Charles E. Butcher II v. State

CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedOctober 31, 2013
Docket11-11-00288-CR
StatusPublished

This text of Charles E. Butcher II v. State (Charles E. Butcher II 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
Charles E. Butcher II v. State, (Tex. Ct. App. 2013).

Opinion

Opinion filed October 31, 2013

In The

Eleventh Court of Appeals __________

No. 11-11-00288-CR __________

CHARLES E. BUTCHER II, Appellant

V.

THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee

On Appeal from the 403rd District Court Travis County, Texas Trial Court Cause No. D-1-DC-11-904064

MEMORANDUM OPINION The jury found Charles E. Butcher II guilty of aggravated kidnapping and assessed punishment at confinement in the Institutional Division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice for life and a fine of $10,000. See TEX. PENAL CODE ANN. § 20.04 (West 2011). The trial court sentenced Butcher accordingly. We affirm. Butcher presents seven issues for review. In his first issue, Butcher asserts that the trial court erred when it admitted physical evidence seized from Butcher’s apartment and pickup because the evidence was obtained as a result of his illegal detention. Butcher complains in his second and third issues that the trial court erred when it admitted hearsay testimony by two police officers. In his fourth issue, Butcher argues that the trial court erred when it compelled him to submit to the photographing of his tattoos. Butcher alleges in his fifth and six issues that the evidence was legally and factually insufficient to support the jury’s finding that he did not release the victim in a safe place. And, in his seventh issue, Butcher asserts that the trial court erred when it admitted evidence of his prior conviction from Korea. The evidence at trial showed that J.G., a nine-year-old girl, was walking to the bus stop when a man came up behind her and grabbed her by putting one arm around her waist and his other hand over her mouth. He was wearing black gloves. He put her in the front passenger floorboard of his pickup and drove her to his apartment. J.G. testified that the pickup was old and red and had a white cover over the bed. J.G. also testified that the man had a kitchen knife in his hand and told her that he would cut her if she screamed. At his apartment, the man put her in the bedroom closet, and she watched “SpongeBob.” J.G. told him she was hungry on two separate occasions, and on each occasion, he fed her. The man fed her bread with jelly the first time she asked for food and ravioli the second time she asked for food. J.G. also told him that her mother would get mad if she was not home by the time she normally came home from school. The assailant put her back in the floorboard of his pickup and drove her to the apartments next to where she lived. She told him that she did not know 2 how to get home from that location. The man drove her back to the street where he initially grabbed her, and she walked home. J.G.’s mother was not at home when J.G. got there. Because J.G.’s assailant had taken her cell phone and because she did not have a home phone, she went to her neighbor’s house to use the neighbor’s phone to call her mother. Her mother and several officers arrived, and the police began an investigation. J.G. described her assailant’s apartment as a one-bedroom apartment that was upstairs in a red brick building. The apartment complex was under construction. She testified that the apartment was decorated with a Harley- Davidson theme; “[t]here was Harley-Davidson everywhere.” J.G. also testified that she remembered telling the woman at the Children’s Advocacy Center that the man had one tattoo with a black miniature tiger on one arm and another tattoo with a skull and bandana that said “Seek and” with a third word. The police identified Butcher as a suspect, and they later arrested him. The police searched his apartment and pickup and seized several items, including a paring knife and eating utensils. The police also photographed Butcher’s pickup and apartment. J.G. identified photographs of the knife found in Butcher’s pickup as the knife her assailant used to threaten her. She also identified photographs of the outside and inside of Butcher’s pickup, of the white camper shell that was on his pickup, of the Harley-Davidson floor mat in his pickup, and of the Harley- Davidson sticker on the back window of the camper shell. In addition, she identified photographs of the closet and living room of Butcher’s apartment as the place where she was taken. Other photographs taken by police during their investigation showed bread, jelly, and cans of ravioli in Butcher’s kitchen. A forensic analyst testified that J.G.’s DNA was found on the paring knife from Butcher’s pickup and on the blue spoon in Butcher’s kitchen sink. J.G. could 3 not be excluded as a contributor to the DNA found on a pair of black and gray gloves. The analyst also testified that Butcher could not be excluded as a contributor to the DNA found on the spoon, several other items recovered from his kitchen, the