Van Guilder v. State

• Decision Date: 06 November 1985
• Docket Number: No. 899-84,899-84
• Citation: 709 S.W.2d 178
• Parties: Joyce Ann VAN GUILDER, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee.
• Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals

Page 178

709 S.W.2d 178

Joyce Ann VAN GUILDER, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee.

No. 899-84.

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas En Banc.

Nov. 6, 1985.

Certiorari Denied June 9, 1986.

See 106 S.Ct. 2891.

Richard E. Langlois (Court appointed on appeal), San Antonio, for appellant.

Sam D. Millsap, Jr., Dist. Atty., Bruce Baxter and Edward F. Shaughnessy, III, Asst. Dist. Attys., San Antonio, Robert Huttash, State's Atty., Alfred Walker, First Asst., State's Atty., Austin, for the State.

Before the court en banc.

OPINION ON STATE'S PETITION FOR DISCRETIONARY REVIEW

W.C. DAVIS, Judge.

Appellant was convicted of one count of attempted murder and sentenced to twenty (20) years incarceration at the Texas Department of Corrections. The jury found appellant not guilty by reason of insanity on three other counts of attempted murder and one count of murder. All five charges arose out of the same continuous transaction.

The Fourth Court of Appeals reversed the trial court's judgment, concluding that appellant's affirmative defense of insanity had been established as a matter of law and that the jury finding on insanity was against the "great weight and preponderance of the evidence." Van Guilder v. State, 674 S.W.2d 915 (Tex.App.--San Antonio 1984). We granted the State's Petition for Discretionary Review to examine that holding.

Five medical experts testified for the defense, all of whom agreed that appellant was legally insane on the date of the offense.

The State offered no evidence to rebut appellant's insanity defense.

The issue in this case concerns the proper standard of review to be used by the court of appeals in criminal cases in general and the standard of review in criminal cases involving an affirmative defense in particular.

In cases where the sufficiency of the evidence to support a criminal conviction is at issue the reviewing court is limited to an analysis based on the test established in Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979). In Jackson, supra, the Supreme Court required that all the evidence be viewed in the light most favorable to the verdict with the appellate court limiting its inquiry to whether any rational trier of fact could have found the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. This is accomplished in the reviewing court by considering all the evidence in the case, resolving all conflicts and all reasonable inferences in favor of the verdict and then determining whether there is sufficient evidence to support the judicial action demanded.

The Supreme Court reasoned,

... [T]he critical inquiry on review of the sufficiency of the evidence to support a criminal conviction must be not simply to determine whether the jury was properly instructed, but to determine whether the record evidence could reasonably support a finding of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. But this inquiry does not require a court to 'ask itself whether it believes that the evidence at trial established guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.' Woodby v. INS, 385 U.S. at 282, 87 S.Ct. at 486 (emphasis added). Instead, the relevant question is whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. See Johnson v. Louisiana, 406 U.S. at 362, 92 S.Ct. [1620] at 1624-1625 . This familiar standard gives full play to the responsibility of the trier of fact fairly to resolve conflicts in the testimony, to weigh the evidence, and to draw reasonable inferences from basic facts to ultimate facts. Once a defendant has been found guilty of the crime charged, the factfinder's role as weigher of the evidence is preserved through a legal conclusion that upon judicial review all of the evidence is to be considered in the light most favorable to the prosecution. The criterion thus impinges upon 'jury' discretion only to the extent necessary to guarantee the fundamental protection of due process of law.

Jackson, supra, at 318-319, 99 S.Ct. at 2788-2789.

In a well-reasoned opinion styled Wilson v. State, 654 S.W.2d 465 (Tex.Cr.App.1983), this Court further quoted Jackson, supra, in determining that the Jackson standard of review was based on notions of due process enumerated in the Fourteenth Amendment and was thus binding on the states as a constitutional minimum of protection for criminal defendants:

Under [ In re] Winship [397 U.S. 358, 90 S.Ct. 1068, 25 L.Ed.2d 368 (1970) ] which established proof beyond a reasonable doubt as an essential of Fourteenth Amendment due process, it follows that when such a conviction [that was obtained even when no rational trier of fact would have found guilt beyond a reasonable doubt] occurs in a state trial, it cannot constitutionally stand.

