Rodgers v. State

• Citation: 162 S.W.3d 698
• Decision Date: 25 March 2005
• Docket Number: No. 06-03-00081-CR.,06-03-00081-CR.
• Parties: Warren Keith RODGERS, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee.
• Court: Supreme Court of Texas

162 S.W.3d 698

Warren Keith RODGERS, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee.

No. 06-03-00081-CR.

Court of Appeals of Texas, Texarkana.

Submitted February 16, 2005.

Decided March 25, 2005.

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James W. Volberding, Tyler, for appellant.

Henry Whitley, Special Asst. Dist. Atty., Quitman, for state.

Before MORRISS, C.J., ROSS and CARTER, JJ.

OPINION

Opinion by Justice ROSS.

Warren Keith Rodgers was convicted by a Wood County jury for the murder of his wife, Amanda. The indictment alleged, in two paragraphs, that Rodgers killed Amanda by placing her on a railroad track so she would be hit by a train and by driving over her with a vehicle. The jury convicted Rodgers of murder, as alleged in both paragraphs, and assessed his punishment at life in prison and a $10,000.00 fine. The trial court sentenced Rodgers in accordance with the jury verdict.

Rodgers appeals, asserting: 1) the evidence is legally and factually insufficient; 2) the State's expert regarding tire and shoe prints was not qualified "under Daubert,¹ Robinson² and Kelly,³" and Rodgers' due process rights were violated by the expert's testimony; 3) the protections of the Fourth Amendment and Article 38.23 of the Code of Criminal Procedure⁴ were violated by the issuance and execution of a search warrant for Rodgers' home and vehicle; 4) the trial court erred in its refusal to grant a change of venue; 5) the trial court erred by denying Rodgers' request for inclusion of a lesser included offense in the jury charge; 6) Rodgers was deprived of his rights to due process and a fair and impartial jury by the district clerk's solicitation of members of the jury panel to donate their jury pay to child and victim compensation funds, and by the trial court's denial of additional strikes resulting in the seating of a juror who had so contributed her jury pay; and 7) Rodgers' confrontation rights under the Sixth Amendment were violated by the admission into evidence of statements attributed to Amanda. We affirm the judgment.

Legal Sufficiency of the Evidence

In our review of the legal sufficiency of the evidence, we employ the standards set forth in Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979). This calls on the court to view the relevant evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict and determine whether any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. Johnson v. State, 23 S.W.3d 1, 7 (Tex.Crim.App.2000). In our review, we must evaluate all of the evidence in the record, both direct and circumstantial, whether admissible or inadmissible. Dewberry v. State, 4 S.W.3d 735, 740 (Tex.Crim.App.1999).

The evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to the jury verdict, showed that, at the time of Amanda's death, she and Rodgers had been separated for approximately a month. Amanda had told people she was afraid of Rodgers. Shortly before her death, she approached her grandmother, Wanda Wilson, for a place to stay, explaining that the time was coming when she (Amanda) would have to "hide out" from Rodgers.

Amanda was employed at Wal-Mart in the city of Mineola. After completion of her shift June 21, 2001, she went to her white Ford Tempo parked in the store's parking lot. After loading her groceries, she found her car would not start. Evidence was subsequently adduced that the wires connecting the Tempo's spark plugs and coil had been cross-wired, rendering the vehicle inoperable. Coworker Penny Canfield testified that, on June 21, she was leaving Wal-Mart around 9:00 p.m. and passed Amanda coming back into the store. Amanda commented that her car would not start. Canfield offered to help, but Amanda told her Rodgers was there. Canfield testified she saw Rodgers sitting in his van in front of the store. Hampton Rayburn, another coworker at Wal-Mart, testified Amanda had been confiding in him for several months about her marital problems. She told Rayburn that Rodgers had threatened to kill her and that she was terrified of him. On the evening of Amanda's death, Rayburn saw Amanda after her shift and she told him her car would not start. Rayburn testified Amanda made a couple of telephone calls and then went to check on her car again. Amanda returned inside the store and told Rayburn, "the asshole is here." When Rayburn asked who she meant, she indicated Rodgers. Amanda told Rayburn she intended to tell Rodgers that things were over between them, and if he did not understand, she was leaving anyway. Rayburn told her to be careful and gave her his pocketknife, which she put in her right front pocket.

