Chapman v. State

838 S.W.2d 574, 1992 Tex. App. LEXIS 1974, 1992 WL 180739
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJune 10, 1992
DocketNo. 07-91-0103-CR
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 838 S.W.2d 574 (Chapman 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
Chapman v. State, 838 S.W.2d 574, 1992 Tex. App. LEXIS 1974, 1992 WL 180739 (Tex. Ct. App. 1992).

Opinion

POFF, Justice.

Appellant Randy Wayne Chapman was found guilty of capital murder by a jury. Because appellant was younger than seventeen at the time the offense was commit[576]*576ted, he was automatically sentenced to confinement in the Institutional Division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice for life. See Tex.Penal Code Ann. § 12.31(a) (Vernon Supp.1992); Tex.Penal Code Ann. § 8.07(d) (Vernon Supp.1992).

In the first of two points of error, appellant contends that the State failed to prove all elements of the indictment because the State failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he caused the death of two individuals during the course of the same criminal transaction. In his second point of error, appellant contends that the trial court erred in overruling his challenges for cause to two prospective jurors and in denying his request for an additional peremptory challenge. We will overrule both points of error and affirm the judgment of the trial court.

In a written statement given to police, appellant admitted killing two teenage boys on the evening of November 18, 1989. A Randall County grand jury subsequently indicted appellant for the offense of capital murder under Tex.Penal Code Ann. § 19.-03(a)(6)(A) (Vernon 1989), which reads:

A person commits [capital murder] if he commits murder as defined under Section 19.02(a)(1) of this code1 and the person murders more than one person during the same criminal transaction.

The jury was charged in accordance with the indictment and returned a verdict of guilty. The term “criminal transaction” was not defined for the jury. In his first point of error, appellant contends that the State failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he caused the death of the two boys during the same criminal transaction. Therefore, appellant contends that the State did not prove every element of the offense as is required by law. Vuong v. State, 830 S.W.2d 929, 939 (Tex.Crim.App.1992).

Our first task in addressing appellant’s first point of error is to determine the meaning of “criminal transaction.” The appellate courts of this state have yet to explicitly define the term in the context of section 19.03(a)(6)(A). However, the Legislature and the Court of Criminal Appeals have provided us with guidance as to the outer parameters of the definition.

The Legislature has limited how broadly the term “criminal transaction” can be defined. Pursuant to the subsection of the Texas Penal Code immediately following section 19.03(a)(6)(A), capital murder is deemed committed where a person murders more than one person “during different criminal transactions but the murders are committed pursuant to the same scheme or course of conduct.” Tex.Penal Code Ann. § 19.03(a)(6)(B) (Vernon 1989). Thus, we learn that a criminal transaction is not synonymous with “the same scheme or course of conduct.”

The Court of Criminal Appeals has explicated a narrow definition of the term “same criminal transaction.” In Vuong v. State, 830 S.W.2d 929 (Tex.Crim.App.1992), the defendant entered a Vietnamese pool room and cafe armed with a semi-automatic rifle. He proceeded to walk methodically through the establishment, take deliberate aim at individuals, and then shoot them. He fired eleven shots, seven of which struck persons. Two individuals were killed. The Court stated that the defendant “killed the two victims in a continuous and uninterrupted chain of conduct occurring over a very short period of time,” and that “both killings occurred in a rapid sequence of unbroken events.” Id. at 941. The court concluded that “[e]ven the most narrow construction of the term ‘same criminal transaction’ would include [these] type[s] of actions.” Id.

Viewing the evidence in the current case in the light most favorable to the verdict as we are required to do, Human v. State, 749 S.W.2d 832, 834 (Tex.Crim.App.1988), appellant’s conduct falls somewhere in between the narrowest possible interpretation and the broadest possible interpretation of criminal transaction. The record shows that the fifteen-year-old appellant was angry with two acquaintances for allegedly stealing some items from his house and that he planned to invite them to his house and “blow them away.” Appellant invited 17-year-old Billy Joe George II to [577]*577his house under the guise of selling him a gun. George was accompanied by 19-year-old Richard David Glasscock. The two young men arrived at appellant’s house in a pickup. George went to the door while Glasscock stayed in the pickup. Appellant invited George into the house where he proceeded to shoot him in the stomach with a .12 gauge single-shot shotgun. George fell to the floor. Appellant reloaded his shotgun and shot George in the head while he was still on the ground. The second shot caused massive destruction to George’s brain. This shooting took place at about 7:00 p.m.

After shooting George, appellant telephoned his cousin to tell him he had shot someone. Then appellant hung up the telephone, exited his house through the back door and went across the street to the home of his neighbor, Helen Marchman. Appellant, still carrying his shotgun, told Marchman that he had just shot the man who had been stealing guns from his house. Appellant enlisted Marchman’s help in locating his father who was visiting a friend. Being unable to remember the telephone number of his father’s friend or the correct spelling of his father’s friend’s name, appellant failed to contact his father. Appellant stayed at the Marchman’s house for ten or fifteen minutes. He then reloaded his shotgun and exited the Marchman’s house to return to his house which was approximately 100 to 150 feet away.

On the way to his house, appellant crept up on Glasscock who was still seated on the passenger side of the front seat of the pickup. Glasscock was looking toward the driver’s side door. Appellant opened the passenger door and shot Glasscock in the face just as Glasscock turned to look at him. The shot was fired at close range and killed Glasscock instantly. Appellant proceeded to enter his house. Shortly thereafter at about 7:40 p.m., appellant’s cousin, Kevin Boydstun, arrived. Boydstun encouraged appellant to call the police. Appellant called 911 and told the dispatcher he had shot and killed two persons. Police arrived at the scene at 7:45 p.m.

Unlike the defendant in Vuong, appellant did not commit the two murders in a rapid sequence of unbroken events. Rather, at least ten or fifteen minutes elapsed between the shootings. Thus, the Vuong case does not mandate the finding that appellant’s actions comprised but one criminal transaction.

On the other hand, appellant’s actions were clearly part of the same scheme or course of conduct. Appellant was angry with George and Glasscock and desired to kill them both.

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838 S.W.2d 574, 1992 Tex. App. LEXIS 1974, 1992 WL 180739, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/chapman-v-state-texapp-1992.