Pierson v. State
| Citation | 426 S.W.3d 763 |
| Decision Date | 09 April 2014 |
| Docket Number | No. PD–0613–13.,PD–0613–13. |
| Parties | Leonard PIERSON, Jr., Appellant v. The STATE of Texas. |
| Court | Texas Court of Criminal Appeals |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Jason Lee Horton, Attorney at Law, Texarkana, TX, for Appellant.
Lauren N. Sutton, Assistant District Attorney, Texarkana, Lisa C. McMinn, State's Attorney, Austin, TX, for The State.
Appellant, Leonard Pierson, Jr., was charged with indecency with a child and aggravated sexual assault of a child. After the victim completed her direct-examination testimony, the defense's first question on cross-examination was, “Did you also make an allegation that [Appellant] did these same things to his own daughter?” After a hearing, the trial court granted the State's request for a mistrial. Appellant then filed a pretrial habeas-corpus application seeking to prevent a second trial on the basis of double jeopardy. The court denied that application because it again found (as it did at trial) that the mistrial was the fault of the defense and that there was no other appropriate remedy under the circumstances; thus there was a manifest necessity to retry Appellant, and his second trial was not precluded by double-jeopardy principles.
Appellant was convicted at his second trial of one count of indecency with a child and seven counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. On appeal, Appellant argued that his second trial violated double-jeopardy principles, but the Texarkana Court of Appeals held that the trial court properly granted the State's request for a mistrial. See Pierson v. State, 398 S.W.3d 406, 420 (Tex.App.-Texarkana 2013). We granted Appellant's sole ground for review:
The single question posed by Petitioner's trial counsel did not create the type of very extraordinary and striking circumstancesnecessary to sustain a finding of manifest necessity to declare a mistrial. The court of appeals either misapplied or misinterpreted precedent to reach its contrary conclusion.
We will affirm the judgment of the court of appeals.
Factual background
The State called the victim as its fifth witness in its case in chief. The first question the defense asked on cross-examination was, “Did you also make an allegation that [Appellant] did these same things to his own daughter?” The State objected to the question before it was answered, and the trial court excused the jury. During the hearing outside the presence of the jury, the following exchange took place:
After a twenty-four-minute recess, the trial court resumed the hearing and asked the defense to “flesh out [their] argument a little bit more about the basis for the admissibility of [the] cross examination.” The defense explained that the victim stated at the end of her CAC interview that Appellant did Defense counsel went on to argue that Appellant's biological daughter denied ever being molested, and that Appellant's biological daughter's denial would be relevant to the victim's credibility. The following exchange then took place between the court, the prosecutor, and the defense:
At this point, the court stated that
I find that [issue] to be so far removed from this case to begin with, it's a collateral issue that could only interject confusion to the jury[.][T]here's not even enough to substantiate that it's even her own statement, that she's alleging it happened, but that it's her understanding that it happened....
The judge then cited and discussed a number of cases that he felt led to the conclusion that the defense's question was improper because the answer would not lead to admissible evidence. See Lopez v. State, 86 S.W.3d 228 (Tex.Crim.App.2002); Garcia v. State, 228 S.W.3d 703 (Tex.App.-Houston [14th Dist.] 2005); Hughes v. State, 850 S.W.2d 260 (Tex.App.-Forth Worth 1993); Thomas v. State, 669 S.W.2d 420 (Tex.App.-Houston [1st Dist.] 1984). Returning to the case at hand, the judge concluded,
I find that the evidence is not admissible. It is unduly prejudicial-it's not relevant, first of all, it's unduly prejudicial. It serves only to interject issues that are collateral which would potentially confuse the jury, and I don't know how it can be cured with an instruction to the jury. So with that said, I'm going to grant the [S]tate's motion for a mistrial. Since I find that this was done because of actions of the defendant and not because of the actions of the [S]tate, then there's no jeopardy that attaches.
After the judge granted the State's motion for a mistrial, Appellant filed a pretrial habeas-corpus application 3 to prevent his second trial from taking place because he argued that his second trial violated the double-jeopardy prohibition of the United States Constitution. In his application, Appellant alleged that “the mistrial was caused by the prosecutor's objection to defense counsel's attempt to elicit whether the alleged victim had made other allegations against [Appellant,]” and that “the mistrial in this case was caused by the prosecutor either intentionally or recklessly.” 4See Ex parte Bauder, 974 S.W.2d 729 (Tex.Crim.App.1998).5 The defense also changed its argument with respect to the basis for the admissibility of the question asked: the defense argued that the question was proper as evidence of an extraneous offense. SeeTex.R. Evid. 404(b). Furthermore, Appellant argued that Appellant concluded by asserting that there was no manifest necessity to grant the State's request for mistrial because the State was not harmed by the question and that there were less drastic means to remedy the problem than granting a mistrial. The State vigorously disputed Appellant's characterization that it intentionally or recklessly caused the mistrial by objecting, and it asserted that the question precipitating the mistrial was incurable and, therefore, there was a manifest necessity to grant a mistrial.
After hearing the arguments of the parties, the court concluded that “it stretches credulity just a bit to say that the question did not imply that it was true or not true[,]” and that, out of the two possible intentions in asking that question on cross-examination, only one possibility made sense: “the only reasonable interpretation of the purpose for the question was that the answer would be yes, and then the defense would litigate the truth of that allegation, in essence interjecting that the child victim had made a false allegation of sexual abuse by the defendant against his own daughter, and since that allegation was false, ... she's a liar, and since she's a liar, ... this allegation's false.” 6 The judge went on to state,
I don't see how you can reasonably interpret this question as not being harmful to the [S]tate. It proposes to interjectbefore the jury an allegation upon which they are to speculate that the child made a false accusation that [Appel...
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