged in the indictment, a person commits murder if he intentionally or knowingly causes the death of an individu......