Williams v. State
| Decision Date | 19 April 2017 |
| Docket Number | NO. 09-14-00463-CR,09-14-00463-CR |
| Parties | VINCENT LAMAR WILLIAMS, Appellant v. STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee |
| Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
On Appeal from the Criminal District Court Jefferson County, Texas
Vincent Lamar Williams was indicted for aggravated sexual assault, a first degree felony, for the use of physical force and violence or the threat of force and violence, and the use and exhibition of a deadly weapon—a firearm. See Tex. Penal Code § 22.021 (West Supp. 2016). Williams pleaded not guilty during a trial by jury. The jury found Williams guilty and sentenced him to twenty years imprisonment. In three issues, Williams complains that the evidence is legally and factually insufficient to support the jury's verdict, that the trial court erred in allowing improper jury argument, and that the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress DNA evidence. While we find error for improper jury argument, we find such error harmless. We affirm the judgment of the trial court.
The complainant testified she was asleep at her residence in Port Arthur, Texas, when a noise in her bedroom awakened her. In the darkness of the early morning, she saw a black male standing in her bedroom rummaging through items on her nightstand and taking money and jewelry. The man told her not to look at him and that he had a pistol. Wearing gloves, the man reached into his pocket and pulled out a gun. The complainant feared for her safety and that of her daughter, who was asleep on the bed beside her. The daughter was awakened by her mother's crying and testified that the man pointed the gun in her face and told her not to look at him. She immediately complied and put her face back down into the bedding.
The assailant then blindfolded the complainant, tied her hands behind her back, stuffed a sock in her mouth, and removed her pants and underwear. He pulled her up from the bed and made her walk to the laundry room. At that time, the assailant reminded the complainant that he still had the weapon. He sat her on the dryer and sexually assaulted her by force, both digitally and with his sexual organ to ejaculation. The complainant was never able to get a clear look at the assailant's faceand could not otherwise identify him. The assailant escaped through the back door of the residence.
Immediately following the assault, the complainant was able to free herself and called her sister, who called the police. A police officer transported the complainant to a sexual assault nurse examiner. The sexual assault nurse testified that she collected and preserved fluid samples during complaint's examination, using a sexual assault evidence collection kit. Those specimens were forwarded to the crime lab for DNA testing.
No suspect was arrested for the assault for several years. Due to an error by the DPS crime lab, the results of the DNA testing were never entered into the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS)1 database. During an internal audit of the Department of Public Safety (DPS) crime lab, the mistake was discovered and the DNA results were eventually entered into the database. Soon thereafter, a hit was found which led to Williams being identified as a possible suspect. Buccal swabs were obtained from Williams for testing and compared against the DNA samples taken on the day of the assault. The DNA results from the semen taken from thecomplainant were consistent with the DNA results from the buccal swabs of Williams, and therefore, Williams could not be excluded as a suspect. The State's witness, a forensic scientist for the DPS, testified that, from the tests, the probability of selecting an unrelated person at random who could be the contributor, if it was not Williams, was estimated at one in 9.891 million for Caucasians, one in 7.289 million for blacks, and one in 3.384 million for Hispanics.
The State also called the detective assigned to investigate the case, who determined that Williams was physically located in Port Arthur three days before the assault and during the month following the assault.
Because the Court's determination of the trial court's ruling on the motion to suppress necessarily affects the consideration of evidence that supports the jury's verdict, the Court considers this issue first. As his third issue on appeal, Williams contends that the trial court abused its discretion in overruling the motion to suppress the DNA evidence. Williams' complains that the DNA evidence was "severely tainted and therefore inadmissible." Williams cites to nothing in the record of which he specifically complains nor does he cite to any authority to support his claim. The Rules of Appellate Procedure require the parties' briefs to contain clear and concise arguments with appropriate citations to authorities. See Tex. R. App. P. 38.1(i).When a party provides no argument or legal authority to support his appellate position, the issue is inadequately briefed. See Russeau v. State, 171 S.W.3d 871, 881 (Tex. Crim. App. 2005), cert. denied, 548 U.S. 926 (2006). Therefore, we overrule this issue for being inadequately briefed.
