Crayton v. State

485 S.W.3d 488, 2016 Tex. App. LEXIS 776, 2016 WL 316494
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJanuary 27, 2016
DocketNo. 06-14-00208-CR
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 485 S.W.3d 488 (Crayton 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
Crayton v. State, 485 S.W.3d 488, 2016 Tex. App. LEXIS 776, 2016 WL 316494 (Tex. Ct. App. 2016).

Opinion

OPINION

Opinion by Justice Moseley

Tony Dewayne Crayton waived his right to a jury trial and ^entered a plea of not guilty at his bench trial. The trial court found Crayton guilty and sentenced him to fifty years’ imprisonment. On appeal, Crayton maintains that the trial court erred (1) when it took judicial notice of its own file and reviewed a competency evaluation during its deliberations, and (2) when it denied his motions to suppress evidence. For the reasons below, we affirm the trial court’s judgment.

I. Background

After a 9-1-1 emergency operator received a call October 22, 2013, from the, telephone at Jessica Tyler Crayton’s mother’s home on Morris Drive in .Sulphur Springs, Texas, wherein no one spoke, Sul-phur Springs police officers were dispatched to the place of origin of the call to investigate.. Upon entry into the residence, the officers discovered the .bloody and lifeless body of Jessica (who resided in the house with her mother, Crayton, and others), who had suffered multiple stab wounds. Approximately an hour after the officers arrived at the Morris Drive scene, officers were dispatched to the site of Sul-phur Springs’ League Street overpass of Interstate Highway 30. Upon their arrival there, officers found Crayton lying in the westbound lane of the interstate. It appeared to the investigating officers that Crayton had jumped or fallen from the overpass onto the interstate.1 Although Crayton appeared to be conscious, he was unable to speak. While some of the officers assumed the task of managing the traffic flow on the interstate and while medical personnel were assisting Crayton, other officers took possession of his shoes, his cap, and á pair of glasses which were located on the ground near him and which had what appeared to be blood on them. In addition to assuming control over'these belongings, an officer took photographs of Crayton, including photographs of a cut on [493]*493Crayton’s hand and of his tennis shoes, both of which having what appeared to be blood ón them.

Emergency personnel transported Cray-ton by ambulance to the hospital in Sul-phur Springs. While Crayton was at that hospital, one of the officers took possession of his clothing. Meanwhile, other.Sulphur Springs officers were attempting to obtain a search warrant for Crayton’s “person,” the purpose of which was to assist them in, Jessica’s murder investigation. During the time the officers were working to obtain the search warrant, Crayton. was transported by helicopter to another hospital in nearby Tyler, Smith County., Undaunted by Crayton’s' removal outside the county, upon learning of Crayton’s relocation, the Sulphur Springs officers carried the search warrant they had obtained to the hospital in Tyler to execute it “on the person of Tony Crayton.” Using the search warrant as their, authority, the detectives retrieved blood, oral swabs, and fingernail clippings from Crayton. Cray-ton was charged with Jessica’s murder while still hospitalized.

Crayton filed multiple pretrial motions to suppress the evidence arguing, among other things, that several items of his personal property and his person were taken without a warrant; he further argued that even though a search warrant was eventually obtained,' the officers who executed the warrant were without jurisdiction to do só. The trial court denied Crayton’s motions. ' Following a trial to the bench, the trial court found Crayton guilty of murder and sentenced him to fifty years’ confinement in-prison.

IE Crayton’s Points of Error

. A. The Trial Court Did Not Err When it Took, Judicial Notice of its File

On September 15, 2014, the trial court issued an order appointing Dr. Michael Pittman to examine Crayton in regard to' his competency to stand trial. On September 25, 2014, Pittman provided the trial court with his competency evaluation of Crayton, finding that he was competent to, stand trial. Crayton contends that the trial court’s action of taking judicial notice of the competency report issued by Pittman1 (1) violated, his .Sixth Amendment right2 to confront and cross-examine a witness under Crawford,3 (2) violated Article 46B.007 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure,4 and (3) violated Rule 201 of [494]*494the Texas Rules of Evidence.5

1. Analysis

In order to effectively preserve a complaint for appellate review, a party must first present the trial court a timely request, objection, or motion stating the specific grounds for the desired ruling if those grounds are not apparent from the context. Tex,R.App. P. 33.1(a)(1). Further, the trial court must have either ruled on the request, objection, or motion, either expressly or implicitly, or, in the absence of a ruling, the complaining party must have objected to the trial court’s refusal to rule. Tex.R.App. P. 33.1(a)(2). A “point of error on appeal must comport with the objection made at trial.” Wilson v. State, 71 S.W.3d 346, 349 (Tex.Crim.App.2002); see Swain v. State, 181 S.W.3d 359, 367 (Tex.Crim.App.2005).

An objection is timely if a party lodges a complaint as soon as the basis for it has become apparent. Hollins v. State, 805 S.W.2d 475, 476 (Tex.Crim.App.1991). The purpose of requiring a specific objection in the trial court is twofold: (1) to inform the trial court of the basis of the objection and give it the opportunity to rule on it and (2) to give opposing counsel the opportunity to respond to the complaint. Zillender v. State, 557 S.W.2d 515, 517 (Tex.Crim.App.1977). As explained in Resendez,

Although there are no technical considerations or forms of words required to preserve an error for appeal, a party must be specific enough so as to “let the trial judge know what he wants, why he thinks himself entitled to it, and do so clearly enough for the judge to understand him at a time when the trial court is in a proper position to do something about it.”

Resendez v. State, 306 S.W.3d 308, 312-13 (Tex.Crim.App.2009) (quoting Lankston v. State, 827 S.W.2d 907, 909 (Tex.Crim.App.1992)). “The parties, not the judge, are responsible for the correct application of evidentiary rules,” and “to preserve a complaint for appeal, the complaining party must have done everything necessary to bring the relevant evidentiary rule and its precise and proper application to the trial court’s attention.” See id. at 313.

Crayton agrees that in order to have preserved an issue for appeal, he was required to make an objection. In essence, Crayton tacitly concedes that he made no objection during the trial to the issue of the trial court having taken judicial notice of Pittman’s report. He maintains that this was not necessary because (1) he was unable to lodge an objection prior to the trial court’s announcement that it was taking judicial notice of the file (which contained Pittman’s report); and (2) he timely raised the issue in his motion for new trial. Crayton contends that “[t]he requirement that an objection be raised in the trial court assumes that the appellant had the opportunity to raise it there.” Burt v. State, 396 S.W.3d 574, 577 (Tex.Crim.App.2013) (citing Hardeman v. State, 1 S.W.3d 689, 690 (Tex.Crim.App.1999); Issa v. State, 826 S.W.2d 159, 161 (Tex.Crim.App.1992) (per curiam)).

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
485 S.W.3d 488, 2016 Tex. App. LEXIS 776, 2016 WL 316494, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/crayton-v-state-texapp-2016.