Seals v. State
| Decision Date | 10 August 2016 |
| Docket Number | NO. 09-15-00191-CR,09-15-00191-CR |
| Parties | ERICH STOCKLEY SEALS, Appellant v. THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee |
| Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
On Appeal from the 252nd District Court Jefferson County, Texas
A jury convicted Appellant Erich Stockley Seals (Appellant or Seals) of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, a second degree felony. See Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 22.02(a)(1) (West 2011). After a bench trial on punishment, the trial court sentenced him to twenty-five years of confinement. Appellant raises seven issues on appeal. We affirm the trial court's judgment.
On May 23, 2013, the State indicted Seals for aggravated assault for shooting Donald Williams, Jr. (Williams) on April 30, 2013. The indictment also alleged that Seals had previously been convicted for possession of a controlled substance in 1994. Prior to trial, and outside the presence of the jury, Seals filed a motion in limine to exclude evidence regarding allegations of events that occurred after the April 2013 shooting. The State responded that it anticipated any such evidence would bear on Seals's claim of self-defense. The court declined to rule on the motion, but it admonished the parties to approach the bench before eliciting any testimony regarding such matters.
Williams testified at trial that Seals shot him in the chest on April 30, 2013. Williams explained that his wife has a child from a previous relationship with Seals. According to Williams, a few months before the shooting, Williams overheard a phone conversation between his wife and Seals in which Seals yelled at Williams's wife, used foul language, and called her ugly names. Seals also told Williams "I will kill you." Williams testified that Williams agreed he challenged Seals to a fist fight. According to Williams, he had never talked to Seals prior to this phone call and had only seen Seals once at a pool hall, but the two men did not speak on that occasion, and Williams did not see Seals again until the day of the shooting.
Williams explained that, on the day of the shooting, he was talking with his sister on the sidewalk near the front entrance gate at the Port Arthur Park Apartments complex, where his sister lived. According to Williams, while they were talking, a car pulled in, he recognized the driver as Seals, and he and Seals made eye contact. A few minutes later, Williams left with David Rogers (Rogers), and as they were about to leave the apartment complex, they saw Seals sitting in a car at the exit gate, and Williams pulled his car up about ten or fifteen feet behind Seals's vehicle. Williams did not know why Seals was waiting at the gate. Williams got out of his car, walked up to Seals's car, and Williams expected there would be a fight.
Williams testified that Seals had his car window partially down. Williams threw his hands up "ready to fight[]" and said to Seals "Hey, what's up?" According to Williams, Williams had nothing in his hands, does not carry a gun or a knife, and did not approach Seals with a weapon. Williams stepped back from Seals's car because he expected Seals to get out, when the next thing Williamsknew, he was shot in the chest, "an inch away from [his] heart." Rogers drove Williams to the hospital. Williams identified Seals as the person who shot him on April 30, 2013. Williams testified that he did not regret stepping up to fight Seals because he was "defending [his] wife" and because Seals had disrespected his wife. Williams testified that he never saw a gun during the incident until Seals pulled the trigger.
On cross-examination, Williams explained that during the phone call that occurred prior to the shooting, Seals said "I will kill you." The defense asked Williams whether he planned on fighting Seals the next time he saw Seals after the phone call, and Williams responded:
Well, he said he was going to kill me, so what do you think? You think I'm going to get killed first? I didn't want to kill him. I wanted to fight him. I never had intentions on killing him. I never said I was going to kill him. I wanted to fight.
Rogers testified that he was with Williams at the Port Arthur Park Apartments complex on April 30, 2013. Rogers stayed in the car, and noticed Seals pull into the complex. Rogers knew "there was some tension" between Williams and Seals, and Rogers thought that Williams and Seals did not like each other.
Rogers noticed Seals's car again at the exit gate when Rogers and Williams were leaving the complex. Rogers testified that Williams got out of their car, andRogers thought Williams was "upset[]" and that Williams and Seals were going to get into a verbal argument that might develop into a fist fight. According to Rogers, Williams did not have any kind of weapon, but Williams had his hands up "like he was trying to invite [Seals] to come out of the vehicle[,]" and Williams and Seals argued for three to five minutes before Williams was shot.