black and gray gloves, and a pair of black fingerless gloves. In his first issue, Butcher contends that the trial court erred when it admitted the DNA evidence and other physical evidence, such as the knife and the spoon, because the evidence would not have been found if the police did not exploit his illegal arrest. Specifically, Butcher argues that, if he had not been illegally arrested, he would have been at home cleaning his apartment and pickup, and the police would not have found the items later that day when they searched his property. Butcher does not challenge the trial court’s finding that the warrants to search his apartment and pickup were supported by probable cause. The trial court held numerous pretrial hearings on the suppression issue. The evidence during the hearings showed that Austin Police Officers Troy Boddy and Kevin Rybarski of the criminal intelligence unit conducted surveillance of Butcher once he became a suspect in the kidnapping investigation. During their surveillance, they followed Butcher to Walgreen’s and observed Butcher commit four traffic violations: he failed to signal an intent to turn left on three separate occasions and made an improper turn on one occasion. See TEX. TRANSP. CODE ANN. §§ 545.101, 545.104 (West 2011). The officers did not conduct a traffic stop because they were in an unmarked vehicle. However, the officers did approach Butcher when he stopped at Walgreen’s and told him that they observed him commit the traffic violations. The officers also informed him that a detective wanted to speak to him regarding an open investigation. They asked him if he would go to the police station with them to talk to the detective. Butcher went to the police station with the officers and spoke with Detective Christopher Douglas Keen of the Austin Police Department’s child 4 abuse unit. Upon entering the interview room, Detective Keen read Butcher the Miranda 1 warnings and told him he was not free to leave. Butcher waived his rights and spoke with Detective Keen for approximately one and one-half hours before requesting an attorney and ending the interview. At the end of the interview, Detective Keen executed an arrest warrant on Butcher for failure to register as a sex offender. Later that day, a magistrate signed an arrest warrant for aggravated kidnapping and also issued search warrants for Butcher’s apartment and pickup. Officers executed the search warrants and found physical evidence linking Butcher to the kidnapping. The next day, an order of commitment was filed for the aggravated kidnapping offense. The affidavit supporting the arrest warrant for failure to register as a sex offender contained a statement by Officer Mike Summers that Butcher had “not appeared in person to the Austin Police Department’s Sex Offender Registration Unit to register as required.” However, Nazareth Munoz, an employee of the Austin Police Department who registered sex offenders, testified that Butcher had appeared and had begun the registration process by completing the required form. The registration form was contained in the file that Officer Summers reviewed before preparing his affidavit.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Miranda v. Arizona
384 U.S. 436 (Supreme Court, 1966)
Franks v. Delaware
438 U.S. 154 (Supreme Court, 1978)
Segura v. United States
468 U.S. 796 (Supreme Court, 1984)
Johnson v. State
43 S.W.3d 1 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 2001)
Harrell v. State
65 S.W.3d 768 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 2002)
Poindexter v. State
153 S.W.3d 402 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 2005)
Carmouche v. State
10 S.W.3d 323 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 2000)
Johnson v. State
871 S.W.2d 744 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 1994)
King v. State
953 S.W.2d 266 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 1997)
Storr v. State
126 S.W.3d 647 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 2004)
Meraz v. State
785 S.W.2d 146 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 1990)
Schaffer v. State
777 S.W.2d 111 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 1989)
Rich v. State
160 S.W.3d 575 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 2005)
Brooks v. State
323 S.W.3d 893 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 2010)
Johnson v. State
725 S.W.2d 245 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 1987)
Johnson v. State
967 S.W.2d 410 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 1998)
Montgomery v. State
810 S.W.2d 372 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 1991)
Guzman v. State
955 S.W.2d 85 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 1997)
Burks v. State
876 S.W.2d 877 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 1994)
RODRIGUEZ-FLORES v. State
351 S.W.3d 612 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 2011)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
Charles E. Butcher II v. State, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/charles-e-butcher-ii-v-state-texapp-2013.