Schneider v. State, No. 01-04-00868-CR (TX 11/3/2005)
| Decision Date | 03 November 2005 |
| Docket Number | No. 01-04-00868-CR.,01-04-00868-CR. |
| Parties | RICHARD TRENT SCHNEIDER, Appellant v. THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee. |
| Court | Texas Supreme Court |
On Appeal from the 228th District Court, Harris County, Texas, Trial Court Cause No. 925450.
Panel consists of Chief Justice RADACK and Justices ALCALA and BLAND.
Appellant Richard Trent Schneider pleaded not guilty to capital murder, a jury convicted him, and the trial court assessed punishment at life imprisonment. Schneider contends that (1) the evidence is legally and factually insufficient to support his conviction; (2) the trial court erred in admitting a photograph of the victim with his young son; and (3) the State's closing argument was improper. We hold that the evidence is legally and factually sufficient to support the conviction and that Schneider failed to preserve error with respect to the admissibility of the photograph and the propriety of the State's closing argument. We therefore affirm.
The State charged Schneider with the robbery and murder of James Allen Turner. Turner lived with his girlfriend, Roxanne Ochoa, in a house at 5431 Firefly, Harris County, Texas. Several others also lived at the house, including Alecia Mahoney. Turner did not have a job and supported himself by selling cocaine and marijuana. Turner and Ochoa used to put their cocaine in a small zippered black bag.
The owner of the house, Sammy, wanted to evict Turner and Ochoa because of their drug activities. Sammy sent Michael Whitmire, Jason Ray, and Schneider to do the job. The three men decided that since Sammy was not going to pay them for their services, they would get what they could from Turner in the way of drugs and money.
When the three men arrived at the house on the evening of September 22, 2002, Turner was not there. The men sat around smoking and eating cereal, waiting for Turner to arrive. After approximately thirty minutes, Alecia left the house and used a pay phone to call Turner to tell him the three men were waiting for him. She returned and stated that Turner would arrive shortly, but the three men left at that point, saying they would be back later.
Turner returned to the house a short time later and told Ochoa that he had encountered the three men in the street. At that point, Turner's dog began barking and the three men entered the house. Ray grabbed Ochoa and held a knife against the side of her face. Someone else pointed a gun straight at Turner,1 the gun discharged, and Turner fell to the ground. The three men then ran to the door, struggled to open it, and fled the scene.
Ochoa ran to Turner and saw he had a bullet wound to the head and no pulse. Alecia ran next door to Sammy's house and called the police. Sergeant Michael Bozeman and Officer Mike Walker, Houston Police Department, Homicide Division, arrived at the scene, conducted an investigation, and developed the names of two suspects: Michael Whitmire and Jason Leon Ray. Sergeant Bozeman subsequently interviewed Whitmire and Ray, who gave him the name of a third suspect: Richard Trent Schneider.
The police arrested Schneider, who voluntarily gave a videotaped statement to Sergeant Bozeman. Schneider stated that Sammy wanted Turner out of the house because he was involved in drugs. Whitmire was the most motivated to get Turner out of the house, and he, Ray, and Schneider decided to do the job and get what they could from Turner in the way of drugs and money since Sammy was not going to pay them. The three men went to the house, but just sat around eating cereal because Turner was not there. The men got nervous when Alecia left to call Turner and decided to leave.
The men bumped into Turner in the street and Whitmire insisted on returning to the house. Schneider was scared and tried to give the gun back to Whitmire since he was the one so intent on returning to the house, but Whitmire refused to take the gun. The men then returned to the house and saw Turner coming out of the bedroom. Schneider pointed the gun at Turner, thinking they could just get a bag Turner had around his neck and get out.
Schneider pulled the hammer back on the gun, thinking the sound of the cocking mechanism would scare Turner enough so that "everything would just stop." The gun then discharged and Turner fell to the ground. Whitmire started screaming, "Get the bag." At that point, the three men ran out of the house. According to Schneider, the shooting was an accident. Schneider told Sergeant Bozeman that the .38 Special revolver he used in the shooting was still "in between the split seats in the front" of the car in which he had been arrested.
