Sonnier v. State

• Citation: 913 S.W.2d 511
• Decision Date: 29 November 1995
• Docket Number: No. 71698,71698
• Parties: Derrick SONNIER, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee.
• Court: Court of Appeals of Texas. Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas

Page 511

913 S.W.2d 511

Derrick SONNIER, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee.

No. 71698.

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas,

En Banc.

Nov. 29, 1995.

Rehearing Overruled Jan. 10, 1996.

Winston E. Cochran, Jr., Houston, for appellant.

Mary Lou Keel, Assistant District Attorney, Houston, Robert A. Huttash, State's Atty., Austin, for State.

Before the court en banc.

OPINION

MEYERS, Judge.

In February 1993, appellant was tried and convicted under Texas Penal Code § 19.03 of capital murder. The offense, a double murder, was committed on September 16, 1991. The jury affirmatively answered the special issue submitted under Article 37.071 § 2(b)(1). ¹ Appellant was sentenced to death as mandated by Article 37.071 § 2(g). Article 37.071 § 2(h) provides direct appeal to this court. Appellant raises thirteen points of error. We affirm.

I. Sufficiency of Evidence

In his first point of error appellant challenges the sufficiency of the evidence to establish his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt of capital murder. In point of error four appellant challenges the sufficiency of the evidence to affirmatively answer the first special issue (continuing danger). Art. 37.071 § 2(b)(1). ²

Sufficiency reviews of either the guilt-innocence or sentencing stages of a trial require that, while viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict, we ask whether evidence exists from which any rational trier of fact could have made the challenged finding beyond a reasonable doubt. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 2789, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979); Nelson v. State, 848 S.W.2d 126, 131 (Tex.Crim.App.1992), cert. denied, 510 U.S. 830, 114 S.Ct. 100, 126 L.Ed.2d 66 (1993). The jury is the sole judge of the weight of the evidence and may choose to believe all, some, or none of it. Chambers v. State, 805 S.W.2d 459, 461 (Tex.Crim.App.1991). Reconciliation of conflicts in the evidence is within the exclusive province of the jury. Losada v. State, 721 S.W.2d 305, 309 (Tex.Crim.App.1986). Because the arguments raised are best understood in context of the evidence presented at appellant's trial, we briefly review the facts of the offense as established at trial and in the light most favorable to the verdict.

The Evidence

Shortly before 2:00 p.m. on September 16, 1991, Melody Flowers received a telephone call at her apartment, number 88, from her sister. Melody informed her sister that she had just returned from an errand and was preparing herself and her two infant children Patrick, two years old, and Morgan, one year old, for a nap. Around 3:00 p.m. Morgan was discovered crying at the door of her apartment by a neighbor, Henderson. Henderson thought the situation odd and attempted to find Melody. Unable to find her, he peeked into her window and saw blood. He went to get the apartment manager. The manager entered the apartment, saw blood everywhere and immediately called the police. When the police arrived, they discovered the bodies of Melody and Patrick submerged in the bathtub. Patrick had been stabbed to death. Melody had been bludgeoned with a hammer, strangled, stomped, and stabbed.

Another neighbor, Thomas, who had been sitting outside, informed the police that between 2:15 and 3:00 p.m. he had seen appellant walking toward a field near the apartment complex. Thomas stated that appellant had a bloody towel wrapped around one hand and was carrying a "Fiesta" grocery store bag with a cardboard soda carton sticking out of it. When Thomas called out in greeting to him, appellant ignored him and continued in a hurried pace. Thomas told the police that when appellant reached the corner of the building, he stopped, peeked around the corner, and looked behind him before continuing.

Henderson testified that soon after the bodies were discovered, he saw appellant walking toward his apartment with a bloody towel wrapped around his hand. Henderson asked him if he had heard about Melody Flowers. Appellant answered "no." Henderson testified that he told appellant that "something" had happened to Melody Flowers. Henderson specified that "something" had happened because he did not know at that point what had happened.

D. Mosley testified that her middle school let out at 2:40 p.m. and that when walking home, she saw appellant walking along the road adjacent to the apartments and an open field. Appellant was not carrying anything. D. Mosley allowed herself into her apartment, number 90, where she lived with her mother and appellant. Appellant arrived a few minutes later. His hand was wrapped in a bloody towel. When D. Mosley asked about the injury, appellant ignored the question, but a few minutes later appellant yelled from the kitchen that he had at that moment cut his hand. Appellant told D. Mosley that he thought something was wrong with Patrick and Melody Flowers.

