Litchfield v. State
| Decision Date | 24 June 2020 |
| Docket Number | NO. PD-0005-18,PD-0005-18 |
| Parties | MARGARET FAYE LITCHFIELD, Appellant v. THE STATE OF TEXAS |
| Court | Texas Court of Criminal Appeals |
ON APPELLANT'S PETITION FOR DISCRETIONARY REVIEW FROM THE SIXTH COURT OF APPEALS CORYELL COUNTY
WALKER, J., announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion in which RICHARDSON and NEWELL, JJ., joined. KELLER, P.J., and KEASLER, HERVEY, YEARY, KEEL, and SLAUGHTER, JJ., concurred.
A Coryell County jury found Appellant, Margaret Faye Litchfield, guilty of the cold case murder of her husband, Raymond Litchfield, and the trial court sentenced Appellant to sixty years' confinement. On appeal, Appellant argued in her sole issue that the evidence was insufficient to support the jury's guilty verdict, but the court of appeals disagreed and affirmed the trial court's judgment, as modified. Litchfield v. State, No. 06-17-00007-CR, 2017 WL 5894314 (Tex. App.—Texarkana Nov. 30, 2017) (). We affirm.
In assessing the sufficiency of the evidence to support a criminal conviction, reviewing courts "consider all the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict and determine whether, based on that evidence and reasonable inferences therefrom, a rational juror could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt." Alfaro-Jimenez v. State, 577 S.W.3d 240, 243-44 (Tex. Crim. App. 2019) (quoting Hooper v. State, 214 S.W.3d 9, 13 (Tex. Crim. App. 2007)); Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319 (1979). This standard requires the appellate court to defer "to the responsibility of the trier of fact fairly to resolve conflicts in the testimony, to weigh the evidence, and to draw reasonable inferences from basic facts to ultimate facts." Zuniga v. State, 551 S.W.3d 729, 732 (Tex. Crim. App. 2018) (quoting Jackson, 443 U.S. at 319). "[A]ll of the evidence is to be considered." Jackson, 443 U.S. at 319 (emphasis in original); McDaniel v. Brown, 558 U.S. 120, 131 (2010) (). Thus, an argument that "direct and circumstantial evidence against the jury's verdict is ignored" in a proper Jackson sufficiency review Cary v. State, 507 S.W.3d 750, 759 n.8 (Tex. Crim. App. 2016) (emphasis in original).1 Each fact need not pointdirectly and independently to guilt if the cumulative force of all incriminating circumstances is sufficient to support the conviction. Nisbett v. State, 552 S.W.3d 244, 262 (Tex. Crim. App. 2018) (citing Hooper, 214 S.W.3d at 13). It is not necessary that the evidence directly prove the defendant's guilt; circumstantial evidence is as probative as direct evidence in establishing a defendant's guilt, and circumstantial evidence can alone be sufficient to establish guilt. Id.
An appellate court cannot act as a thirteenth juror and make its own assessment of the evidence. Id.; Moreno v. State, 755 S.W.2d 866, 867 (Tex. Crim. App. 1988). Instead, the appellate court's role is restricted to guarding against the occurrence when the factfinder does not act rationally. Nisbett, 552 S.W.3d at 262; Isassi v. State, 330 S.W.3d 633, 638 (Tex. Crim. App. 2010). This rationality requirement is a key, explicit component of the Jackson sufficiency standard. See Jackson, 443 U.S. at 319 () (emphasis added). As Judge Hervey explained in her dissenting opinion in Watson:
The Jackson v. Virginia standard has two components. It requires the reviewing court to view the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict, which means that the reviewing court defers to the jury's credibility and weight determinations apparently because the jury, having seen the witnesses testify, is in the best position to make these calls. The Jackson v. Virginia standard then requires the reviewing court to determine whether the jury's verdict is "rational" under the beyond a reasonable doubt standard.
Watson v. State, 204 S.W.3d 404, 418 n.7 (Tex. Crim. App. 2006) (Hervey, J., dissenting); see also Brooks v. State, 323 S.W.3d 893, 902 n.19 (Tex. Crim. App. 2010) ().
