Harris v. State

364 S.W.3d 328, 2012 WL 243331, 2012 Tex. App. LEXIS 33
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJanuary 5, 2012
Docket01-10-00376-CR
StatusPublished
Cited by26 cases

This text of 364 S.W.3d 328 (Harris 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
Harris v. State, 364 S.W.3d 328, 2012 WL 243331, 2012 Tex. App. LEXIS 33 (Tex. Ct. App. 2012).

Opinion

OPINION

EVELYN V. KEYES, Justice.

A jury convicted appellant, Karl Christopher Harris, of the second degree felony offense of failure to comply with the sex offender registration requirements. 1 After it found the allegations in an enhancement paragraph true, the trial court assessed punishment at twenty years’ confinement. In three issues, appellant contends that: (1) the State did not present sufficient *330 evidence that he intentionally and knowingly failed to verify his sex offender registration information within the required time period; (2) the trial court improperly punished him for exercising his right to trial by ultimately assessing punishment at twenty years’ confinement after previously offering, in a pre-trial hearing, a sentence of four years’ confinement if appellant pleaded guilty to the charged offense; and (3) he is entitled to a new trial because the transcript of the pre-trial hearing at which the trial court made its plea offer is unavailable.

We affirm.

Background

In 1992, appellant pleaded guilty to the offenses of aggravated kidnapping with the intent to violate or sexually abuse and aggravated sexual assault. Appellant’s punishment was assessed at twelve years’ confinement. After appellant was released from confinement in February 2004, he was required initially to register as a sex offender with the Houston Police Department (“HPD”) and to verify his registration information every ninety days for life. See Tex.Code Crim. Proc. Ann. art. 62.051(a) (Vernon Supp. 2011) (requiring any person with “reportable conviction” to register with local law enforcement agency of municipality in which person intends to reside for more than seven days), art. 62.058(a) (Vernon 2006) (requiring person convicted of two or more “sexually violent offenses” to verify registration information every ninety days). Appellant initially registered with HPD on February 26, 2004, and his last successful verification was on May 13, 2008.

HPD Officer J. Suarez, who works in the Juvenile Sex Offender Compliance Unit, was assigned appellant’s case after appellant missed his scheduled verification date in August 2008. Officer Suarez testified that an offender who is required to report for verification quarterly, such as appellant, has a fifteen-day period during which he must report to HPD. He stated that during the verification process, offenders complete an “update form,” notifying HPD of whether they have changed jobs, phone numbers, vehicles, or home addresses. When offenders verify their registration information, they are given documentation of the successful verification and are told their next verification date. Officer Suarez testified that when he verified his registration information on May 13, 2008, appellant received a notification that his next scheduled verification date was August 11, 2008. 2

Officer Suarez also testified that when appellant initially began the registration and verification process in 2004, the sex offender registration office was located on the eleventh floor of HPD headquarters in downtown Houston. In “May or June” of 2008, the office moved to an HPD substation on Mykawa Road, and offenders were required to go to this location for all future verification appointments. Officer Suarez testified that the unit mailed letters to all of the offenders within its jurisdiction notifying them of the change in the office’s location. He also stated that HPD placed signs on the eleventh floor of the downtown station notifying offenders of the *331 move and that “officers at the [downtown] security desk were informed of the change of address and were given letters for anybody coming in so they would know the new address.” Officer Suarez stated that appellant failed to report during his August 2008 verification compliance period. He testified that it is the offender’s responsibility to report to HPD in person to verify his registration information and that it is not HPD’s responsibility “to go find [the offender] so they can report.”

On cross-examination, Officer Suarez testified that he could not provide the exact date that the registration office relocated. He stated that appellant’s registration file did not indicate that appellant was informed at his May 13, 2008 verification meeting that his August verification meeting would occur at a different location. He also testified that appellant’s file did not contain either a copy of the letter that HPD sent to offenders informing them of the office’s relocation or a “green card” reflecting that appellant received the letter via certified mail. Officer Suarez also agreed with defense counsel that although signs were posted on the eleventh floor in the downtown station, offenders were always escorted up to that floor by an officer, and this would not have happened after the relocation occurred.

HPD Sergeant G.D. Kuschel, who was formerly in charge of the sex offender compliance unit, testified that he initially registered appellant after his release from confinement and informed appellant of his responsibility to verify his registration information with HPD every ninety days for life and of the consequences for failure to comply with the verification requirements. Sergeant Kuschel testified that, five days before the registration office actually moved, the office sent a letter to all sex offenders “[explaining that [the office was] transferring the obligation of registration to the Juvenile Division at 8300 Mykawa Road.” He stated that the office had approximately 1,500 letters to send, which is why the office did not use certified or registered mail. He further stated that some of the letters were returned to the office, and, if the office received a returned letter, the office put the returned letter in the offender’s file. Appellant’s file did not contain a returned letter. Sergeant Kuschel also testified that if an offender arrived for verification at the downtown station after the relocation, the officer working at the front desk would give the offender a copy of the letter that had been mailed. Sergeant Kuschel personally observed front-desk personnel give these letters to offenders who arrived at the downtown station. He stated that the front-desk personnel did not tell offenders that HPD would contact them at a later date with details regarding the new location. He also testified that offenders who called the office were informed of the new location.

On cross-examination, Sergeant Kuschel agreed that appellant’s file did not contain a copy of the letter that HPD mailed, and he stated that he could not produce a copy of the letter for the jury. He further agreed that it was only after the office relocated that appellant “had a problem reporting.”

Billie Jean Hopes, a civilian employee of HPD, testified that she worked in the sex offender registration department and that she had verified appellant’s registration information “from time to time,” including on May 13, 2008, appellant’s last successful verification date. According to Hopes, the office had been planning to relocate for several years, and she would occasionally let offenders know that the office would eventually move to a new location. She could not remember if she told this to appellant when she met with him in May. *332

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
364 S.W.3d 328, 2012 WL 243331, 2012 Tex. App. LEXIS 33, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/harris-v-state-texapp-2012.