Jennifer Kelly v. State

453 S.W.3d 634
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJanuary 13, 2015
Docket10-14-00015-CR
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 453 S.W.3d 634 (Jennifer Kelly 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
Jennifer Kelly v. State, 453 S.W.3d 634 (Tex. Ct. App. 2015).

Opinion

OPINION

REX D. DAVIS, Justice

A jury convicted Appellant Jennifer Kelly of the offenses of trafficking of persons and compelling prostitution and assessed her punishment at fifteen and ten years’ imprisonment, respectively. This appeal ensued.

Sufficiency of the Evidence

In her first two issues, Kelly contends that the evidence was insufficient to support her convictions for trafficking of persons and compelling prostitution.

*636 Standard of Review

The Court of Criminal Appeals has expressed our standard of review of a sufficiency issue as follows:

In determining whether the evidence is legally sufficient to support a conviction, a reviewing court must consider all of the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict and determine whether, based on that evidence and reasonable inferences therefrom, a rational fact finder could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 318-19, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979); Hooper v. State, 214 S.W.3d 9, 13 (Tex.Crim.App.2007). This “familiar standard gives full play to the responsibility of the trier of fact fairly to resolve conflicts in the testimony, to weigh the evidence, and to draw reasonable inferences from basic facts to ultimate facts.” Jackson, 443 U.S. at 319, 99 S.Ct. 2781. “Each fact need not point directly and independently to the guilt of the appellant, as long as the cumulative force of all the incriminating circumstances is sufficient to support the conviction.” Hooper, 214 S.W.3d at 13.

Lucio v. State, 351 S.W.3d 878, 894 (Tex.Crim.App.2011).

If the record supports conflicting inferences, we must presume that the fact-finder resolved the conflicts in favor of the prosecution and therefore defer to that determination. Jackson, 443 U.S. at 326, 99 S.Ct. 2781. Further, direct and circumstantial evidence are treated equally: “Circumstantial evidence is as probative as direct evidence in establishing the guilt of an actor, and circumstantial evidence alone can be sufficient to establish guilt.” Hooper, 214 S.W.3d at 13. Finally, it is well established that the factfinder is entitled to judge the credibility of witnesses and can choose to believe all, some, or none of the testimony presented by the parties. Chambers v. State, 805 S.W.2d 459, 461 (Tex.Crim.App.1991).

The Evidence

The evidence presented in this case was as follows: Madisonville Police Officer Aaron Campbell testified that on April 26,-2013, the Department executed a search warrant at 702 East Collard Street in Madisonville, a residence known to be Kelly’s. Campbell took photographs of everything. The photographs showed three bedrooms, one of which was Kelly’s. Above Kelly’s bed was a photograph of M.M. Campbell stated that he believed the photograph was important because it verified that M.M. was connected with the residence.

Dorothy Carnal testified that both Kelly and Kelly’s mother took into their home people who had nowhere else to go. In fact, Carnal met Kelly in April 2012 when, because Carnal had nowhere to go, Kelly said that she could stay in the home as long as she helped around the house and paid a little bit of money to Kelly’s mother if she could. Kelly usually took in females, and, besides Carnal, Kelly took in M.M., Nicole Shelton, Stephanie Stansbury, and Jessica Hoot. A man named Jason McKinney also lived there for about a month. Kelly would feed the people that she took in and buy clothes for them, if needed. This included M.M. M.M. needed things every now and then, and Kelly would help her if she could.

Carnal testified that she met M.M. about a week after meeting Kelly in April 2012. On the first or second day after meeting, M.M. asked Carnal to go to the park with her so that Carnal could be a lookout while M.M. had sex with a guy. Carnal said that M.M. would also “come looking for trouble” at the house. M.M. did not live at the *637 house, but she did stay there every now and then. M.M. would come over to Kelly’s house and tell Kelly that she needed her to make phone calls to guys with whom she could have sex because she needed money. M.M. would have sex with the guys in the middle bedroom of the house and receive money from them. Carnal said that she did not know how much money M.M. got from the guys but that M.M. would always flash her money around in front of everyone. When asked if Kelly ever received any money when M.M. would have sex with guys in the house for money, Carnal replied that she thought M.M. would give Kelly $5 but that she did not know if the guys paid Kelly.

When asked what her response would be to an allegation that Kelly forced M.M. to engage in prostitution, Carnal replied that Kelly never forced anyone to do anything. Carnal stated, “Well, you know, we had a little set up. But [Kelly] didn’t force nobody to do nothing that they didn’t want to do.” Carnal said that she heard that M.M.’s mother was the one who forced M.M. into prostitution. M.M.’s mother came over to Kelly’s house a few times, and Carnal thought that M.M.’s mother had actually engaged in prostitution at the house once or twice.

Carnal remembered seeing M.M. over at the house in the May/June 2012 time-frame. Carnal stated, “After [M.M.] first came around that was it, she was there all the time.” Carnal was positive about the timeframe even though her own overall drug use, including having done heavy drugs in the preceding two or three years and having smoked pot as recently as three days before testifying, had affected her memory. Carnal remembered M.M. having sex for money in the middle bedroom of the house during those months. Carnal finally left Kelly’s house in about November or December 2012 with Stephanie Stansbury.

Stansbury testified that Kelly would take people in if they did not have anywhere to go. She considered Kelly her friend, and Kelly helped her out, including providing her food and clothing and allowing her to live with her from about August to December 2012. Carnal, M.M., and a woman named Nicole also lived at Kelly’s house at some point. Stansbury confirmed that there was a picture of M.M. in Kelly’s bedroom.

Stansbury testified that she met M.M. in early August 2012. She and M.M. did not get along because of a dispute over a guy named Alfredo. Beginning in about June 2012, Stansbury would take Alfredo over to Kelly’s house, drop him off, and then pick him back up later. When she herself then started going over to Kelly’s house, she found out that Alfredo had been going over to the house to see M.M. When asked if M.M. was at Kelly’s house in June 2012, however, Stansbury replied, “I’m not sure. I just know I would drop [Alfredo] off and pick him up.” Stansbury moved on from Alfredo and started seeing Michael Briock on August 2, 2012, but she and M.M. had a dispute over Alfredo until about December 2012.

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Bluebook (online)
453 S.W.3d 634, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/jennifer-kelly-v-state-texapp-2015.