Belyeu v. State

791 S.W.2d 66, 1989 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 174, 1989 WL 110920
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Texas
DecidedSeptember 27, 1989
Docket69654
StatusPublished
Cited by62 cases

This text of 791 S.W.2d 66 (Belyeu v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Belyeu v. State, 791 S.W.2d 66, 1989 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 174, 1989 WL 110920 (Tex. 1989).

Opinions

OPINION

MILLER, Judge.

Appellant was convicted of the offense of capital murder. V.T.C.A. Penal Code § 19.03. After the jury returned affirma[68]*68tive answers to the special issues at punishment, the trial court sentenced appellant to death. Art. 37.071, Y.A.C.C.P. Review by this Court is automatic. Art. 37.071(h), supra. Appellant raises five points of error on appeal. Finding no merit in these points, we will affirm appellant’s conviction.

In his fourth point of error, appellant contends the evidence is insufficient to support his conviction. Specifically, appellant argues that this case “was tried on the theory of circumstantial evidence and by virtue of such fact the State is required to exclude every other reasonable hypothesis except that of [appellant’s] guilt, Swink v. State, 617 S.W.2d 203 (Tex.Cr.App.1981).” The State correctly responds in its brief that the appropriate standard for appellate review of sufficiency of the evidence is the same for direct and circumstantial evidence. See Bower v. State, 769 S.W.2d 887 (Tex.Cr.App.1989), Butler v. State, 769 S.W.2d 234 (Tex.Cr.App.1989), Huffman v. State, 746 S.W.2d 212 (Tex.Cr.App.1988), citing Houston v. State, 663 S.W.2d 455 (Tex.Cr.App.1984) (Opinion on Rehearing). That standard, announced in Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979) rehearing denied 444 U.S. 890, 100 S.Ct. 195, 62 L.Ed.2d 126 and followed by this Court, is that the evidence must be viewed in the light most favorable to the verdict to determine whether any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt. Moreno v. State, 755 S.W.2d 866 (Tex.Cr.App.1988). We utilize the reasonable hypothesis theory in circumstantial evidence cases in applying the Jackson standard, see Butler, at footnote 1, but it is not a separate standard for appellate review. The reasonable hypothesis analysis is used to determine whether the jury’s guilty verdict is a rational finding given the evidence. As we stated in Carlsen v. State, 654 S.W.2d 444 (Tex.Cr.App.1983) (Opinion on Reh’g), “if the evidence supports an inference other than the guilt of the appellant, a finding of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt is not a rational finding.”

With this reviewing procedure in mind, we detail the facts in order to properly analyze appellant’s point of error. On the morning of December 10, 1985, at approximately 8:30 a.m., Diane Friend visited Melody Bolton at her home in West for approximately ten minutes. Cindy Snok-house testified that later that day, she called Melody at home. Cindy stated that she first called Melody between 10:30 and 11:00 a.m. that day and called several times because the phone was always busy. Cindy finally drove over to the Bolton residence to see Melody at 11:50 a.m. Cindy testified that Melody’s car was in the garage and that the Christmas tree lights were on, but no one answered the doorbell. Concern for Melody prompted Cindy to call Melody’s husband, Gerald Bolton, at work.

Gerald Bolton testified that he left his home on December 10, 1985, at approximately 7:50 a.m., took his two children to school, and then went to work at his Chevrolet dealership. Shortly before noon that day, he received a call at work from Cindy Snokhouse that something was wrong at his house because lights were on, doors were open, the car was in the garage, but no one was answering the doorbell. Three minutes later Gerald left work and went home. When Gerald arrived at his house, he noticed that some cabinets in the garage and the door to the utility room were open. Finding that unusual, he walked through the utility room into the dining room of his home and he noticed that the phone was off the hook. Gerald then noticed a mudprint on the carpet in the living room. He called out for Melody but there was no response. Knowing that something was wrong but not knowing what, Gerald called his dealership and told two friends to come out to his home.

After calling the dealership, Gerald went out to the garage to get one of his guns1 which he kept in a cabinet. His guns were [69]*69missing so he picked up his son’s baseball bat for protection and went out onto the patio. From the patio Gerald could see into the master bedroom. He saw Melody lying on their bed, but he could only see her from the waist down. Gerald noticed that Melody’s hands were tied behind her back, her feet were hanging off the end of the bed, and he saw something laying on the floor that looked like an intestine. Gerald then ran back to the phone in the house, called his secretary and told her to get an ambulance to his house as fast as possible. Gerald then went outside and waited for his two friends, George Fiddler and Butch Scott, to arrive.

When George and Butch arrived at the Bolton residence, they went directly into the master bedroom to check on Melody while Gerald waited in the kitchen, but they immediately came back out of the bedroom. George saw that Melody had apparently been shot and told Gerald that he did not know if Melody was going to be all right.

McLennan County Sheriff’s Deputies Larry Abraham and Ronnie Turnbough secured the Bolton house for investigation. Abraham took pictures of the muddy footprints in the house which ran from the utility room through the kitchen, down the hallway and into each bedroom in the house. Abraham testified that the trail of footprints in the master bedroom went into the closet, around the bed and up to the nightstand.

At trial, the State produced the following chronology of events as narrated by civilian and police witnesses: Betty Birdwell, a Hillsboro resident, testified that on the morning of December 10, 1985, at about 9:00 or 9:30 a.m., two men stopped at her home to look at a Corvette which was for sale in her front yard. The two men were driving a small light colored pick-up truck with a camper on it. The older of the two men, who Betty later identified as appellant, told her that he had just finished paying for the truck but that “the kid wanted a car”. Betty also later identified “the kid” as appellant’s cohort Ernest Moore.

At 10:20 or 10:30 a.m. on December 10, 1985, Mary Frances Kolar, who lived one or two miles from the Boltons, saw a small red and white pick-up truck with a camper on it come down her driveway, stop, and then back out of her driveway. She noticed two persons were in the truck but they did not drive close enough to the house for her to identify them. Two other witnesses, Laura Fry and Molly Brenner, testified to seeing a small pick-up truck in front of the Bolton residence on the morning of December 10, 1985. Fry stated that she passed the Bolton residence on her way to the grocery store. She saw a small red pick-up truck with a white camper turn into the Bolton’s driveway at about 10:30 that morning. Benner also saw a red and white pick-up truck with a white camper when she passed by the Bolton’s house at 10:40 a.m. She stated that Melody’s car was in the garage and that the pick-up truck was parked close behind it.

In the afternoon of December 10, 1985, Becky Ray and Sonya Baker were approached, according to their testimony, by two men while commercially cleaning a home located south of Athens. The men were in a small red pick-up truck with a white camper.

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Bluebook (online)
791 S.W.2d 66, 1989 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 174, 1989 WL 110920, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/belyeu-v-state-texcrimapp-1989.