Wilson, supra, at 471.

There appears to be substantial confusion in the Courts of Appeal over the proper standard of review in criminal cases. This is due to their reading of Art. 5, Sec. 6 of the Texas Constitution and a recent decision of this Court, Combs v. State, 643 S.W.2d 709 (Tex.Cr.App.1982). See Minor v. State, 653 S.W.2d 349 (Tex.App.--San Antonio 1983); Minor, supra (concurring opinion, J. Cadena).

It is true that as amended, Art. 5, Sec. 6 of the Texas Constitution reads, "that the decisions of said Courts [Courts of Appeal] shall be conclusive on all questions of fact brought before them on appeal or error." However, Art. 1820, V.A.C.S. as amended by the 67th Legislature in 1981 provides, "the judgment of the Courts of Appeal in civil cases shall be conclusive in all cases on the facts of the case." (Emphasis added).

We do not read Combs, supra, as requiring anything less than the constitutional standard enumerated in Jackson, supra.

In Combs, supra, this Court stated:

It is well settled that our Court does not have jurisdiction to pass upon the weight and preponderance of the evidence or to 'unfind' a fact. More specifically, our determinations of sufficiency of the evidence have never involved passing on the weight and preponderance of the evidence. Combs, supra, at 716.

In a footnote to the above quoted paragraph the Court stated:

We perceive no other standard may be utilized by the Court of Appeals in reviewing criminal convictions other than the sufficiency of the evidence to support the conviction. Combs, supra, at 716.

Far from dictating that the court of appeals will be granted fact jurisdiction, this Court in Combs, supra, clearly states that the due process standard reviewing proof beyond a reasonable doubt, created in Jackson, supra, must be used by the court of appeals in reviewing criminal cases.

To allow the court of appeals to evaluate the facts in a criminal case and to reverse based on their individual belief that a jury finding is against the great weight and preponderance of the evidence both misconceives the burden of proof required for criminal convictions and usurps the function of the jury. In effect, this would make the courts of appeal a thirteenth juror with veto power. Neither the Texas constitution nor Combs, supra, supports such a standard of review.

It appears that the confusion in the court of appeals' decision in this area stems from the insertion into the case of an affirmative defense.

With all affirmative defenses the burden of proof is shifted to the defendant who must prove his defense by a preponderance of the evidence. Tex.Penal Code, Sec. 2.04(d) provides this standard of proof If the issue of the existence of an affirmative defense is submitted to the jury, the Court shall charge that the defendant must prove the affirmative defense by a preponderance of the evidence.

This burden is very different from that required of all other defenses that are not specifically defined as affirmative defenses in the Texas Penal Code. In other defenses the burden of producing evidence is shifted to the defendant. However, after he has met this burden of production, the State must disprove the allegation beyond a reasonable doubt. Tex.Penal Code Sec. 2.03(d). This level of proof is not required of the State in affirmative defense cases.

Problems with the burden shifting in affirmative defense cases are presented in reviewing the sufficiency of both the affirmative defense and all the evidence. In order to preserve the minimum due process protection established in Jackson, supra, and Winship, supra, the court of appeals must be allowed to review the sufficiency of the evidence to support the defendant's affirmative defense as well as the sufficiency of the evidence to support the conviction. Otherwise, a defendant's constitutional right to a review of the sufficiency of the evidence to support his conviction is violated. For example, in a case in which the affirmative defense of insanity is asserted and the State responds with some form of rebuttal evidence, be it by cross-examination of defendant's witnesses or by direct examination of their own witnesses, in order for the court of appeals to fulfill the Jackson test it must make some kind of determination on sanity because the evidence has made sanity an issue in the case. Without this review on sanity, in every case involving this affirmative defense issue, the appellate court would be constrained to find that the evidence supported the verdict because they would have to assume that the affirmative defense was not adequately proven. In short, the appellate court would have to accept the implicit jury finding on the affirmative defense even if irrational.

Because some review of the affirmative defense is necessary in such cases in order to afford an appellant due process under Jackson, supra, this Court, in keeping with the principles of Jackson, supra, must provide a standard of review consistent with constitutional law in this area and the inviolability of the jury as fact finders in Texas criminal law. Therefore, we hold that in reviewing a case involving an affirmative...