Duncan v. State

95 S.W.3d 669, 2002 WL 31941498
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJanuary 24, 2003
Docket01-01-01001-CR
StatusPublished
Cited by98 cases

This text of 95 S.W.3d 669 (Duncan 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
Duncan v. State, 95 S.W.3d 669, 2002 WL 31941498 (Tex. Ct. App. 2003).

Opinion

*671 OPINION

ADELE HEDGES, Justice.

A jury convicted appellant of aggravated sexual assault, assessed punishment at five years’ confinement, and recommended that his sentence be suspended. The trial court placed appellant on community supervision for 10 years. We affirm.

Reliability Hearing

In his first and second points of error, appellant contends that the trial court erred in admitting the outcry testimony of Carol Partridge, the complainant’s grandmother, without first conducting a hearing in compliance with article 38.072 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure. Article 38.072 provides an exception to the hearsay rule for an out-of-court statement made by a child abuse victim to the first adult person describing an alleged offense. See Tex.Code Cmm. PROC. Ann. art. 38.072 (Vernon Supp.2002). Under the rule, a hearsay statement is admissible if (1) the State provides timely notice to the defendant of its intention to introduce an outcry statement, (2) the trial court finds, in a hearing conducted outside the presence of the jury, that the statement is reliable based on the time, content, and circumstances of the statement, and (3) the child testifies or is available to testify at trial. Id. at § 2(b)(l-3).

The State provided timely notice to appellant that it intended to call the outcry witness and provided a summary of the outcry statement. Three days before trial, appellant filed a motion in limine in which, inter alia, he requested the trial court to comply with article 38.072. The trial court did not make a ruling on this request. During the trial,' before the outcry witness testified, appellant objected to her testimony on hearsay grounds and again requested a hearing outside the presence of the jury in compliance with article 38.072. The trial court overruled appellant’s objection without conducting a hearing.

When the outcry witness testified about the complainant’s statements, appellant objected again and obtained a running objection. The trial court overruled the objections.

The requirements of article 38.072 are mandatory. Long v. State, 800 S.W.2d 545, 547 (Tex.Crim.App.1990). Appellant sufficiently apprised the trial court of his request for a healing. Lankston v. State, 827 S.W.2d 907, 911 (Tex.Crim.App.1992). The trial court abused its discretion by admitting the outcry witness’s testimony about the complainant’s outcry without first conducting a hearing on the reliability of the statement. Bottenfield v. State, 77 S.W.3d 349, 359 (Tex.App.-Fort Worth 2002, pet. ref'd).

Harm Analysis

Because we find the trial court erred in refusing appellant’s demand for an article 38.072 hearing, we must now consider whether appellant was harmed by the admission of the outcry witness’s hearsay testimony. Bottenfield, 77 S.W.3d at 359-60. Appellant argues that this Court should conduct its harm analysis in accordance with the holding in Dorado v. State, 843 S.W.2d 37, 38 (Tex.Crim.App.1992). In Dorado, the Court of Criminal Appeals held that when the State fails to provide 38.072 notice, when such notice is required, error should not be presumed. Id. Instead, the court of appeals must conduct a harm analysis pursuant to former rule 81(b)(2) of the Texas Rules of Appellate Procedure, which requires reversal unless the court finds, beyond a reasonable doubt, *672 that the error made no contribution to the conviction or to the judgment. Id.

However, after the Dorado opinion was issued, rule 81(b)(2) was replaced by rule 44.2(a) and (b) of the Texas Rules of Appellate Procedure. Appellant argues that, in this case, the harm analysis should be conducted pursuant to rule 44.2(a). We disagree.

Although rule 44.2(a) mimics the language of the former rule, the dual standard of the new rule changed harm analysis. Rule 44.2(a) is applied if the record reveals constitutional error; rule 44.2(b) is applied to any other error.

In this case, we apply rule 44.2(b) to determine whether the trial court’s error constitutes reversible error. Bottenfield, 77 S.W.3d at 359-60; Tex. R.App. P. 44.2(b). Non-constitutional error must be disregarded unless it affects substantial rights of the defendant. Johnson v. State, 43 S.W.3d 1, 4 (Tex.Crim.App.2001). A substantial right is affected when the error had a substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the jury’s verdict. King v. State, 953 S.W.2d 266, 271 (Tex.Crim.App.1997); Hankton v. State, 23 S.W.3d 540, 548 (Tex.App.-Houston [1st Dist.] 2000, pet. ref'd). A conviction should not be overturned for such error if this court, after examining the record as a whole, has fair assurance that the error did not influence the jury, or had but a slight effect. Johnson v. State, 967 S.W.2d 410, 417 (Tex.Crim.App.1998).

In this case, several instances of similar testimony were developed and offered without objection. The complainant testified at trial, without objection, that appellant sexually abused her. She testified to the details of and circumstances surrounding the abuse, and testified that she had first told the outcry witness of the abuse. Moreover, Sheela Lahoti, a pediatrician at the Children’s Assessment Center, testified, without objection, that the complainant told the nurse practitioner who examined her the following: that appellant touched her “po-po” with his finger; that her clothes were off when this occurred; and that it hurt when he touched her. This interview was documented in complainant’s medical records that were also admitted without objection.

Any error in admitting evidence is cured where the same evidence comes in elsewhere without objection. See Hudson v. State, 675 S.W.2d 507, 511 (Tex.Crim.App.1984). The two exceptions to this rule are (1) when the party asks for and receives a running objection and (2) when the party receives a ruling outside the presence of the jury. Tex.R. Evid. 103(a)(1); Ethington v. State, 819 S.W.2d 854, 858 (Tex.Crim.App.1991).

In this case, neither exception to the rule applies with regard to the various instances when similar’ testimony was admitted. Therefore, because the outcry witness’s testimony included the same facts that were admitted into evidence without objection, we hold that the trial court’s error in admitting the outcry witness’s testimony was harmless.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
95 S.W.3d 669, 2002 WL 31941498, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/duncan-v-state-texapp-2003.