Herbst v. State

941 S.W.2d 371, 1997 WL 111982
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedApril 3, 1997
Docket09-94-330 CR
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 941 S.W.2d 371 (Herbst 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
Herbst v. State, 941 S.W.2d 371, 1997 WL 111982 (Tex. Ct. App. 1997).

Opinion

OPINION

WALKER, Chief Justice.

A jury convicted appellant for the felony offense of endangering a child, said offense having been committed on or about June 21, 1993. Tex. PeNAL Code Ann. § 22.041(b) (Vernon 1994) 1 The jury then assessed punishment at eight years’ confinement in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice— Institutional Division. Appellant raises six points of error for our consideration.

Appellant’s first point of error contends the evidence before the jury was legally insufficient to sustain the conviction “because the evidence does not establish that the child was ever in danger or that a reasonable person would have known placing the child there would have placed him in danger of imminent death, bodily injury and physical and mental impairment.” The portion of § 22.041 appellant was charged with violating contains the following language:

(b) A person commits an offense if, having custody, care, or control of a child younger than 15 years, he intentionally abandons the child in any place under circumstances that expose the child to an unreasonable risk of harm.
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(e) An offense under Subsection (b) of this section is a felony of the second degree if the actor abandons the child under circumstances that a reasonable person would believe would place the child in imminent danger of death, bodily injury, or physical or mental impairment.

Section 22.041 defines “abandon” as:

(a) In this section, “abandon” means to leave a child in any place without providing reasonable and necessary care for the child, under circumstances under which no reasonable, similarly situated adult would leave a child of that age and ability.

Appellant recognizes the proper appellate standard for reviewing the evidence for legal sufficiency as that announced in Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 *373 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979), and Geesa v. State, 820 S.W.2d 154 (Tex.Crim.App.1991). Such a review for legal sufficiency inquires whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Jackson, 443 U.S. at 307, 99 S.Ct. at 2781. In Clems v. State, 922 S.W.2d 126, 133 (Tex.Crim.App.1996), the Court of Criminal Appeals characterized a legal sufficiency review as follows:

A Jackson review, “viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution,” is not a factual sufficiency review; rather, it is an analytical tool used to determine whether there is a fact issue at all. (footnote omitted)

By the express language of § 22.041, the legislature clearly intended to have a “reasonable person,” or “objective” standard applied to the conduct in question. See also Tex. Penal Code Ann. §§ 22.04(d), and 31.11(a)(2)(B) (Vernon 1994). We therefore look at the circumstances then existing through the eyes of a “reasonable, similarly situated adult” (§ 22.041(a)) and through the eyes of a “reasonable person” (§ 22.041(e)) and not to any subjective intent or knowledge on the part of appellant on the evening in question. See Schultz v. State, 923 S.W.2d 1, 3, n. 4 (Tex.Crim.App.1996). Through appellant’s own testimony, the jury was aware the baby was bom on May 29,1993, and that appellant placed the baby on the side of the road off of Simmons Drive in Orange, Texas on June 21, 1993 between the hours of 9:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. Cross-examination by the State elicited the following from appellant:

Q. [State] You told [Trial Counsel] you saw that Shamrock Gas Station right there by the interstate. That you could see it from the place you were?
A [appellant] Yes, sir.
Q. You probably don’t know this but there are some Indian people, I think, that run that gas station.
A Yes, sir.
Q. Why didn’t you just go in the bathroom and maybe leave the baby in the bathroom?
A Because I didn’t — I wanted to leave the baby somewhere.
Q. Okay. You wanted to leave that baby without anybody seeing you leave that baby?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. You agree that if you went to a gas station, you know, maybe somebody would find that baby and say, well, I remember, you know a little white Isuzu Amigo leaving here and some lady coming out of that bathroom and getting into that Amigo? A Yes, sir.
Q. You thought about that, didn’t you?
A Yes, sir.
Q. You didn’t want anybody to be able to track you down, did you?
A. Yes, sir.
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Q. Let’s forget about whether you leave it [the baby] in Texas or whether or not you leave it in Louisiana.
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Let’s just say for some reason you decide just to leave the baby out in your front yard in your nice neighborhood over night. Isn’t the baby still going to be in danger right out in your front yard overnight?
A It would be.
Q. You can think about all kinds of reasons, can’t you?
A Yes.
Q. It could rain and the baby could drown from the head being up and the mouth being open?
A Well, I didn’t try to injure the — I didn’t try to injure the baby.

The undisputed evidence before the jury was that appellant placed a three-week old baby, of which she had care, custody, and control, on the side of a well-traveled, but very dark, roadway, at approximately 10:00 p.m. in the evening. The baby was strapped into an infant car-seat, and clothed in a dress and diaper. The infant was left entirely without any human supervision, without food or shelter, and completely subject to all of the unpredictable and untamea- *374 ble elements of nature, including the weather, insects, and wildlife, which could prey on said infant totally unhindered and at any time. Indeed, when the baby was rescued and brought to the hospital for medical attention, the emergency room physician noted many “bug bites” covering most of the exposed areas of the infant’s body including his head, face, legs, and parts of the chest.

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Bluebook (online)
941 S.W.2d 371, 1997 WL 111982, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/herbst-v-state-texapp-1997.