Alfred v. State

720 S.W.2d 218, 1986 Tex. App. LEXIS 8985
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedNovember 6, 1986
DocketB14-85-668-CR
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 720 S.W.2d 218 (Alfred v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Alfred v. State, 720 S.W.2d 218, 1986 Tex. App. LEXIS 8985 (Tex. Ct. App. 1986).

Opinions

OPINION

CANNON, Justice.

Richard Lee Alfred (Alfred) is appealing his jury conviction for aggravated sexual abuse for which the court below sentenced him to eighteen years confinement in the Texas Department of Corrections. The incident occurred on March 1, 1980, and thus, Alfred was tried under the then prevailing statute, Tex.Penal Code Ann. § 21.05 (Vernon 1974).

In three points of error, Alfred asserts: (1) the evidence was insufficient to support the element of aggravation as found by the jury; (2) the court below erroneously permitted proof of an improper pre-trial identification; and (3) the court below erred in denying his motion to quash based on a plea of double jeopardy. Because we find no merit to these arguments, we affirm the judgment of the court below.

A brief procedural review is essential to an understanding of this case. In Alfred’s first trial, the jury convicted him of aggravated sexual abuse, and the trial court sentenced him to eighteen years in prison. Alfred appealed the conviction, and, in an unpublished opinion, the Waco Court of Appeals reversed and remanded for new trial due to an unguarded statement made by the trial court in the presence and hearing of the jury. Alfred filed a motion for rehearing and asked the court to rule on his point of error which complained of the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain the element of aggravation in the indictment for aggravated sexual abuse. The Waco court denied the motion and overruled Alfred’s sufficiency point of error in an unpublished opinion on motion for rehearing.

Prior to the second trial, Alfred filed a verified plea of double jeopardy and motion to quash. The basis for his plea of double jeopardy was the alleged misconduct of the prosecutor, which occurred in the first trial. The motion was denied on June 24, 1985, and Alfred proceeded to trial.

Again the jury found Alfred guilty of aggravated sexual abuse, and the court sentenced him to eighteen years in the Texas Department of Corrections. Alfred filed a motion for new trial, which was denied, and gave notice of this appeal.

In his third point of error, Alfred asserts as error the trial court’s denial of his pretrial motion to quash based on his plea of double jeopardy. As previously noted, this appeal arises from Alfred’s conviction at his second trial. Alfred argues because there was prosecutorial misconduct at the first trial that provoked him to move for mistrial, a retrial should have been barred by his plea of double jeopardy. We find no error.

Notwithstanding the fact that Alfred did not provide this court with the statement of facts from the first trial and thus furnished us with no record from which to review the prosecutor’s conduct, we will nevertheless assume as true Alfred’s allegations in order to address his point of error.

The Supreme Court has rendered a number of decisions that discuss the issue of double jeopardy when a defendant moves for mistrial on the basis of judicial or pros-ecutorial misconduct. See United States v. DiFrancesco, 449 U.S. 117, 130, 101 S.Ct. 426, 433-434, 66 L.Ed.2d 328 (1980); United States v. Dinitz, 424 U.S. 600, 611, 96 S.Ct. 1075, 1081, 47 L.Ed.2d 267 (1976); United States v. Jorn, 400 U.S. 470, 485, 91 S.Ct. 547, 557, 27 L.Ed.2d 543 (1971); United States v. Tateo, 377 U.S. 463, 468 n. 3, 84 S.Ct. 1587, 1590 n. 3, 12 L.Ed.2d 448 (1964). In Oregon v. Kennedy, 456 U.S. 667, 102 S.Ct. 2083, 72 L.Ed.2d 416 (1982), the Supreme Court acknowledged the confusion surrounding the standard used to determine double jeopardy in instances where a defendant moved for mistrial on the basis of prosecutorial or judicial misconduct. The Court stated:

[220]*220Because of the confusion which these varying statements of the standard in question have occasioned in other courts, we deem it best to acknowledge the confusion and its justifiability in the light of these statements from previous deci-sions_ [W]e do hold that the circumstances under which such a defendant may invoke the bar of double jeopardy in a second effort to try him are limited to those cases in which the conduct giving rise to the successful motion for a mistrial was intended to provoke the defendant into moving for a mistrial.

456 U.S. at 679,102 S.Ct. at 2091 (emphasis added).

Here, Alfred was not successful on his motion for mistrial. The trial ended with a jury conviction. On appeal, the case was reversed and remanded “due to an unguarded statement made by the trial court in the presence and hearing of the jury, which prejudiced Appellant’s right to a fair trial_” Alfred v. State, No. 10-83-079-CR (Tex.App. — Waco, Jan. 12, 1984). Alfred has no federal claim of double jeopardy.

Moreover, Alfred has no state claim of double jeopardy. In Durrough v. State, 620 S.W.2d 134 (Tex.Crim.App.1981), the court held:

The Double Jeopardy Clause does protect a defendant against governmental actions intended to provoke mistrials so as to afford the prosecution a more favorable opportunity to convict the defendant. (citation omitted) But when the trial proceeds to its conclusion despite a legitimate claim of seriously prejudicial error, the Double Jeopardy Clause will present no obstacle to a retrial if the conviction is reversed on appeal, (citations omitted) In the present case the alleged misconduct did not result in a mistrial. The appellant was found guilty.... That judgment was reversed on appeal and the case was remanded for a new trial. We reject the appellant’s contention that the alleged [prosecutorial] misconduct was a bar to further prosecution for this offense.

Id. at 139.

Durrough is controlling here. Alfred’s point of error three is overruled.

In his first point of error, Alfred maintains that the evidence was insufficient to prove the element of aggravation under Tex.Penal Code Ann. § 21.05(a)(2) (Vernon 1974) as that element was interpreted by Rucker v. State, 599 S.W.2d 581 (Tex.Crim.App.1979). We disagree because Rucker is factually distinguishable from the case at bar.

Rucker involved a conviction for aggravated rape under Tex.Penal Code Ann. § 21.03(a)(2) (Vernon 1974). The court reversed and remanded because the evidence was insufficient to prove the element of aggravation. In Rucker, there was no evidence that the defendant had made any express verbal threats to compel submission to the rape, nor was a weapon used. Further, the victim did not sustain any serious bodily injury.

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Alfred v. State
720 S.W.2d 218 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1986)

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Bluebook (online)
720 S.W.2d 218, 1986 Tex. App. LEXIS 8985, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/alfred-v-state-texapp-1986.