Quick v. State
| Decision Date | 26 July 2018 |
| Docket Number | NO. 14-15-01067-CR, NO. 14-15-01068-CR,NO. 14-15-01066-CR,14-15-01066-CR |
| Citation | 557 S.W.3d 775 |
| Parties | Dylan Andrew QUICK, Appellant v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee |
| Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
Amy Dianne Martin, Houston, TX, for Appellant.
Patricia McLean, Houston, TX, for Appellee.
Panel consists of Chief Justice Frost and Justices Busby and Wise.
Appellant Dylan Andrew Quick challenges the sentences imposed by the trial court after appellant pled "guilty" to two indictments charging him with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and one indictment charging him with attempted capital murder, without a recommendation or agreement with the State. Appellant asserts he is entitled to have his sentences vacated and to a new punishment hearing because (1) due to lost exhibits admitted at the punishment hearing appellant should be granted a new trial under Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 34.6(f) ; (2) the trial court erred in denying appellant’s motion for new trial based on newly-discovered evidence or based on an allegedly impermissible argument by the State; (3) the record does not support the trial court’s stated reasons for the sentences; and (4) appellant’s sentences violate state and federal constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment. We affirm.
Appellant was a student at Lone Star College. On the date of the offenses, appellant’s mother dropped him off at the campus before his scheduled class. Appellant brought with him an Exacto knife1 and other sharp implements. Instead of attending his scheduled class, appellant walked around campus. According to appellant’s counsel, appellant walked to try to quell his compulsive thoughts about harming others. Any such attempt proved unsuccessful.
After walking around campus for awhile, appellant began approaching students at random and stabbing them with the Exacto knife. During the punishment hearing, some students who were stabbed testified that they did not understand what was happening. They saw appellant approaching them with the Exacto knife, which some thought might be a marker, and then quickly gashing them. As the students began to realize what was happening, some ran away and sought cover in different classrooms. Some tended to their injured classmates. Others confronted appellant and successfully restrained him until he could be taken into custody.
Appellant wounded sixteen students who suffered varying degrees of injury. No students died, but four received serious wounds requiring emergency transport to a hospital by helicopter. Appellant stabbed several of the students at the base of the neck. One student witnessed appellant cutting students by taking the knife and slashing in a downward direction in the area where the neck meets the skull.
Appellant confessed to the stabbings. When police investigated appellant’s belongings, they found a document in which appellant spoke of his desire to kill. In two indictments, appellant was charged with the offense of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. In one indictment appellant was charged with attempted capital murder as to two complainants. Appellant pleaded "guilty" to each indictment without a recommendation or agreement with the State. Appellant requested probation and elected to have the trial court assess punishment.
At the punishment hearing for all of the offenses, the State presented evidence by letter and through live testimony that many of the people appellant injured still had injuries that affected their daily lives. Many had scars. Several students described continued psychological trauma as a result of the incident. One complainant testified about the way that the event continues to affect not only her but also her children.
Appellant presented evidence that he was deaf, but in spite of his disability, appellant was an active and productive member of the community. Appellant presented the testimony of a pastor who discussed appellant’s involvement in church and the efforts appellant’s parents made to nurture him. The librarian at Lone Star College testified that appellant had been involved in her programs since his youth and that she had featured him in an article she wrote because appellant was an excellent student. Many individuals who had interacted with appellant and appellant’s family sent letters in which they expressed their shock at appellant’s actions and their belief that appellant could be rehabilitated.
In addition to evidence about appellant’s deafness, involvement in the community, and youth at the time of the offenses (age 20), appellant presented evidence that he had been suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder ("OCD") and anxiety disorder, but that he had not been receiving treatment.2 After appellant arrived at the Harris County Jail, psychiatrists evaluated appellant and diagnosed him with OCD and anxiety disorder. Appellant began receiving treatment for these mental illnesses. After receiving medication, appellant participated in individual and group therapy. During this time appellant was a model prisoner and dramatically improved his wellbeing. The trial court found appellant competent to stand trial.
Appellant had no criminal record, no history of violence, and no drug or alcohol use. Appellant presented evidence that his OCD required him to engage in compulsive behaviors to compensate for intrusive thoughts, but that his treatment had improved his symptoms. In particular, forensic psychiatrist Dr. Matthew Faubion testified that appellant was responding well to medication and that appropriate treatment of appellant’s obsessive thoughts would diminish any type of violence in the future.
The trial court assessed punishment at 20 years' confinement for each aggravated-assault offense and 48 years' confinement for the attempted-capital-murder offense, with the sentences to run concurrently. The trial court made a finding that appellant used a deadly weapon in each case.
Appellant filed a motion for new trial in which he asserted several arguments in support of a new trial including (1) appellant’s sentences are disproportionally severe punishments and violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, (2) the stabbing victims recognize that appellant needs mental health treatment and that 48 years' confinement is excessive, and (3) during closing argument at the punishment hearing, the prosecutor stated that "Harris County is watching" and gestured towards the many television cameras filming the proceedings, thus improperly referring to facts not in evidence, encouraging the trial court to neglect its duty to remain "neutral and detached," and arguing that some portion of the community expected a particular punishment. The trial court denied appellant’s motion for new trial.
Under his first issue, appellant asserts that this court should remand the case to the trial court for a new trial on punishment because the trial court abused its discretion in determining that the record filed on appeal is an adequate substitute for the portions of the punishment-hearing record that the court reporter lost.
At the punishment hearing, the State offered the following exhibits:
The trial court admitted into evidence appellant’s Exhibits 1 through 75, which constituted appellant’s sentencing memorandum and supporting exhibits. Appellant also filed a copy of these exhibits in the clerk’s record. The trial court also admitted appellant’s Exhibit 76 during the hearing. Exhibit 76 is a photograph.
While these appeals were pending, appellant filed a motion to abate the appeals to allow the trial court to conduct a hearing under Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 34.6(f) because the record did not contain a copy of State’s Exhibits 100, 1 and 7. See Tex. R. App. P. 34.6(f). This court abated the appeals for the trial court to conduct a hearing to determine: (1) whether appellant timely requested a reporter’s record; (2) whether without the appellant’s fault, significant exhibits have been lost or destroyed; (2) whether the lost exhibits are necessary to appellant’s appeals; and (4) whether the parties can agree on replacement of the missing exhibits with copies; or (5) if the trial court can determine with reasonable certainty that copies accurately duplicate the missing exhibits.
At the hearing following the abatement, the prosecutor testified that he was submitting State’s Exhibit 100 as it was at the end of the punishment hearing. The prosecutor stated that during the punishment hearing, portions of the exhibit were removed and renumbered to "in an effort to try and clear up the record to make it understandable rather than referring to page numbers within a large document." The prosecutor offered and the trial court admitted into evidence State’s...
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