Assuming, arguendo, that the argument contained appropriate citation to authority and was therefore adequately briefed, we would remain obligated to overrule it. Turrubiate v. State, 399 S.W.3d 147, 150 (Tex. Crim. App. 2013) (citation omitted). When the trial court does not issue findings of fact, as here, findings that support the trial court's ruling are implied if the evidence, viewed in a light most favorable to the ruling, supports those findings. See State v. Kelly, 204 S.W.3d 808, 818-19 (Tex. Crim. App. 2006). Almost total deference is given to the trial court's implied findings, especially those based on an evaluation of witness credibility and demeanor. See Valtierra v. State, 310 S.W.3d 442, 447 (Tex. Crim. App. 2010). "We will sustain the trial court's ruling if it is 'reasonably supported by the record and is correct on any theory of law applicable to the case.'" Id. at 447-48 (quoting State v. Dixon, 206 S.W.3d 587, 590 (Tex. Crim. App. 2006).
The trial court conducted a hearing outside the presence of the jury to perform its gatekeeping function. At the hearing, the State presented testimony from two witnesses: the forensic scientist employed by the DPS crime lab, who conducted the DNA testing from specimens obtained from the victim immediately following the sexual assault, and the director of the DNA section of the DPS crime lab. The testimony of these witnesses revealed that although the crime lab made mistakes handling and documenting the results of the DNA tests, these errors did not affect the data or the veracity of the results of the tests. Specifically, it was shown that because a technical reviewer failed to review the data entry sheet prepared by the analyst, the data was not entered into the CODIS database for seven years following the testing. After the data was uploaded into the CODIS database, two transcription errors were discovered and corrected. Soon after these errors were corrected, a hit was obtained from the CODIS database. Neither the delay in entering the data, nor the transcription errors affected the validity of the data or results of the initial DNA testing.
At the conclusion of the hearing on the motion to suppress, the trial court recited its findings on the record. The trial court acknowledged that the crime lab made mistakes in handling and transcribing the DNA data. However, the court found that the crime lab made corrections after discovering the errors and the DNA profileevidence was accurate, reliable, and relevant. Therefore, the trial court denied the motion to suppress.
Williams did not produce any expert testimony at the suppression hearing or during the trial challenging the principles, procedures, or technology of forensic DNA profile testing generally, nor did he produce any expert testimony challenging the particular tests performed in this case. Once the State introduced the DNA evidence at trial, Williams cross-examined the State's expert witnesses but only with regard to transcription errors testified to by the lab's forensic analysts and the lab's failure to timely enter the results of the DNA analysis into the CODIS database.
The Court finds no error by the trial court in denying the motion to suppress. Williams' complaints go to the weight to be given the DNA evidence and not to the admissibility of such evidence. Williams' third issue is overruled.
In his first issue on appeal, Williams complains that the evidence is legally and factually insufficient to support the jury's verdict. Specifically, Williams complains there is insufficient evidence to identify him as the assailant. In Brooks v. State, the Court of Criminal Appeals concluded that there is no meaningful distinction between legal sufficiency review and factual sufficiency review. 323 S.W.3d 893, 902 (Tex. Crim. App. 2010). The Court held that "the Jackson v.Virginia standard is the only standard that a reviewing court should apply in determining whether the evidence is sufficient to support each element of a criminal offense that the State is required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt." Id. at 912. Therefore, to determine the sufficiency of the evidence, we must review all the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict to determine whether any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the charged offenses beyond a reasonable doubt. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 318-19 (1979); see also Hooper v. State, 214 S.W.3d 9, 13 (Tex. Crim. App. 2007). The jury is the sole judge of the credibility...
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