Joseph Andrew Beach v. the State of Texas

Court of Appeals of Texas·Decided April 4, 2024·No. 01-22-00637-CR·Published

Opinion

Opinion issued April 4, 2024

In The

Court of Appeals

For The

First District of Texas

BACKGROUND

While Beach was serving time in prison, he befriended George O’Day, another inmate. According to O’Day, who testified at trial, while he and Beach were in prison, Beach talked to O’Day about wanting to have Christine killed. O’Day was scheduled to be released on parole, and he testified that Beach asked O’Day to kill Christine after he was released. O’Day said that Beach told him where Christine lived, told him when their kids would be dropped off at school, and told him to ring the doorbell and shoot Christine in the face. O’Day said that Beach offered him a truck and half of Christine’s life insurance policy for killing Christine. O’Day testified that he did not take statements like this seriously at first. He explained that in prison, “[P]eople talk about all kind of different things. So, I mean, I just kind of blew it off. I thought it was a joke.” O’Day acknowledged that in prison there is a lot of embellishment and bragging about things that never happened.

At some point, though, O’Day began to take Beach seriously and believed Christine was in danger. O’Day wrote Christine a letter to warn her; the terms of the letter were vague, however.1 Prison officials intercepted this letter and brought

1 In this letter, O’Day wrote:

I understand you are facing charges . . . . If you could get your lawyer to come visit with me and I’ll be glad[] to speak to him on your behalf.

There’s a picture being painted about you by Mr. Beach which is not right! I’ve seen pictures of you and the children, nice family by the way!

O’Day in for questioning. In that meeting, O’Day told the officials about Beach’s plan to have Christine killed, and the officials asked O’Day to help them get corroborating evidence. O’Day agreed to cooperate by wearing a recording device and initiating a conversation with Beach. O’Day repeatedly testified that he did not do so to help his chances at parole, nor was he offered anything in return for his cooperation; he said he only wanted to do what was right. He also testified that prison officials did not tell him what to say during the conversation with Beach.

O’Day wore a recording device and went to an area known as “the church,”

where he ran into Beach. In the recorded conversation, which was played for the jury, Beach discussed with O’Day several of his pending lawsuits. Beach talked about suing Christine because the trial court awarded all of his property to her in their divorce proceeding, trying to have criminal charges for tax fraud filed against Christine, and having his nephew fabricate charges of child molestation against Christine to bring criminal charges against her. Then, unprompted, Beach said:

I’m going to demolish this [b____]. I’m going to demolish her and take everything away from this [f______] [w____] and put her in [f______]

jail and you’re gonna stick ‘em up and walk up and put two slugs in her [f______] head any time you’re ready to do it. Any [f______] time, and I’ll pay you for it. The truck is already yours.

Later in the recorded conversation, as Beach was discussing the ways in which

O’Day explained that, if he had directly told Christine about the plot to kill her, prison officials would have stopped the mailing because they would have considered the letter a threat.

he wanted to “demolish” Christine through his various lawsuits, the following exchange occurred:

O’Day: Okay so if I get out before you, you just want me to hold off on popping a cap in her [a ]?

Beach: Dude, if you, if you, if you step, I . . . Okay, I gotta stop this. I gotta stop acting like this. I want revenge so bad, that I want her to see me slosh her in court. If you, with everything that’s going on right now, if you stepped out, and you popped a cap in this [b____]’s head, it would stop everything. I would get everything. Everything would be stopped, I would be awarded—

O’Day: Everything’s yours.

Beach: Everything’s mine. So do that. Let’s just stick with the game plan, and I will give you whatever the [f___] you could possibly imagine for the rest of your life. Period.

After O’Day obtained this recording, prison officials asked O’Day to arrange another meeting with Beach. O’Day again wore a recording device to this meeting that was ostensibly to discuss legal paperwork, but the device’s battery died near the beginning of the conversation. During that meeting, which took place in a small holding cell separated by bars with slits so that two inmates can talk with each other and share documents, Beach gave O’Day a picture of Christine with her name and address written on the back.

Beach did not call any witnesses at trial. In his closing argument, defense counsel discussed several defensive theories of the case: he claimed that O’Day was trying to scam or hustle Christine by writing the letter to her, and when he got caught, he turned on Beach to shift the focus of the prison officials’ investigation away from

himself because he was scheduled to be released on parole soon. Defense counsel also pointed out that O’Day never took Beach’s claims seriously until O’Day himself was investigated for his contact with Christine. Lastly, defense counsel did not deny that the recorded conversations between Beach and O’Day occurred, but he said Beach’s statements were only “prison talk,” and he had no intention of having Christine killed.

The jury returned a verdict of guilty. The jury also found the State’s enhancement allegations of prior felony convictions to be true and assessed Beach’s punishment at 55 years of imprisonment. The trial court ordered Beach to pay reimbursement costs and attorney’s fees. Beach now appeals.

DISCUSSION

A. Voir Dire Limitation In his first issue, Beach argues the trial court erred in sustaining the State’s objection to his counsel’s question during voir dire. In explaining the different burdens of proof, defense counsel asked: “But as a juror, if there’s a conflict and you find yourself, man, I don’t know which one to believe, has the Government met its burden?” Counsel for the State objected to this question as an improper commitment question, claiming defense counsel was trying to get the jurors to commit to a definition of “reasonable doubt.” The trial court sustained the objection. Beach argues the trial court erred in sustaining the State’s objection because that limited

his ability to question the potential jurors and violated his federal and state constitutional rights.

Applicable Law

We will assume, without deciding, that defense counsel’s question was a proper voir dire question and thus the trial court abused its discretion by refusing the question. E.g., Sells v. State, 121 S.W.3d 748, 755–56 (Tex. Crim. App. 2003) (“A trial court abuses its discretion when it prohibits a proper question about a proper area of inquiry.”). Our next step is to conduct a harm analysis. E.g., Easley v. State, 424 S.W.3d 535, 541–42 (Tex. Crim. App. 2014) (conducting harm analysis after concluding trial court erred in refusing proper voir dire question); see also Johnson v. State, 43 S.W.3d 1, 5 (Tex. Crim. App. 2001) (explaining that appellate court is responsible for determining whether trial court’s error resulted in harm).

Generally, any error that is not structural falls into two categories:

constitutional error or non-constitutional error. See TEX. R. APP. P. 44.2(a), (b); see also Carranza v. State, 980 S.W.2d 653, 656 (Tex. Crim. App. 1998) (explaining different categories of error). Constitutional error is one that directly offends a provision of the federal or state constitution. Tate v. State, 988 S.W.2d 887, 890 (Tex. App.—Austin 1999, pet. ref’d). We must reverse a conviction after finding this type of error unless we determine “beyond a reasonable doubt that the error did not contribute to the conviction or punishment.” TEX. R. APP. P. 44.2(a). Non-

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