Sergeant Bozeman called Officer Earnest Aguilera, Houston Police Department, Crime Scene Unit, and told him to go to Northside Storage at 36 Tidwell to recover a gun. Officer Aguilera recovered a .38 Special revolver, which was wedged in between the front seat and the hump of the car, from the white Nissan Altima in which Schneider had been arrested. The revolver was in a holster and loaded with four live rounds.
A firearms examiner testified that the bullet recovered from Turner's body was fired from the .38 Special revolver found in the white Nissan Altima. The revolver has a 4 1/4 to 4 1/2 pound pull in single action mode, and a 12 3/4 pound pull in double action mode, and cannot be fired without putting a finger on the trigger.
The medical examiner testified that Turner was shot between the eyes, on the left side of the nasal bridge, and died as a result of a penetrating gunshot wound of the head.
Schneider contends that the evidence is legally insufficient to support his capital murder conviction because there is no evidence, other than his confession, that he intended to commit a robbery. Thus, Schneider asserts, the State failed to prove the corpus delicti for the underlying offense of robbery.2
In reviewing a legal insufficiency claim, we view the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict and decide whether a rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319, 99 S. Ct. 2781, 2789 (1979).
A person commits capital murder when he commits murder as defined under Texas Penal Code Section 19.02(b)(1) and intentionally commits the murder in the course of committing or attempting to commit robbery. TEX. PEN. CODE ANN. § 19.03(a)(2) (Vernon 2003). A person commits murder under Texas Penal Code Section 19.02(b)(1) when he intentionally or knowingly causes the death of an individual. Id. § 19.02(b)(1). A person commits robbery when he, in the course of committing theft as defined in Chapter 31 and with intent to obtain or maintain control of the property, intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly causes bodily injury to another. Id. § 29.02(a)(1). A person commits theft as defined in Chapter 31 when he unlawfully appropriates property with intent to deprive the owner of the property. Id. § 31.03(a).
The corpus delicti rule, which is a rule of evidentiary sufficiency, provides that an extrajudicial confession of wrongdoing, standing alone, is not enough to support a conviction; other evidence must exist to show that a crime has in fact been committed.3 Rocha v. State, 16 S.W.3d 1, 4 (Tex. Crim. App. 2000). This other evidence, known as the "corpus delicti," need not be sufficient by itself to prove the offense: "all that is required is that there be some evidence which renders the commission of the offense more probable than it would be without the evidence." Id. (quoting Chambers v. State, 866 S.W.2d 9, 15-16 (Tex. Crim. App. 1993)). In addition, the independent evidence need not connect the defendant to the crime—it need only show that a crime was committed. Emery v. State, 881 S.W.2d 702, 705 (Tex. Crim. App. 1994). In a capital murder case, the corpus delicti requirement extends to both the murder and the underlying offense (here, robbery). Rocha, 16 S.W.3d at 4-5; Hammond v. State, 942 S.W.2d 703, 706 (Tex. App.-Houston [14th Dist.] 1997, no pet.).
Schneider points out that the only witness to the offense, Ochoa, testified that she never heard the three perpetrators say anything to the effect of "[g]ive me the black bag or I'm robbing you or anything like that[.]" Nor did she ever see the three men try to steal anything. According to Schneider, the only evidence that the three men even thought about committing a robbery comes from his own confession, which is insufficient under the corpus delicti rule.
We disagree. Ochoa testified that she and Turner kept their cocaine in a small black bag that was missing after the murder. This independent evidence corroborates Schneider's statement that he and the other two men intended to take drugs from Turner, and that Schneider pointed the gun at Turner in an effort to get the black bag he had around his neck. While the corroborating evidence would be even stronger if, for instance, the police had found the black bag in Schneider's possession after the murder,4
the quantum of independent evidence necessary to corroborate the corpus delicti in a criminal prosecution relying upon the extrajudicial confession of an accused need not be great. So long as there is some evidence which renders the corpus delicti more probable than it would be without the evidence, we believe that the essential purposes of the rule have been served.
Gribble v. State, 808 S.W.2d 65, 71-72 (Tex. Crim. App. 1990) (citation and footnote omitted) ( that, in capital murder case involving corpus delicti of kidnapping, "[w]hile there is little, apart from appellant's confession, to suggest that . . . the deceased[] was moved from her residence without her consent and while still alive to the place where her body was ultimately discovered, we are not persuaded that the record is...
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