When the police knocked at the front door, appellant answered the door and immediately stated "I didn't hurt her." When the police asked him what had happened to his hand appellant answered that he had cut it while slicing sausage. D. Mosley testified that she, not appellant, had sliced the sausage, that was cooking when the police arrived. Appellant's cut required nine stitches.

When L. Mosley arrived home, she consented to a police search of her apartment. The police discovered a bloody teddy-bear towel, a bloody Garfield towel, and a bloody blouse in a trash bag in Mosley's hall closet. L. Mosley identified the teddy-bear towel as hers, but denied ownership of the Garfield towel and the blouse. L. Mosley informed the police that her friend, Melody Flowers, owned Garfield towels and a blouse like the one found in her trash.

T. Knowles, Melody Flowers' boy-friend, testified that Melody kept a set of Garfield towels like the one found in Mosley's apartment. He testified that he had given the bloody blouse found in L. Mosley's closet to Melody.

Searching the field between the apartment complex and the middle school, the police discovered a "Fiesta" grocery sack with a soda carton sticking out of it under a bush. It contained a bloody piece of cord, a pair of bloody shoes, a pair of bloody socks, bloodied shorts and a bloodied shirt. L. Mosley testified that when she had left for work around 2:00 p.m. on the day of the offense, appellant had been wearing unsoiled clothes identical to those discovered in the bag. She identified the shoes as some she had given to appellant.

A. Flowers, the eighteen-year-old niece of Melody Flowers, testified that when she had spent the summer with her aunt, there had been several encounters between appellant and her aunt. On one occasion appellant had accosted A. Flowers and her aunt with lewd comments about their attire. On another occasion she and her aunt had been in the living-room when they heard a noise in the bedroom. They discovered appellant in the bedroom. When Melody, naturally upset by the intrusion, demanded to know what appellant was doing in her home, he laughed and responded that she was scared. A. Flowers also recounted that on another occasion her aunt, her nieces and nephews, and she were lying on her aunt's bed watching television. After a few hours, at about 11:00 p.m., they were startled by a rapping on the wall. To their horror, they discovered appellant hiding in the closet of the bedroom. He had been there at least three hours. Again appellant responded to Melody's visible and verbal anger by remarking that she was scared.

S. Flowers, eight-year-old daughter of Melody, testified that on her birthday, she had been hiding balloons in her mother's bedroom closet and was startled by appellant standing just outside of the sliding door of the bedroom. He was looking into the bedroom. When she returned with her mother, they found appellant in the bedroom closet. T. Knowles testified that Melody Flowers had expressed fear of appellant and that he had warned her to stay away from him.

Dr. T.J. Brown, pathologist, testified that Melody Flowers suffered four fatal injuries, each of which could have caused her death. She sustained blunt trauma to the head. A hammer head with human hair was found in the victims' apartment. The victim suffered blunt trauma which crushed her neck bones; she was stomped on the chest and neck. She suffered asphyxia due to both manual and ligature strangulation; a bloody cord was found in the "Fiesta" grocery bag. Melody was also fatally stabbed twice in the chest. The bloodied condition of the victims' apartment and the multiple ligature marks on Melody's neck indicated that she had struggled fiercely for her life. The strangulation, beatings, blunt trauma to the head, and the stabbing all occurred before Melody Flowers died.

Patrick Flowers' death was caused by two stab wounds to the chest, one of which penetrated the heart. Because of the profuse bleeding caused by the wound to the heart, Patrick probably died within a minute of receiving the wound.

A blood splatter expert testified that there was no evidence of blood splatter in the master-bedroom, only a blood soak on the bed consistent with someone having been stabbed on the bed. In the childrens' bedroom there was blood a soak and a drag mark consistent with a small body having been stabbed on the bed and then dragged off. In the living-room the blood stains indicated that someone had fallen, bleeding, and was there beaten or stabbed. Blood splattering in the bathroom was consistent with someone having been bludgeoned there.

Blood, semen and DNA testing was mostly inconclusive. Appellant could neither be positively connected to the offense through this scientific evidence nor be positively ruled out as a suspect. However, DNA testing did establish that blood taken from one of the socks in the grocery store bag matched the blood of Melody Flowers, but could not have been appellant's own blood.

Evidentiary Sufficiency of Guilt

In point of error one, appellant alleged the State's evidence did not establish...