Christopher Allen Gillette v. State

444 S.W.3d 713, 2014 Tex. App. LEXIS 9396
Court of Appeals of Texas·Decided August 26, 2014·No. 13-12-00454-CR, 13-12-00455-CR·Published·Cited by 12 cases

Opinion

OPINION ON REHEARING 1

Opinion on Rehearing by Justice PERKES.

On May 29, 2014, we issued an opinion and judgments for these cause numbers. The State timely filed a motion for rehearing. After reviewing the motion and appellant’s response thereto, we grant the State’s motion for rehearing, withdraw our opinion and judgments dated May 29, 2014, and issue this opinion and revised judgments.

A jury convicted appellant Christopher Allen Gillette of two third-degree felony offenses of terroristic threat. See Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 22.07(a)(5), (6) (West, Westlaw through 2013 3d C.S.). One conviction resulted from statements appellant made in a letter to a congressman, 2 and the other conviction came from statements appellant made in a college class. 3 The jury assessed punishment for the count involving the letter at four years’ confinement in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Institutional Division. For the count resulting from appellant’s classroom statements, the jury assessed punishment at ten years’ confinement, but the trial court suspended that sentence, placed appellant on community supervision for ten years, and ordered the two sentences to run concurrently. By eight issues, which we reorganize as three and re-order, appellant argues: (1) the evidence is insufficient to support the two convictions; (2) jury charge error either violated his right to a unanimous verdict or, alternatively, misinformed the jury of the requisite culpable mental state; and (3) the trial court should not have admitted extraneous-of *718 fense evidence. We affirm the trial court’s judgment in appellate cause number 13-12-00455-CR, which convicted appellant for the statements he wrote in a letter to a congressman, but we reverse and remand the trial court’s judgment in appellate cause number 13-12-00454-CR because we hold appellant suffered egregious harm by the jury charge’s allowance for a non-unanimous verdict.

I.BACKGROUND

A. Appellant’s Letter to United States Congressman Michael Burgess

Appellant sent a letter to United States Congressman Michael Burgess of the 26th Congressional District of Texas. In it, appellant vented many grievances against the United States government, including its alleged failure to provide him, a United States Army veteran, with proper medical care for injuries he received during his military service. At the conclusion of the letter, appellant listed demands and resultant penalties should his demands not be met. The relevant excerpt from the letter is as follows: 4

I demand the following:
1. An official apology, personally written or typed from a representative of the United States government in the U.S. House or Senate, acknowledging that the United States gov-, ernment has negligently failed to render proper medical care to my person. This official apology does not have to be laborious in length. Simple sincerity will suffice.
2. The utilization of the full economic and political might of the United States government congruent to its responsibility to provide proper medical care to it’s [sic] veterans, specifically; the funding of a private option at my discretion until I am properly healed; subject to oversight of the office of my Congressional representative or another authority delegated by said office.
3.Compensation in some form or fashion for the severe pain I have encountered over the past decade of my life, subject to the wisdom and discretion of Congressman Burgess, or an authority delegated at his discretion.

If these demands are not met in a timely, efficient, and responsible manner then the following penalties will be applied.

1. I will inform the American people of the criminal negligence of the United States government. The great masses of the people universally support me in this aspiration. I will shout so loud, and gather such a great assembly of voices to my person, that the outcry will figuratively shatter the eardrums of the entire United States Congress.
2. If I am able to find healing in the private sector, without just compensation or service from my government, I will begin preparations to begin offensive combat preparations against the federal government. These preparations will include great care not to target civilian noncombatant personnel, specifically women and children, and will not include the use of explosives or political assassination as a means of political change.
*719 3. I will assume the United States government has refused to render proper medical aid to my person, an act tantamount to treason, and I will gather armed men of good character to my cause in order to place the entire United States Congress under arrest.
I am trying to warn you in the strongest terms humanly possible that on the median average I consider the central government largely illegitimate. I swore an oath to protect the U.S. Constitution, therefore protecting the American people, and I feel that the actions of the federal government are leading both myself and them down a path of involuntary servitude. These outrages will not be tolerated!

The police department at Texas Women’s University (“TWU”), where appellant was a student, was made aware of the letter.

B. Appellant’s Classroom Comments

About one week after appellant sent the letter to Congressman Burgess, appellant interrupted his upper-division American history class — a small, 5 discussion-oriented class — by raising his hand and voicing a complaint against the United States federal government. Appellant began, 6 “I am so angry that I cannot humanly explain it in words.” The professor, Paul Travis, asked whether appellant’s comment related to class, and appellant responded, “I would say I’m an American, uh, veteran, and I deserve medical benefits, and yes. I need to — I am in a lot of pain. Okay. I don’t know where I need to go or who I need to talk to, but I’m about to tear Washington, D.C. apart brick-by-brick.” Appellant continued,

I have the specified, specialized military training; I know how to do it. I am angry. I would never do anything to hurt any of the girls at this college, I want y’all to understand that. But I am mad. I am fighting-hopping-out-of-the-back-of-a-truck-with-an-AK-47 mad. I have a medical injury, and I cannot get help from my government. I’m in a lot of pain. I’m a 3.5 GPA; I’m a dean’s list student. I’m failing school. Now I need you to talk to the president, the vice president or somebody. I don’t know if I need to drive to a hospital or what, but I’m in a lot of pain.

Professor Travis asked appellant whether appellant felt like being in class, and appellant answered, “No.

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Christopher Allen Gillette v. State, 444 S.W.3d 713, 2014 Tex. App. LEXIS 9396 (Tex. Ct. App. 2014).

444 S.W.3d 713 (Christopher Allen Gillette v. State) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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