Tidrow v. State
Decision Date | 01 February 1996 |
Docket Number | No. 2-94-236-CR,2-94-236-CR |
Citation | 916 S.W.2d 623 |
Parties | Brian Lee TIDROW, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, State. |
Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
D. Keith Orsburn, Denton, for appellant.
Bruce Isaacks, Criminal District Attorney; Kathleen A. Walsh, Heidi Akins, and Sharone McGahee, Assistant District Attorneys, Denton, for appellee.
Before LIVINGSTON, BRIGHAM and HOLMAN, JJ.
A jury convicted Brian Lee Tidrow of capital murder, and he was given an automatic life sentence to the Institutional Division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. In his first five points of error, Tidrow protests that his conviction was based on inadmissible hearsay and evidence that was insufficient, irrelevant and prejudicial. Separate points challenge venue and denial of his motion to quash the venire panel. We affirm.
About 7:00 a.m. on August 30, 1993, a Lewisville, Texas, police officer was assigned to interview Sylvia Roy, after she reported her husband, Windell Roy, missing. Later that morning, Windell's dead body was found beside a road, his hands bound with telephone cord. An autopsy by Tarrant County Deputy Medical Examiner Gary Sisler concluded Roy had internal injuries and blunt force trauma to the mouth and head, consistent with being knocked unconscious. The doctor found death was caused by strangulation.
Eventually, Sylvia, the Roys' son, James, and Tidrow were indicted for capital murder. The trial court admitted as evidence Tidrow's written statement to the police. See TEX.CODE CRIM.PROC.ANN. arts. 38.21 (Vernon 1979), 38.22 (Vernon 1979 & Supp.1996). His statement was that he accepted James' offer of $600 to knock Windell Roy unconscious, so James could kill him; that they went to Windell's mobile home, where Tidrow used his gloved fists to beat Windell unconscious; then Tidrow sat on Windell's hands and held his legs, while son James held a pillow on Windell's face for twenty minutes, until Windell stopped breathing; they tied Windell's hands with a telephone cord, wrapped the body in a blanket, put it in the back of a pickup truck, then drove to a spot where they dumped the body in a ditch; then threw the blanket in a dumpster and met Sylvia Roy; told her they had killed Windell, and Sylvia told Tidrow and James she would pay them when she collected her check from Windell's life insurance.
The common law corpus delicti rule is that a criminal conviction cannot be based on the accused's extrajudicial confession unless it is corroborated by independent evidence tending to establish that someone committed the crime. Fisher v. State, 851 S.W.2d 298, 302-03 (Tex.Crim.App.1993); Roy v. State, 891 S.W.2d 315, 321 (Tex.App.--Fort Worth 1994, no pet.).
Over Tidrow's objection, the court later admitted in evidence the written statements of James and Sylvia to the police which are consistent with Tidrow's statement. On appeal, Tidrow does not complain of his own statement's admission into evidence. His first point of error is that the statements of James and Sylvia are inadmissible hearsay and violate his constitutional right to confront the witnesses against him.
Self-inculpating hearsay statements by a co-defendant which also inculpate an accused may be admissible against the accused where the statement was sufficiently against the declarant's penal interest that a reasonable person in the declarant's position would not have made the statement unless believing it to be true. Williamson v. U.S., 512 U.S. 594, ---- - -----, 114 S.Ct. 2431, 2436-37, 129 L.Ed.2d 476, 484-86 (1994); Cofield v. State, 891 S.W.2d 952, 956 (Tex.Crim.App.1994); McFarland v. State, 845 S.W.2d 824, 836 (Tex.Crim.App.1992), cert. denied, 508 U.S. 963, 113 S.Ct. 2937, 124 L.Ed.2d 686 (1993). The circumstances of each case must determine whether a declarant's out-of-court statement is against his or her interest. Williamson, 512 U.S. at ---- - ----, 114 S.Ct. at 2436-37, 129 L.Ed.2d at 484-86; Cofield, 891 S.W.2d at 956.
The trial court admitted Sylvia's and James' out-of-court statements as exceptions to the hearsay rule. See TEX.R.CRIM.EVID. 803(24). The court ruled:
The Court does find there could be corroborating circumstances to make the documents trustworthy. I think the corpus delicti of the crime has been shown. I think the circumstances of each confession, in fact, corroborates the other confession, the other statement. Additionally, I think the circumstances as testified by Stacy Roy corroborate both statements as well.
Tidrow argues that the State did not carry its burden of identifying any corroborating circumstances aside from the out-of-court statements of co-defendants Sylvia and James. In offering the statements, the State has the burden to justify their admissibility by evidence of corroborating circumstances that clearly indicate the statements' trustworthiness. Davis v. State, 872 S.W.2d 743, 749 (Tex.Crim.App.1994). The test for gauging the existence of such corroborating circumstances is not an easy one, and the trial court must not indulge in weighing the credibility of the in-court witness. Id. Although the test is not exact, factors a court may consider include (1) whether the declarant's guilt is inconsistent with that of the accused, (2) whether the declarant was so situated that he might have committed the crime, (3) the declaration's timing and spontaneity, (4) the relationship between the declarant and the person to whom the declaration is made, and (5) the existence of independent corroborating facts. Id. Not all factors apply in every case. Id.
One of the State's witnesses was Rudolpho Yoyo Ambress, then an inmate in the Denton County jail, convicted of crimes unrelated to this case and awaiting transfer to state prison. He and Tidrow had been inmates in the jail's "holding tank" at the same time. Ambress testified:
....
....
....
Another witness for the prosecution was Stacy Roy, sister of James. She lived with her parents in the mobile home where the murder took place. At 6:00 or 6:30 p.m. on the night of the murder, she left her father alone in their home and went outside to be with friends in the mobile home park. About 9:00 p.m., while walking with friends near the Roy home, she saw James and another man behind it. About 9:30 p.m., she saw them leave the area in her father's pickup truck. Later, she and a friend entered the Roys' home. Her father and mother were not there, and her father's pillow and blanket were gone. She became scared and went to her friend's mobile home, where she stayed for several hours.
We hold that the testimony of Ambress and Stacy, coupled with the finding of Windell's body in a roadside ditch with hands tied by telephone cord, provide independent facts which circumstantially corroborate Tidrow's own confession to the murder and the manner in which it was done. The respective out-of-court statements of James and Sylvia are self-inculpatory and each is sufficiently against the declarant's penal interest that a reasonable person in the declarant's position would not have made the statement unless believing it to be true. In James' out-of-court statement, he said he put the pillow over his father's face after Tidrow's fist-assault, and:
Me and Brian then took my dad's body, which I don't know when he actually died, and put it in the back of the truck and we left. We put the body on the side of the road ... After that we went to meet my mother ... She told us that we would get our money when the insurance check got there....
Sylvia's out-of-court statement was, in part,
I know I am very guilty of this crime ... I had originally thought I could do it myself, but was unable.... I approached my son, James.... So I told him he could have the truck along with some money from insurance.... Windell started having memory losses.... He said it would be better if he was dead.... That is when the idea started in my mind.... The arrangement to James, was to James and no one else. He was to take care of paying the other person, Brian.... And I wish to God, we had never carried it out....
The statements of James and Sylvia are consistent with Tidrow's confession, and each statement is clearly self-inculpatory. None attempts to exonerate...
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