Draper v. State

681 S.W.2d 175, 1984 Tex. App. LEXIS 6026
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedAugust 2, 1984
DocketA14-82-196-CR
StatusPublished
Cited by24 cases

This text of 681 S.W.2d 175 (Draper 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
Draper v. State, 681 S.W.2d 175, 1984 Tex. App. LEXIS 6026 (Tex. Ct. App. 1984).

Opinion

OPINION

DRAUGHN, Justice.

John Albert Draper appeals his conviction for burglary of a habitation for which his enhanced punishment was set at life imprisonment. In two grounds of error, appellant contends that the evidence presented was insufficient to support his conviction, and that the trial court erroneously denied his motion to dismiss under the provisions of the Speedy Trial Act. We affirm the conviction.

Because the sufficiency of the evidence is challenged, we will first review the relevant facts. Louis Holmes, a maintenance man at the Fountainview Apartments, testified that he noticed a man, identified as John Albert Draper, and his wife, Janice Draper, sitting in a car outside the apartment complex washateria. The woman got out of the car and began walking from apartment to apartment, knocking on doors. During this time, appellant had parked the car and walked away from the apartments toward a nearby convenience store. Mr. Holmes then observed that Janice Draper had crossed a street in the complex and picked up a car rim that had been discarded in the complex. She took the rim to the patio area belonging to the complainant, Mrs. Kays. Mrs. Draper then used the rim to pull herself into a tree and over the wooden fence surrounding Mrs. Kays’s patio. Moments later Mr. Holmes saw the sliding patio door open. He immediately went to the apartment manager’s office to inform them of the activities. He returned to Mrs. Kays’s apartment with the manager and assistant manager. The assistant manager went to Mrs. Kays’s front door and began knocking on it. Mr. Holmes and the manager waited in the back and then observed appellant and his wife coming out of Mrs. Kays’s patio gate. The manager attempted to question them as to their reasons for being there, whereupon Mrs. Draper mumbled something about looking for an old woman. The manager offered to help them locate the woman and suggested that they accompany her to the apartment offices; appellant and his wife, however, refused to speak with them and instead went to their car and sped off. The manager was able to observe their license plate number and reported the same to the police. Based on this information, appellant was apprehended the next day.

Although nothing was missing from Mrs. Kays’s apartment, several items were displaced. The television in her daughter’s room was turned around, and the television in her own room was turned on and the remote control placed on top of the television, while she typically places it by her bed. A camera which she kept in her closet was on the bed, and a trophy usually kept in a trophy case in the living room, was on the couch. The patio door had been pried open, and Mrs. Kays testified that it had been securely locked when she left that morning. Based on this information, appellant was indicted and convicted of burglary of a habitation.

In his first ground of error, appellant contends that there was insufficient evidence to convict him, either individually or as a party to the burglary. In order to sustain appellant’s conviction the evidence presented must establish all material elements of the offense. Alvarado v. State, 632 S.W.2d 608, 610 (Tex.Crim.App.1982). *177 We must review the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict and determine whether any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements beyond a reasonable doubt. See Phipps v. State, 630 S.W.2d 942, 944 (Tex.Crim.App.1982). The essential elements of burglary are: (1) a person; (2) without the effective consent of the owner; (3) enters a habitation with the intent to commit a felony or theft. Garcia v. State, 571 S.W.2d 896, 899 (Tex.Crim.App.1978). See also Ford v. State, 632 S.W.2d 151, 152 (Tex.Crim.App.1982). Since the trial record positively established that the appellant was discovered leaving Mrs. Kays’s enclosed apartment patio area and that she had not given him consent to enter, the only elements of burglary that appellant could plausibly challenge are entry and intent.

Both entry and intent may be established by circumstantial evidence. Clark v. State, 543 S.W.2d 125, 127 (Tex.Crim.App.1976); Williams v. State, 537 S.W.2d 936, 938 (Tex.Crim.App.1976); Garcia v. State, 649 S.W.2d 70, 72 (Tex.App.—Corpus Christi 1982, no pet.); Warren v. State, 641 S.W.2d 579, 582 (Tex.App.—Dallas 1982), pet. dism’d, 652 S.W.2d 779 (Tex.Crim.App.1983) (en banc). In the instant case, appellant was discovered leaving the enclosed patio area of an apartment which had been forcibly entered, and which had been secured by the resident that morning. The sliding door to the apartment had been pried open and a number of items inside the apartment had been moved from their normal location. He and his wife left the premises through the back door only when the assistant manager pounded on the front door. When confronted by the apartment manager, appellant did not offer any explanation for his presence, nor did he agree to accompany her to the office. Instead, he quickly fled the premises, jumped into his car, and hurriedly sped off, almost hitting the manager in his haste to leave. These actions, without realistic justification therefor, are circumstantially sufficient to establish both his entry and intent.

Appellant urges that these circumstances merely established his presence at the scene of the crime and his flight therefrom, and that this was insufficient to sustain his conviction. See Moore v. State, 532 S.W.2d 333, 337 (Tex.Crim.App.1976); Ysasaga v. State, 444 S.W.2d 305, 308 (Tex.Crim.App.1969). These cases, however, each involved a person who was simply found in the vicinity of a crime, not one actually at the scene, as was the case with appellant Draper. Additionally, while these circumstances alone are not adequate to sustain a conviction, they are circumstances which tend to prove guilt, and which, combined with additional facts, may suffice to show appellant was a participant. Thomas v. State, 645 S.W.2d 798 (Tex.Crim.App.1983). See also Robinson v. State, 658 S.W.2d 779, 781 (Tex.App.—Beaumont 1983, no pet.). We find the evidence cumulatively sufficient to uphold the judgment.

Appellant also suggests that Mrs. Draper offered a reasonable hypothesis and justification for his presence at the scene of the crime.

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Bluebook (online)
681 S.W.2d 175, 1984 Tex. App. LEXIS 6026, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/draper-v-state-texapp-1984.