Pate v. The State Of Tex.
| Decision Date | 25 August 2010 |
| Docket Number | NO 13-09-00112-CR,NO 13-09-00149-CR,13-09-00112-CR,13-09-00149-CR |
| Parties | CHADRICK B. PATE, Appellant, v. THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee. CHRISTOPHER JOSEPH HALL, Appellant, v. THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee. |
| Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
On appeal from the 36th District Court of Aransas County, Texas.
Before Chief Justice Valdez and Justices Yanez and Garza Memorandum Opinion by Justice Garza
Appellants, Chadrick B. Pate and Christopher Joseph Hall, were convicted of murder, a first-degree felony. See Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 19.02 (Vernon 2003). Pateand Hall were sentenced to ninety-nine-year prison terms and were each assessed $10,000 fines. By four issues, Pate argues on appeal that: (1) there was insufficient nonaccomplice testimony presented at trial; (2) the evidence was legally and factually insufficient to sustain his conviction under the law of parties; (3) the trial court's jury charge contained various errors; and (4) the State's attorney made an improper statement during closing argument. Hall joins in Pate's fourth issue and part of Pate's third issue and also contends that the trial court abused its discretion by admitting certain evidence. We affirm.
On June 24, 2008, an Aransas County grand jury indicted Pate, Hall, Michael Jason Underwood, Anthony Lee Ray, and Kevin Ray Tanton on counts of murder and engaging in organized criminal activity. See id. §§ 19.02, 71.02 (Vernon Supp. 2009).1 The murder count of the indictment alleged that those individuals, "acting alone and together," intentionally or knowingly caused the death of Aaron Watson on or about January 4, 2008 by shooting Watson with a firearm. After making initial statements to police, Underwood, Ray, and Tanton entered into agreements with the State whereby they would provide testimony against Pate and Hall in exchange for recommended sentences of fifteen years' imprisonment or less. Pate and Hall were then tried together before a jury over four days in February 2009. At trial, the State called twenty-one witnesses to testify against the defendants, after which the defendants rested without calling any witnesses. Pate and Hall were subsequently found guilty of murder, 2 sentenced to ninety-nine years in the Institutional Division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, and ordered to pay $10,000 fines. These appeals followed.3
Deputy Michael Huffman of the Aransas County Sheriff's Office testified that in the early morning hours of January 4, 2008, he was dispatched to a trailer residence in Fulton, Texas, to respond to a disturbance in progress. He arrived to find a "distraught" and "screaming" young female "standing in the roadway." The girl told Deputy Huffman that "[m]y daddy's been shot" and pointed to the backyard of an adjacent residence, where the girl's father, Aaron, lay on his side, drifting in and out of consciousness. Deputy Huffman observed gunshot wounds on Aaron's lower left abdomen and left leg. Aaron was evacuated via helicopter to Christus Spohn Memorial Hospital in Corpus Christi, where he later died of his injuries.
Michael Brooks, an investigator with the Aransas County Sheriff's Office, testified that he was also dispatched to the Watsons' trailer in Fulton on the early morning of January 4, 2008. Investigator Brooks stated that he had met the victim before and that "Tracy Watson, [J.W.], [M.W.], Chadrick Pate, [and] Aaron Watson" lived in the trailer "at one time or another."4 He then identified several photographs, which were admitted into evidence without objection, depicting what he observed when he arrived at the scene. Investigator Brooks testified that, "just into the doorway" of the trailer, he found and collected "two unspent shell casings" and "one spent shell casing" for a.38-caliber firearm. He also recovered a "light blue jean, long-sleeve shirt that... belonged to the victim" anda wristwatch from the adjacent backyard, as well as a baseball bat from the front of the Watsons' trailer, and paperwork from inside the trailer. According to Investigator Brooks, the blue shirt had a "bullet hole" and a "small amount of blood" which was later determined to belong to the victim.
Investigator Brooks spoke with Tracy "later that morning." According to Investigator Brooks, Tracy 5 Using this information, as well as other information obtained from police in Houston, Investigator Brooks determined that "Thunderwood" referred to Michael Underwood.6 Photo arrays were then presented to J.W. and M.W.; the girls identified Underwood as being present at the crime scene and Underwood was then arrested. Underwood gave a statement to police which led to Pate, Hall, Ray and Tanton being identified as suspects in the case.7 Ray and Tanton were arrested and interviewed by police, and their stories regarding what happened on the night in question were consistent with Underwood's. Tanton also provided information that led to the recovery of a weapon from the bottom of Copano Bay by a police dive team. The weapon, a.38-caliber revolver, was introduced into evidence.8
On cross-examination, Investigator Brooks stated that neither Ray nor Tanton were promised anything in exchange for their initial statements. He also confirmed that J.W. and M.W. had given two other names of potential suspects—"Ace" and "Charles"—but that those individuals had not been identified or located by police. On re-direct examination, Investigator Brooks stated that Hall, Pate, and Underwood are members of a prison gang called the Aryan Circle, and that he believed Ray and Tanton are prospective members of that gang. He also stated that an individual named Wayne Scott was mentioned by each of the suspects as "a high-ranking official" in the Aryan Circle but that police had not done any investigation as to Scott. Finally, Investigator Brooks stated that he presented photo arrays to J.W. and M.W. and both girls identified Hall as having been present at the crime scene.9
Investigator Brooks, upon being recalled to the stand later in the trial, identified eighteen photographs that he took during the course of his investigation as depicting Hall. The photos were admitted into evidence over defense counsel's objection.
Deputy Keith Pikett of the Fort Bend County Sheriff's Office testified that he is a "dog handler" and that he has used bloodhounds to make "scent identifications" at crime scenes "[t]housands" of times. After Hall's attorney moved to suppress Deputy Pikett's testimony, the trial court held a hearing on the motion outside the presence of the jury. Deputy Pikett then described his methodology:
Deputy Pickett then stated that he had the dogs smell the shell casings found at the sceneof Aaron's murder, and that the dogs then each alerted to a can containing Hall's scent. He also performed three tests in which he had the dogs smell the blue denim shirt found at the crime scene; the dogs unanimously alerted to cans containing Hall's, Ray's, and Underwood's scents in each of the three tests, respectively.10
On cross-examination, Deputy Pikett admitted that "the dogs are not infallible"; he also agreed that if the dogs are sick, that might affect their sense of smell, but that he did not check their health before administering the tests at issue here. He stated, however, that in all of the tests he has done, one of the dogs "is now up to twenty-three hundred and thirty-four cases with [only] two errors and the other dogs have no errors." The trial court overruled the defendants' objections and admitted Deputy Pikett's testimony, as well as a video recording of the tests.
Tanton stated that he met Underwood while serving time in the Liberty County Jail. Underwood was also "involved with Aryan Circle," which Tanton described as "a cross between a militia group and a prison gang I guess." Tanton stated that he met Hall at a Christmas party in 2007. In January of 2008, Hall drove Tanton and Underwood to Fulton, Texas, so that the men could help an Aryan Circle member named "Sid" remove several members of a rival gang from his house. Tanton stated that Hall had an "oldish revolver" with him at the time and that Hall had expressed the desire to obtain more firearms in order to confront the rival gang members. According to Tanton, the group then met up with Ray and "Sid." Tanton then identified Pate in the courtroom as the gang member he knew as "Sid." Tanton stated that Pate then told Underwood and Hall how to approach the house where the rival gang members were without being seen. According to Tanton, Pate represented...
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