A surveillance videotape of the Wal-Mart parking lot, recorded June 21, 2001, and covering the time between approximately 6:32 p.m. and 9:11 p.m., was admitted into evidence. The videotape was played for the jury, and Wal-Mart's security officer, Roger Copeland, narrated what was depicted on the videotape while it was played. He testified the videotape shows a dark van approaching a white car parked on the parking lot. A person gets out of the van and raises the hood on the white car. After closing the hood, the person gets back into the van and leaves the parking lot. Later, another person can be seen approaching the white car, placing items in the back seat, or possibly in the trunk. This person then returns to the store. The videotape then shows a white pickup truck, as well as the same van as had been shown earlier, approaching the white car. The van can then be seen leaving the parking lot.

Joe Don McClenney testified he saw Amanda and Rodgers in the parking lot that night. He identified them from a picture of the couple. McClenney was driving the white pickup truck seen in the videotape. He said he saw Rodgers working under the hood of Amanda's white Tempo. McClenney, a mechanic by trade, offered to help the couple. Rodgers declined McClenney's offer.

Neighbors at the apartments in the town of Alba, where Amanda lived, testified Amanda had not come home from work the night of June 21, but had called and told them she was getting a ride from Rodgers. Stephanie Cantrell, Amanda's neighbor at the apartments, testified Rodgers called her on the afternoon of June 21 and told her Amanda was "messing with another woman." He said that he was an electrician and that he could tamper with Amanda's car or her house. Rodgers also told Cantrell that he had relatives in the "Westside Mafia" and that he could have Amanda "picked off."

Mark Burrell worked with Rodgers and testified that on June 21, after work, the two drove to Big Sandy for beer and liquor. During the trip, Rodgers talked about his marital problems and said he could alter the wiring on Amanda's car such that, when she engaged the car's cruise control, the steering would lock and the driver would lose control of the car. Burrell testified there was no blood in the van when he rode with Rodgers to the liquor store.

William Cooksey, an engineer for Union Pacific Railroad, testified that, on the night of June 21 or early morning of June 22, 2001, he was operating a train as it approached the crossing of a county road in Mineola, where he observed a woman, later identified as Amanda, lying on the tracks. Cooksey recalled that the woman was not moving. He could not remember how she was dressed, but did recall she had no shoes on her feet. When he saw her, he put the train in "full service reduction," but was unable to stop before hitting her. It took him about a mile to get the train completely stopped. He then dialed 9-1-1 and reported what had happened.

Sheila Spotswood, M.D., the medical examiner who performed the autopsy on Amanda's body, described various serious wounds. There were multiple abrasions all over the front of her body, and a significant laceration from the left side of her body to her left thigh, which almost amputated her left leg. Her spleen and liver were lacerated. Her skull was fractured, as were her ribs, right collarbone, and bones in her arms and legs. Spotswood agreed that these injuries were consistent with Amanda being hit by a train and that at least some of the injuries were consistent with her being run over by a motor vehicle such as a van.

Lieutenant Miles Tucker of the Wood County Sheriff's Office went to the scene in response to Cooksey's 9-1-1 call. There, he found Amanda's body about fifty feet from the railroad tracks. She was tentatively identified via a partial Wal-Mart pay stub found nearby.

In the process of trying to positively identify the body, law enforcement officers sought to locate Amanda's husband, Rodgers. They were able to determine he lived with his mother at her residence in Mineola. Around daybreak on the morning of June 22, Deputy William Burge, Tucker, and Investigator Kyle Henson, all with the Wood County Sheriff's Office, went to this residence. Henson went to the front door of the house, and Burge went to the back of the house. Burge entered the back yard through an open gate and observed a green van parked behind the house. The officers already had information that Rodgers drove a vehicle of that description. Burge looked through a window of the van, where he observed what he believed was blood on the back of the driver's seat. He looked through another window and saw what he thought was more blood. He then went to the front of the house where Henson was talking to Rodgers. Burge privately informed Henson of his observations in the van. Henson terminated his interview with Rodgers and left to obtain a search warrant.

Pursuant to the search warrant issued by a district judge, the officers seized the shoes Rodgers was wearing on the morning of June 22. Amanda's blood was found on one shoe. The green van parked in the back yard was also seized pursuant to this warrant and towed to the sheriff's office for processing. Although Amanda and Rodgers owned both vehicles together, Rodgers primarily drove...