Brown v. State

938 S.W.2d 66, 1996 Tex. App. LEXIS 3291, 1995 WL 871261
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJuly 30, 1996
DocketNo. 12-95-00255-CR
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 938 S.W.2d 66 (Brown 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
Brown v. State, 938 S.W.2d 66, 1996 Tex. App. LEXIS 3291, 1995 WL 871261 (Tex. Ct. App. 1996).

Opinion

PER CURIAM.

Appellant is currently under indictment for the offense of sexual assault. This is an accelerated appeal from the denial of his pretrial application for habeas corpus relief. We will affirm.

I. Background

In November of 1994, prior to Appellant’s first trial under the instant indictment, the trial court signed orders granting Appellant’s Motion to Produce Exculpatory Evidence and Mitigating Evidence and Motion for Production of Grand Jury Testimony and Production of Victim’s Video Statement. In compliance with the trial court’s order on grand jury testimony (“Grand Jury Testimony Order”), the prosecutor thereafter turned over to Appellant’s counsel, copies of the transcriptions for several grand jury witnesses; however, one particular witness’ transcription, that of Linda Royal, was not turned over to him until after the trial had already progressed through much of the punishment phase. Upon reading Royal’s testimony, Appellant’s counsel discovered that it contained exculpatory evidence; thus, he moved for and received a mistrial. Subsequently, the case was reset for trial, and Appellant sought habeas corpus relief asserting that a second trial violated his rights under the double jeopardy clauses of the Texas and U.S. Constitutions.

II. The Habeas Corpus Hearing & Resultant Order Denying Relief

At the hearing on the merits of Appellant’s application for writ of habeas corpus, Appellant called three witnesses. First, Appellant called his local trial counsel, Clifton Roberson, who testified that from time to time, on trips to the district attorney’s office to talk with the prosecutor, he would be handed copies of whatever grand jury transcripts were available at that time. He, further testified that prior to voir dire, his co-counsel, William Ravkind, asked the State if there were any additional grand jury transcripts they had not received. At that time, they were handed one or two additional transcripts. Further, on the day trial began, the defense was given some other transcripts. Royal’s transcript was not among these new transcripts, and they did not specifically ask for it. Roberson testified that the defense did not receive Royal’s transcript until they were at the punishment phase of trial. On cross-examination Roberson was asked whether James Mills, the prosecutor at trial, had ever “hidden the ball” from him or had been known to have intentionally “hidden the ball” from other defense lawyers during prosecution of a case. Roberson stated, that while he did not believe Mills had ever hidden the ball from him, he had heard other lawyers accuse Mills of such conduct.

As his second witness, Appellant called his other trial attorney, William Ravkind. Rav-kind testified that he did not clearly recall the exact events which produced Royal’s testimony, but he believed that upon learning that Royal was listed as a State’s witness, he informed the trial court that they had not yet received Royal’s grand jury testimony. At that point, the prosecutor handed over Royal’s testimony to the defense. Thereafter, Ravkind’s legal assistant began reviewing Royal’s testimony, and she then directed his attention to the fact that it was exculpatory in nature. Ravkind admitted that he had already been privy to most of the information [68]*68contained in Royal’s grand jury testimony through information his investigator had obtained from Royal. Ravkind testified, however, that not knowing her grand jury testimony existed, he had chosen not to call her as a witness because he had assumed she would deny what she had told the investigator. He, however, stated that if he had possessed her grand jury testimony, he would have felt comfortable calling her to the stand, and she would have been their most critical witness. Ravkind also testified that he had heard Royal had testified before the grand jury, but he stated he did not believe it since he had not received her testimony.

As its final witness, Appellant called Dore-tha Anderson, Ravkind’s legal assistant. Anderson testified that when she saw Royal’s name listed as a witness for the defense at the punishment phase, she reminded Rav-kind that they had never received her grand jury testimony. At that point, Ravkind informed the trial court that they had not received it, and the prosecutor immediately handed it over to them. Thereafter, the State asked Anderson what had made her decide to ask whether or not they had received the grand jury testimony of Royal, and she replied: “Because I remember the Bishop [Appellant] specifically asking me if we had received that several times during the course of trial preparation, and when I saw her name on the witness list, I remembered that we had not received it, and I told Mr. Ravkind.” Although on cross-examination both of Appellant’s attorneys were asked to list which grand jury transcripts were actually received before trial, neither of them was able to provide that information even after being given an opportunity to examine their files.

After the defense rested, the State called James Mills, the prosecutor at trial, as its sole witness. Mills testified that at the time of the first trial, he was the only prosecutor in the 7th District Court. As such, he was responsible for compliance with discovery orders in addition to his other duties. Mills testified that the Smith County District Attorney’s office had an “open file” policy. He further testified that to the best of his recollection, in compliance with the trial court’s order to produce grand jury testimony, he instructed the court reporter to transcribe the grand jury testimony. Thereafter, he described handing the information over to the defense as follows:

I want to say that he [Roberson] came up to the DA’s office into my office, and I had all of the Grand Jury testimony — the originals and the copies all in one big pile, we went through, and I handed him a copy of each one. I think that happened in my office, but it could have happened down here, but as I recall, I remember going through them in my office and handed them to him up there.

Mills further testified that he had not been the one who presented the witnesses to the grand jury in the instant case, and he had read only the transcript of one grand jury witness, Fannie Moore, whose transcribed testimony had been in the State’s file before the other testimony was ever transcribed. Mills also testified that he was present during RavMnd’s opening statement wherein he summarized the content of Royal’s grand jury testimony, then promised the jury “we’ll show you all of this.” On cross-examination, Mills stated that prosecutor Richard Kennedy, who had presented the witnesses to the grand jury, was in charge of questioning the witnesses at the punishment phase of trial. According to Mills, he was sure that he had discussed what witnesses would testify at the punishment phase, but he had no independent recollection as to why Royal ended up on the list of witnesses. Additionally, he stated that until he found both the copy and. the original sitting on the table in the courtroom, he believed that he had turned over Royal’s testimony to the defense prior to trial. When asked whether he had also turned over some other copies of transcripts to the defense at the commencement of trial, Mills stated: “I don’t know. I might have. I’m not sure. I don’t know.” When asked what made him think he had turned over Royal’s testimony before trial, Mills stated:

Because I had given him all of the other testimony, and I did not — I just can’t imagine that I would skip one.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
938 S.W.2d 66, 1996 Tex. App. LEXIS 3291, 1995 WL 871261, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/brown-v-state-texapp-1996.