In re C.M.M.

503 S.W.3d 692, 2016 Tex. App. LEXIS 12021, 2016 WL 6603743
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedNovember 8, 2016
DocketNO. 14-16-00427-CV
StatusPublished
Cited by42 cases

This text of 503 S.W.3d 692 (In re C.M.M.) 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
In re C.M.M., 503 S.W.3d 692, 2016 Tex. App. LEXIS 12021, 2016 WL 6603743 (Tex. Ct. App. 2016).

Opinion

OPINION

William J. Boyce, Justice

Appellant C.M.M. is a juvenile charged with capital murder of his mother and her unborn child. See Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 19.03(a) (Vernon Supp. 2016). He challenges the order granting the State’s petition for the juvenile court to waive jurisdiction and transfer him to criminal district court. See Tex. Fam. Code Ann. § 54.02 (Vernon 2014), § 56.01 (Vernon Supp. 2016).

Appellant challenges the order on grounds that (1) there is no probable cause to believe he committed the alleged offense because there is no evidence of the unborn child’s cause of death, and (2) the trial court abused its discretion in transferring the case because the trial court did not sufficiently consider the required factors. We affirm.

Factual Background

A. Appellant’s Activities

Appellant was 14 years old in September 2015 and lived with his mother, Nicole.1 Recorded statements made to police and admitted into evidence without objection at the transfer hearing describe the following events occurring between Tuesday, September 22 and Sunday, September 27, 2015.

Around 10:00 p.m. on Tuesday, appellant texted his friend, Trace, to see if Trace and his sister, Beth, wanted to get together. Beth and Trace agreed, snuck out of their house, and met appellant at a nearby store. Appellant was driving a late-model black Nissan, which he told them his mother’s pimp bought for him. He also had a large amount of cash; the bag holding the money had a sticky note with “900” written on it. Appellant told them the money was from Nicole’s pimp as well. As soon as they got in the car, appellant offered his friends money from a “big stack of twenties” in case they wanted to buy anything to eat or drink. Appellant then drove his friends to pick up Ella, Trace’s girlfriend.

Appellant drove Beth, Trace, and Ella to a residence where he paid $40 for marijuana while the three passengers stayed in the car. All four teenagers then went to a park, where they drank alcohol and smoked marijuana. Beth and appellant talked for one to two hours in the park. Beth described appellant as “chill” while she was with him. Trace, however, said appellant was acting “sketchy” that evening—by which he meant appellant was “always looking around, checking his phone, stuff like that.”

The group left the park and appellant said he wanted to drive by his house to see if his mother or the police were there. No one asked appellant why he thought the police would be at his house. Neither Beth nor Trace knew what his house looked like or where he lived. They knew only that appellant did not stop or slow down at a house. He then drove his three friends to a [697]*697fast food restaurant and paid for their food.

At some point during the evening while the four were in the car, appellant said his mother was pregnant and he did not want a baby brother. Appellant also said he told his mother he would kill her or the baby. Then he told his friends he was just joking and would not do that. Beth took his statement as a joke. Trace recalled that a few months earlier appellant told him Nicole was pregnant; he did not want a sibling; and he would “beat the [expletive]” out of the baby.

Appellant announced he was driving out of town that night and invited his friends to accompany him. They declined. At Beth’s request, appellant drove them all home after midnight.

Appellant drove to Seguin, Texas early Wednesday to see his friend, Carlos. He arrived before dawn and waited until Carlos was out of school. He then texted Carlos and told him he was coming to see him. When Carlos asked why, appellant said he did not want to talk about it until they could talk in person.

When Carlos got home, he and appellant talked in the Nissan. Carlos saw cuts on appellant’s hands. Appellant told Carlos he found his mother in the living room stabbing herself and he “finished her off’ by holding a towel over her mouth and nose to “put her out of her misery.” Carlos believed Nicole was high on drugs at the time. Carlos urged appellant to turn himself in right away,' but appellant.refused.