According to Rogers, Williams approached the driver's side of Seals's car and the window on the driver's side of Seals's car "was almost all the way up except for maybe like a couple of inches of gap in the window." Rogers agreed that Seals could have left the situation without speaking to Williams, and Rogers agreed that during the argument, the exit gate was open and Seals could have driven away.
Rogers was also present at Williams's home during a telephone call that occurred prior to the shooting and during that call Seals was disrespectful to Williams's wife. Rogers overheard Seals tell Williams "I am going to kill you[,]" and Rogers was not surprised that Seals shot Williams.
Investigator Croak (Croak) of the Port Arthur Police Department testified that he got a call on April 30, 2013, concerning a shooting victim who was at the hospital. About the same time as the call, Seals appeared at the police stationstating he had been involved in a shooting. Croak personally met with Seals at that time and Seals told Croak the weapon used in the shooting was in Seals's car. After getting consent from Seals, Croak went to Seals's vehicle and the weapon was "in plain view[]" on the front seat. Croak took the weapon into custody and logged it into evidence. Seals gave consent to Croak and then Seals's wife or a relative showed Croak the location of the gun.
Croak also obtained a statement from Rogers, and it was Rogers who indicated that Seals and Williams had an "exchange of words in the past." Rogers told Croak that Williams had approached Seals's vehicle and "lunged toward the door[,]" and that there was an argument and a gunshot.
Marcelo Molfino (Molfino), assistant chief investigator for the district attorney's office, also testified at trial. Molfino was working as an officer for the Port Arthur Police Department at the time in question and he received a call about a gunshot victim who was at the hospital. While Molfino was on the way to the hospital, he received another report that the "possible suspect in the shooting" was at the police station. Molfino returned to the police station and met with the individual, who was identified as Seals, and Molfino then read Seals his Miranda rights and took a statement, which Seals signed. The State offered Seals'sstatement into evidence, and defense counsel objected on the basis of hearsay and the Fifth Amendment. The court overruled the objections and admitted the statement. The portion of the statement that includes Seals's description of events was read into the record by Molfino, in relevant part as follows:1
I went to the Jefferson Apartments to drop off a guy I know as Swan and his wife. They needed a ride, so I gave them a ride. . . . I picked them up and took them to the Jefferson Apartments. They live in the back. . . . I dropped them off and I come [sic] into the gate. I don't have time for beef. This guy, [P]eanut, is married to my baby mama. Peanut was with some guys when I came in the gate. I saw [P]eanut standing there. Peanut was in [a] black looking car, maybe a Nissan. When I am trying to leave, he is swerving behind me. Peanut pulls up on my right behind me in his car. Peanut had one other guy in the passenger side of his car. Peanut gets out of the car and tells me, come on now. Come on now. So he is standing by my driver window. He starts acting like he is going to hit me and comes at my window and he was about to strike me. Peanut did not have anything in his hands. I had my little cousin's gun with me on the side of my seat. It's a . . . black small semi-automatic pistol. As [P]eanut comes to hit me, I shot one time at [P]eanut to get him off me. When I shot [P]eanut he ran back to his car and they drove off. I didn't call the police, but I went straight to get my [fiancé] at home. . . . I went and told [my fiancé] what happened and told her I wanted to go talk to the police. From [my fiancé]'s house I went to my mom's house. . . but my mom wasn't there. From there I came straight to the Police Department to give my statement to the police of what had happened. I left the gun in the car and gave the police permission to take the gun out of my car. . . .
Seals told Molfino that Seals's car window did not work properly, and Seals and Molfino went to the car, where Seals re-enacted "his version of how things happened[,]" because Molfino wanted to see if Seals had "shot out of his window in actuality where the window was, where he stated he was, [and] if there was a threat . . . ." Molfino made a video recording of Seals's demonstration. The video recording was offered into evidence. Defense counsel...
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