Caldwell v. State

356 S.W.3d 42, 2011 WL 5042068
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedNovember 29, 2011
Docket06-10-00088-CR
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 356 S.W.3d 42 (Caldwell 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
Caldwell v. State, 356 S.W.3d 42, 2011 WL 5042068 (Tex. Ct. App. 2011).

Opinions

OPINION

Opinion by

Justice MOSELEY.

After Luther Caldwell was convicted by a Bowie County jury for the murder of Greg Thomas and sentenced to life imprisonment, he has appealed. Caldwell complains that the trial court erred in limiting the evidence Caldwell was allowed to present regarding a possible alternative perpetrator of the charged murder and that the trial court should have granted Caldwell’s motion for new trial based on an allegation of the discovery of new evidence. After reviewing the record and considering the parties’ oral arguments, we find no reversible error and affirm the judgment.

The Shooting

The State’s central witness was a sometime prostitute, Donna Taylor, who testified that she was personally acquainted with Caldwell. Taylor indicated that she had previously lived with Caldwell, had regularly purchased illicit drugs from him (including a purchase on the morning of the shooting), and had previously driven Caldwell’s Nissan Sentra, which she alleged that Caldwell had driven while shooting Thomas.

The crux of Taylor’s testimony was that on the night of September 12, 2007, she was walking along Nettie Street in Texar-kana and encountered Thomas, whom she knew. As Taylor and Thomas walked along together, Taylor saw Caldwell driving his Sentra.1 Since Taylor wanted to purchase more crack cocaine, she attempted to attract Caldwell’s attention. At that time, she observed Caldwell point the barrel of a gun out the car’s passenger window, shoot Thomas, and then drive away. Taylor, frightened, ran and hid in an alley, emerging after about ten minutes. A few blocks from the location of the shooting, she encountered another person familiar to her, Johnny Ward. Taylor told Ward she had just seen someone get shot, but testified she did not tell Ward the identity of the victim. A short time later, Taylor approached a police officer and told him she had seen “something bad.” At the police station, Taylor told investigators that Caldwell was the shooter, and she identified a picture of him in a photographic line-up.

In her first statement to police the night of the killing, Taylor said she saw the gun barrel protruding from the passenger window and repeated that at the time of trial. On cross-examination, Caldwell established a temporary change in her story, pointing out that in 2008, Taylor had told the police that the gun protruded from the driver’s side window and not the passenger’s side window. Taylor acknowledged having misspoken in that intervening statement to police, and reaffirmed that the gun barrel projected from the passenger’s side window when Caldwell drove past and shot Thomas.

In the hours after the shooting, even though Taylor had given a positive identification of Caldwell as the perpetrator, police still rounded up other persons of interest in the neighborhood and brought them [45]*45in for questioning; those persons brought in for questioning included Ward and a companion, Curnediles Larry, both of whom were swabbed to test for gunshot residue. Gunshot residue tests were negative for both men. As one detective was swabbing Ward, Ward inquired about the purpose of the test and, in particular, regarding the length of time which could pass between a test subject firing a gun and the ability of the test to detect a residue of gunpowder.2 The chief investigator for the case, Detective Scott Sartor, interviewed both Ward and Larry, found their alibis persuasive to him,3 and concluded that neither man had any connection to Thomas’ slaying.

Leonard Bolton testified4 that the day after the shooting, another person (Little Charles Ray) brought Caldwell to Bolton, and told Bolton that Caldwell had shot Thomas. Bolton said that although Caldwell was present and overheard Ray’s statement, Caldwell made no attempt to deny the crime. Bolton (who admitted having engagéd in the sale of illicit drugs with Caldwell) stated that Caldwell enlisted Bolton’s assistance in leaving Texar-kana. Bolton said that Caldwell related that he wanted to avoid the Texarkana bus station because he feared that police monitored that station with drug-detection dogs. Bolton chauffeured Caldwell to Atlanta, Texas. Missing the bus there, they proceeded south to the bus station in Marshall, Texas, from whence Caldwell departed for Stockton, California. Bolton said that throughout the drive to the various bus stations, Caldwell said he had “fucked up,” but Bolton would not allow Caldwell to explain what he meant by that.5 Shortly after arriving in Stockton, California, Caldwell called Bolton to tell him that he had arrived; in that conversation, Caldwell told Bolton that he had seen his picture being broadcast on a television in the Marshall bus station as a wanted man. On at least two occasions, Bolton sent money to Caldwell in California. Later, Bolton contacted police and Caldwell was located and arrested in California.

Caldwell testified in his defense. Although he admitted to being a drug dealer, he denied that he was a murderer, denying that he had anything to do with the shooting of Thomas. His explanation for going to California the day after the killing was that a shooting in the neighborhood generated the wrong kind of attention for his drug business, and he also intended to attend his brother’s wedding.

Caldwell’s Alternative Perpetrator Theory

Caldwell’s defensive theory focused on Ward: through cross-examination of the State’s witnesses, Caldwell suggested [46]*46Ward was the killer.6 The trial court limited the evidence Caldwell was allowed to present to the jury, precluding him from showing a possible motive Ward may have possessed to kill Thomas, as well as a short document (generated by prosecutors or law enforcement on an interagency computer program), which suggested Ward had killed Thomas. This limitation on the evidence Caldwell was allowed to present is the source of one of Caldwell’s complaints on appeal. We affirm the trial court’s ruling.

Evidence Not Permitted by the Trial Court

Four or five days before Thomas was killed, Ward was alleged to have been involved in a shooting in the same neighborhood where the instant killing occurred. In that case, Ward was alleged to have shot a man who was standing with Thomas and a third man. Thomas gave a statement to police in which he identified Ward as the shooter in that case. Caldwell asked the trial court to allow him to present this evidence of accusations about Ward’s earlier shooting activity as evidence that he (Ward) had a motive to kill Thomas, a witness to the prior shooting. The trial court refused to allow this evidence, although the jury was permitted to hear two police officers testify that Ward was initially considered a suspect, and was brought in for questioning in the hours immediately after the shooting.7

The trial court also precluded Caldwell from presenting evidence: a printout from a computer program called “Able Term.” From the record and statements from the State at oral argument, Able Term appears to be a software program accessible by law enforcement officers, the prosecutor’s office, and the clerk’s office which is maintained for the purpose of keeping track of criminal cases.

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Caldwell v. State
356 S.W.3d 42 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 2011)

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Bluebook (online)
356 S.W.3d 42, 2011 WL 5042068, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/caldwell-v-state-texapp-2011.