Ette v. State

551 S.W.3d 783
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedMay 18, 2017
DocketNO. 02-16-00173-CR
StatusPublished
Cited by17 cases

This text of 551 S.W.3d 783 (Ette 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
Ette v. State, 551 S.W.3d 783 (Tex. Ct. App. 2017).

Opinions

MARK T. PITTMAN, JUSTICE

A jury found Appellant Eddie Offiong Ette guilty of the first-degree offense of misapplying more than $200,000 of fiduciary property. See Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 32.45(b), (c)(7) (West 2016).1 The jury then assessed Appellant's punishment at ten years' confinement and a $10,000 fine, recommending the suspension of the confinement but not the fine. In two points, Appellant contends that (1) the trial court violated his right to confrontation and right to present a defense by limiting his cross-examination, and (2) the $10,000 fine assessed in the written judgment must be deleted because the trial court's oral pronouncement of sentence did not mention the fine. Because we hold that the trial court did not violate Appellant's rights to *786confrontation and to present a defense by limiting his cross-examination of the complainant and we uphold the lawful fine imposed by the jury, we affirm the trial court's judgment as corrected.

I. Background Facts

Appellant does not contest the sufficiency of the evidence. The evidence showed that complainant Nosa Evbuomwan and his wife, Ann, paid Appellant, who operated an insurance agency, $350,000 to procure two performance bonds. Appellant sent Nosa invoices showing that the gross premium for the two bonds was $379,000, that he applied a "discount" of $31,000 to the larger bond, and that his fee for each bond was $1,000. The Evbuomwans paid the $350,000, but Appellant failed to procure the two performance bonds. Instead of then returning the premiums, he claimed that the entire $350,000 was his fee and spent the money.

II. Discussion

A. The Trial Court Did Not Abuse Its Discretion or Violate Appellant's Rights to Confrontation and to Present a Defense by Limiting His Cross-Examination of Nosa.

In Appellant's first point, he contends that the trial court violated his right to confrontation and to present a defense when it limited the scope of his cross-examination of Nosa. We disagree.

1. Standard of Review

We review a trial court's ruling on the admissibility of evidence under an abuse-of-discretion standard. Johnson v. State (Johnson I) , 490 S.W.3d 895, 908 (Tex. Crim. App. 2016). A trial court abuses its discretion when its decision falls outside the zone of reasonable disagreement. Id. If the trial court's ruling is correct under any applicable legal theory, we will not disturb it even if the court gave a wrong or insufficient reason for the ruling. Id. A trial court's discretion to exclude evidence comes into play only after the Sixth Amendment right to cross-examination has been satisfied. Johnson v. State (Johnson II) , 433 S.W.3d 546, 551 (Tex. Crim. App. 2014).

2. Right of Confrontation

The Sixth Amendment's Confrontation Clause states that "[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right ... to be confronted with the witnesses against him." U.S. Const. Amend. VI. The Confrontation Clause's primary purpose is to secure for the defendant the opportunity to cross-examine adverse witnesses because that is "the principal means by which the believability of a witness and the truth of his testimony are tested." Johnson I , 490 S.W.3d at 909 (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Davis v. Alaska , 415 U.S. 308, 316, 94 S.Ct. 1105, 1110, 39 L.Ed.2d 347 (1974) ). Jurors deserve to have the theory of the defense presented to them "so that they (can) make an informed judgment as to the weight to place on (the witness'[s] ) testimony." Id. (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Davis , 415 U.S. at 317, 94 S.Ct. at 1111 ).

As the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has held, the Sixth Amendment right to cross-examine witnesses allows a party to attack the general credibility of those witnesses "or to show their possible bias, self-interest, or motives in testifying." Hammer v. State , 296 S.W.3d 555, 561 (Tex. Crim. App. 2009) (citing Davis , 415 U.S. at 316, 94 S.Ct. at 1110 ). A trial court may not prevent a defendant from pursuing a line of cross-examination which might provide a reasonable jury with a significantly different impression of the witness's credibility. Johnson II , 433 S.W.3d at 551.

It is not within a trial court's discretion to prohibit a defendant from engaging in otherwise appropriate cross-examination designed to show a witness's bias. Id. This check on "a trial court's discretion to limit cross-examination for bias appropriately accounts for the fact that ... expos[ing] ... a witness'[s] motivation in testifying is a proper and important function of the constitutionally protected right of cross-examination ... and is always relevant" to the jury's view of the witness's credibility and the weight to be given to the witness's testimony. Id. (internal quotation marks omitted).

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Ette, Eddie Offiong
559 S.W.3d 511 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 2018)

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Bluebook (online)
551 S.W.3d 783, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ette-v-state-texapp-2017.