Hardy Don Capps v. State

CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedDecember 6, 2007
Docket02-05-00175-CR
StatusPublished

This text of Hardy Don Capps v. State (Hardy Don Capps 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
Hardy Don Capps v. State, (Tex. Ct. App. 2007).

Opinion

                                COURT OF APPEALS

                                       SECOND DISTRICT OF TEXAS

                                                   FORT WORTH

                                        NO. 2-05-175-CR

HARDY DON CAPPS                                                            APPELLANT

                                                   V.

THE STATE OF TEXAS                                                                STATE

                                              ------------

              FROM THE 271ST  DISTRICT COURT OF JACK COUNTY

MEMORANDUM OPINION[1] ON APPELLANT=S PETITION FOR DISCRETIONARY REVIEW

Pursuant to rule of appellate procedure 50, we have reconsidered our previous opinion on Appellant Hardy Don Capps=s petition for discretionary review.[2]  We withdraw our judgment and opinion dated October 18, 2007, and substitute the following.


A jury convicted Appellant of murder and assessed his punishment at life imprisonment in the Institutional Division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and a fine of $10,000.  The trial court sentenced him accordingly.        Appellant brings six points on appeal, arguing that the trial court erred by refusing to quash the prospective venire panel and by denying a mistrial when the prosecutor improperly interjected his personal opinion as to Appellant=s guilt during voir dire and final argument, respectively (points one and six); that the evidence is both legally and factually insufficient (points two and three); and that the trial court erred by excluding impeachment evidence and by admitting Appellant=s jailhouse conversations (points four and five).  Because we hold that the evidence is both legally and factually sufficient to support the jury=s verdict and that the trial court did not err, we affirm the trial court=s judgment.

Summary of Facts

Appellant=s wife Gina Capps was killed on December 16, 1995.  Her body and her pickup were found off of Highway 59 in Jack County, Texas, about five miles outside of Jacksboro.


Lane Akin, the Texas Ranger who investigated the murder, testified that when he arrived at the scene, he discovered a pickup truck parked by the side of the road.  The truck=s window was down, and the engine was still running.  Inside the truck, he found a two-year-old child, unharmed, strapped into a car seat.  In a ditch beside the truck, he found the body of Gina Capps.  Akin observed both slash and cut wounds to the body.  He concluded that there had been a struggle outside the truck and that a knife had been used to cause the wounds during the struggle.  The medical examiner testified that the complainant was killed with a knife with a serrated edge.

Akin spoke with Appellant, the complainant=s husband, who suggested Michael Dearick, the complainant=s former husband, as the possible killer, explaining that Dearick had been abusive to the complainant in the past and was currently behind on child support.  Appellant stated that the complainant and Dearick had planned to meet for a child visitation exchange that morning in Jacksboro.

Michael Dearick testified that Gina had been insured and that the primary beneficiary was Appellant.  Dearick also testified that he owed $8,000 in child support to Gina but claimed that they had worked out the arrearage between themselves.  Dearick also admitted that he had been jailed twice for Amess[ing] with@ Gina but claimed that they had had no problems when they met in Jacksboro the day she was killed.  Lisa Callahan, who was Dearick=s wife on the day of the murder, testified that she had been with him when he picked up Gary, his child with Gina, from Gina around 8:45 a.m. that day.


In explaining his own whereabouts, Appellant claimed variously that he had gone deer hunting, that he had gone to his office, that he had gone to check on oil wells, and that he had stayed in bed until being notified to call the sheriff=s office.  Appellant denied that there were problems in his marriage to Gina and denied knowing that Gina was planning to leave him.  He admitted that he and Gina had had one argument during their three-and-a-half-year marriage.

Appellant told Akin that on December 16,

The alarm had gone off.  They had gotten up early.  He went outside to check the oil on her car, and I think at one point he said it was at 6:35 a.m. on that misty morning when he went out to check the oil, the water, and the transmission fluid on . . . her pickup.

He helped her get the boys ready, and then she left at about 7:00 and drove toward Saint Jo.

Appellant also told Akin that he drove behind Gina for about fifteen or twenty minutes in that direction, that he received the phone call about the murder around 10:00 a.m. at home, and that he then drove to Jacksboro, stopping in Nocona to get gas.


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Hardy Don Capps v. State, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hardy-don-capps-v-state-texapp-2007.