Douthit v. State

739 S.W.2d 94, 1987 Tex. App. LEXIS 8792
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedSeptember 30, 1987
DocketNo. 04-87-00004-CR
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 739 S.W.2d 94 (Douthit 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
Douthit v. State, 739 S.W.2d 94, 1987 Tex. App. LEXIS 8792 (Tex. Ct. App. 1987).

Opinion

OPINION

CHAPA, Justice.

This appeal is from a jury conviction of appellant, William Douthit, of Driving While Intoxicated, causing serious bodily injury.

The issues before us are:

1. whether the record contains sufficient evidence to support the jury verdict; and

2. whether the court erred in overruling appellant’s objection to the argument of the State’s attorney.

We affirm.

Initially, appellant complains that the record contains insufficient evidence to establish the appellant was operating the motor vehicle, and that appellant caused the collision that resulted in the serious injuries. As a result, appellant contends the court should have granted an instructed verdict.

Because the record reflects that the appellant confessed to being the driver of the vehicle that caused the accident, the main thrust of appellant’s complaint centers on his insistence “that the evidence elicited at the trial is insufficient to corroborate the appellant’s extra-judicial confession that he was operating” the vehicle involved. We disagree.

At trial, John Christian Haag testified that:

[95]*951. On the date in question, at 2:00 a.m., he was a passenger in a ear with C.P. Thalken and Keith Rulong;
2. They stopped the car in the center lane of San Pedro with the lights on, for him to retrieve a lighter that had fallen out of the car;
3. When he got back in the car, he saw the lights of a car approaching their car at an extremely fast speed over the speed limit;
4. The speeding car hit their car hard, flipping their car over twice;
5. The two cars were the only ones on the road at the time;
6. As a result of the collision, his friends received cuts and were bleeding;
7. What appeared to be the other driver walked around and stumbled out of control, and jokingly expressed a hope that there was no body count;
8. The other driver had slurred speech, like he had been drinking;
9. No one else was at the scene immediately after the accident; and
10. He lost half of his spleen as a result of the injuries he sustained in the accident.

Charles Patrick Thalken testified that:

1. On the date in question, he was driving his parent’s car with Haag and Ru-long as passengers;
2. He stopped the car in the inside turning lane of San Pedro going South with the lights on, to permit Haag to retrieve a lighter that had fallen out;
3. There was no traffic at all at the time;
4. A car came at about 50 mph in the inside lane going North and about 50 feet from his car swerved over and hit their car broadside;
5. Haag was seriously hurt as a result of the collision; and
6. He had a driver’s license at the time of the accident and he had nothing to drink that night.

Officer Raymond Castillo testified that:

1.He was a police officer with the City of San Antonio, and on duty the night in question;
2. He was called to the scene of the accident in question, found the two vehicles involved on the public streets (one was turned over and the other damaged) and also observed several persons injured;
3. He saw the appellant at the scene who admitted he was the driver of one of the cars involved;
4. He determined the appellant was intoxicated from observing his unsure demeanor, unsteady gait, and smell of alcohol on his breath;
5. He placed the appellant under arrest for DWI, transported the appellant to the intoxilyzer room, and advised him of his rights; and
6. Everything happened in Bexar County, Texas.

Officer David Michael Logsdon testified that:

1. He was a San Antonio police officer on the night in question;
2. He was certified as an intoxilyzer operator and on duty as such at the time;
3. He administered the intoxilyzer test upon the appellant when he was brought in after the incident;
4. George Allan McDougall, Jr. was his technical supervisor on the test administered to the appellant.

George Allan McDougall, Jr. testified that:

1. On the night in question, he was the technical supervisor during the intoxilyzer test of the appellant;
2. He was certified by the Texas Department of Public Safety as an intoxi-lyzer test technical supervisor; and
3. The State of Texas defines intoxication at the level of 0.10 and the appellant tested at a level of 0.17.

The test in determining the sufficiency of the evidence to support a criminal conviction is the same in both direct and circumstantial evidence cases. Dickey v. State, 693 S.W.2d 386, 387 (Tex.Crim.App.1984); Carleen v. State, 654 S.W.2d 444, 449 (Tex.Crim.App.1983) (on rehearing). The standard of review requires that we look at the evidence in the light most favor[96]*96able to the prosecution and determine whether a rational trier of fact would have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979); Dickey v. State, 693 S.W.2d at 387; Carleen v. State, 654 S.W.2d at 449. Every circumstantial evidence case must be tested by its own facts to determine the sufficiency of the evidence to support the conviction. Johnson v. State, 673 S.W.2d 190, 195 (Tex.Crim.App.1984).

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals set out the Texas law on corroboration of confession in Watson v. State, 154 Tex.Cr.R. 438, 227 S.W.2d 559 (1950) stating:

[1] The confession of the guilty party alone is not sufficient to support a conviction for the offense, the confession must be corroborated.
[2] 'Corroboration of the confession’ in effect means proof of the corpus de-licti.
[3] ‘Corpus delicti’ as used in this connection means proof of the fact that the crime charged has been committed by someone. See 18 Tex.Jur. 451, Sec. 327.
[4] There must be proof of the corpus delicti, outside of the confession. The confession of the accused alone is not sufficient. See Davis v. State, 101 Tex.Cr.R. 243, 275 S.W. 1060.

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739 S.W.2d 94, 1987 Tex. App. LEXIS 8792, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/douthit-v-state-texapp-1987.