Thus, a reviewing court is not to hold that the verdict is supported by sufficient evidence by simply determining that there was evidence from which the jury could have found the elements of the offense. The Jackson standard "requires the reviewing court to consider all the evidence in the 'light most favorable to the verdict,' and then it requires the reviewing court to decide whether the jury's finding is 'rational.'" Johnson v. State, 23 S.W.3d 1, 15 (Tex. Crim. App. 2000) (McCormick, P.J., dissenting) (emphasis in original). In sum, when a review of the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict reveals evidence that supports the verdict, if the jury's reliance on that evidence, as proof beyond a reasonable doubt, is nevertheless not rational in light of all of the evidence, then the verdict is not supported by legally sufficient evidence.2
Consequently, "[i]t is the obligation and responsibility of appellate courts 'to ensure that the evidence presented actually supports a conclusion that the defendant committed the crime that was charged.'" Ross v. State, 543 S.W.3d 227, 234 n.14 (Tex. Crim. App. 2018), and Reynolds v. State, 543 S.W.3d 235, 241 n.10 (Tex. Crim. App. 2018) (both quoting Winfrey v. State, 323 S.W.3d 875, 882 (Tex. Crim. App. 2010)); Williams v. State, 235 S.W.3d 742, 750 (Tex. Crim. App. 2007). Accordingly, juries are not permitted to come to conclusions based on "mere speculation or factually unsupported inferences or presumptions." Braughton v. State, 569 S.W.3d 592, 608 (Tex. Crim.App. 2018) (quoting Hooper, 214 S.W.3d at 15-16). As we explained in Hooper:
Under the Jackson test, we permit juries to draw multiple reasonable inferences as long as each inference is supported by the evidence presented at trial . . . [A]n inference is a conclusion reached by considering other facts and deducing a logical consequence from them. Speculation is mere theorizing or guessing about the possible meaning of facts and evidence presented. A conclusion reached by speculation may not be completely unreasonable, but it is not sufficiently based on facts or evidence to support a finding beyond a reasonable doubt.
Hooper, 214 S.W.3d at 15-16. If the evidence at trial raises only a suspicion of guilt, even a strong one, then that evidence is insufficient. Urbano v. State, 837 S.W.2d 114, 116 (Tex. Crim. App. 1992); Winfrey v. State, 393 S.W.3d 763, 769 (Tex. Crim. App. 2013). Similarly, motive is not enough to establish guilt of a crime. Nisbett, 552 S.W.3d at 265. And opportunity, when coupled with motive, is not sufficient to prove identity in a murder prosecution, even though motive and opportunity are circumstances indicative of guilt. Id.; Temple v. State, 390 S.W.3d 341, 360 (Tex. Crim. App. 2013).
A person commits the offense of murder if he or she intentionally or knowingly causes the death of an individual or intends to cause serious bodily injury and commits an act clearly dangerous to human life that causes the death of an individual. TEX. PENAL CODE Ann. § 19.02(b)(1), (2). Appellant does not contest that her husband Raymond was murdered. Instead, Appellant's challenge is that the evidence presented to the jury does not establish that she was the person who caused Raymond's death.
We have considered all of the evidence, which includes the facts as stated in the court of appeals's opinion. See Litchfield, 2017 WL 5894314 at *2-13 (). In the end, although the court of appeals acknowledged that "some testimony may indeed be speculative," id. at *1, it ultimately determined that the evidence was sufficient. In our review of the record, we agree that some of the testimony was speculative. Nevertheless, there is evidence of motive, evidence of opportunity, and a plethora of evidence relating to firearms and ammunition that points to a reasonable inference that Raymond Litchfield was killed with his own gun and that Appellant was the individual that shot him, and we conclude, as the court of appeals did, that the evidence is legally sufficient to support Appellant's conviction for murder.
The court of appeals concluded that evidence showed Appellant had a financial motive to kill Raymond, including evidence that Raymond was a good money manager who was "close with a dollar;" that Appellant made an expensive purchase on Raymond's credit card; and, according to postal worker McCue, that Appellant hid the purchase from Raymond by intercepting the mail. Raymond was planning on buying a boat, and he scheduled an appointment with the bank for the day before the murder. The jury heard evidence that Appellant frantically called the bank to push back the meeting because she did not want Raymond to learn about the charges she had made until she could discuss them with Raymond first. Appellant represented that she discussed those charges with Raymond. In her written statement, Appellant indicated that Raymond was not upset. However, Harmon heard that Raymond and Appellant had an argument over the purchase of the boat. Bobo testified that while Appellant reported that their financial situation improved in 1999, checks were regularly returned for insufficient funds before the murder. The court of appeals is correct that all of this evidence tends to...
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