Appellant, Carlos, and Carlos’s mother drove to Houston and stayed at the Astro Inn. Appellant drank alcohol and smoked marijuana. Carlos was scared and did not tell his mother what appellant had told him. It appears Carlos’s mother did not know Nicole was dead because at some point, she instructed the boys to go “make things right” with Nicole.

B. Discovery of the Body

Neighbors noticed on Wednesday that the front door to Nicole’s house was slightly ajar. One neighbor entered the house on Saturday, discovered Nicole’s body on the kitchen floor, and called the police. It later was estimated Nicole had been dead for three or four days when her body was discovered.

Detective ■ Sergeant Spruill, Detective Walton, and Detective Samuelson of the La Marque Police Department arrived at the scene, which Spruill described as “violent” and “horrific.” The kitchen floor was covered with blood. Spruill said it looked like somebody had been “sliding around in the blood, running barefoot through the blood.” A pair of slip-on shoes with blood on them sat on the floor inside the entrance to the kitchen. A blood-covered knife with a bent tip rested on a night table in a room determined to be appellant’s bedroom. Pants and a blue jacket lay crumpled on the bathroom floor. The clothes were surrounded by bloody shoe-prints. While at the house, Spruill and Walton learned appellant lived in the house but was not there, and a car was missing. At that point, they did not know if appellant was a victim, a suspect, or neither. They reported him as a missing person.

C. Appellant’s Statements to Police

Appellant called relatives on Sunday, and an aunt picked him up. Appellant left the Nissan at the Astro Inn. The aunt called the police and said appellant was with her and his paternal grandparents at their house in Houston. Spruill, Walton, and Lieutenant Waggoner, also of the La Marque Police Department, drove to the grandparents’ house, where appellant was sitting on the couch. Either he or a relative [698]*698said the family already knew Nicole was dead.

As a located missing child, appellant was supposed to be returned to his father. Appellant adamantly refused to go with his father. His aunt and grandparents aiso expressed concern about appellant being with his father. The police officers asked appellant “if he wanted to talk about it,” and he said yes. Appellant rode in Wag-goner's vehicle to go to the police station. On the way, appellant directed the officers to the Astro Inn so they could recover the Nissan. His grandparents were offered the opportunity to ride with appellant, but they elected to follow in their own car. They were at the station while he spoke with the officers.

Appellant was not then considered to be a suspect in Nicole’s murder. Nevertheless, the officers had him admonished by a magistrate in case he became a suspect during the interview.

The interview lasted two hours and twenty minutes.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

In the Matter of D.P. v. the State of Texas
Tex. App. Ct., 2nd Dist. (Fort Worth), 2026
Trey Phillip Greenleaf v. the State of Texas
Court of Appeals of Texas, 2025
In the Matter of T.L.J. v. the State of Texas
Court of Appeals of Texas, 2025
COMMONWEALTH v. DEMOS D., a Juvenile
Massachusetts Appeals Court, 2025
In the Matter of C.M. v. the State of Texas
Court of Appeals of Texas, 2024
In the Matter of J.H. v. the State of Texas
Court of Appeals of Texas, 2024
In the Matter of K.A. v. the State of Texas
Court of Appeals of Texas, 2024
In the Matter of T.H. v. the State of Texas
Court of Appeals of Texas, 2024
In the Matter of M. B. v. the State of Texas
Court of Appeals of Texas, 2024
In the Matter of J.J.T. v. the State of Texas
Court of Appeals of Texas, 2023
In the Matter of T.B. v. the State of Texas
Court of Appeals of Texas, 2023
In the Matter of J.D. v. the State of Texas
Court of Appeals of Texas, 2023
In the Matter of C.P.R. v. the State of Texas
Court of Appeals of Texas, 2023

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
503 S.W.3d 692, 2016 Tex. App. LEXIS 12021, 2016 WL 6603743, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-cmm-texapp-2016.