Julian v. State

492 S.W.3d 462, 2016 WL 2343913, 2016 Tex. App. LEXIS 4613
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedMay 3, 2016
DocketNO. 14-15-00306-CR, NO. 14-15-00307-CR, NO. 14-15-00308-CR
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 492 S.W.3d 462 (Julian 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
Julian v. State, 492 S.W.3d 462, 2016 WL 2343913, 2016 Tex. App. LEXIS 4613 (Tex. Ct. App. 2016).

Opinion

[464]*464OPINION

Marc W. Brown, Justice

Appellant Donald Julian appeals from his conviction of one count of failure to report change of address1 as a registered sex offender and two counts of failing to register as a sex offender regularly visiting a location.2 Appellant presents one issue: that the evidence adduced at trial was insufficient for a rational jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt that he committed the offenses with which he was charged.3 We affirm.

Factual and Procedural Background

In 1998, appellant Donald Julian was charged with aggravated sexual assault of a child in Liberty County, Texas. Deferred adjudication was ordered and appellant was placed on community supervision for seven years. As a result, appellant was required to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life. In 2012, appellant moved to Temple, in Bell County, where he registered as a sex offender. On February 26, 2013, Sergeant M. Tronecker of the Temple Police Department performed a compliance check at the address that appellant had provided the Bell County Sheriffs Office. When Tronecker knocked on the door, appellant’s son answered. It did not appear that appellant was present at the time. When Tronecker left, he contacted Amy Ponce, who worked maintaining the sex offender registry in Bell County. Ponce testified that appellant made contact with her some time between February 27 and March 4 to tell her that he was out of the county in The Woodlands for a doctor’s appointment. Ponce told appellant that he needed to let the Montgomery County Sheriffs Office know if he was planning to be in the county for more than seven days.

On March 4, 2013, Detective J. Glisson of the Montgomery County Sheriffs Office Sex Offender Compliance Unit received a tip indicating that appellant was living in an RY park in Montgomery County, despite being registered in Bell County. Glisson alerted Deputy E. Rupert, the then-registrar for sex offenders in Montgomery County, to the tip. Rupert checked his phone log to see if anyone named Donald Julian had made contact with the Sheriffs Office. Rupert did not have any entries in his log or in the registry related to Donald Julian. Glisson went to the RV park to investigate and took a statement from the park’s manager, Alan Patton. Patton confirmed that appellant had signed a month-to-month “service agreement” with the park to occupy a space there. A copy of this service agreement was admitted into evidence at trial. Patton explained that this service agreement was distinguishable from a lease agreement in that it was month-to-month and could be terminated by either party at any time. After speaking with Patton, Glisson called Ponce to tell her that appellant was in Montgomery County. On March 6, 2013, Glisson secured an arrest warrant for appellant and went to the RV park to execute the warrant. Appellant told Glisson that he knew he was required to register as a sex offender and that his [465]*465trailer had been in the RV park in Montgomery County for two months. Glisson asked appellant if he had been in Montgomery County for more than 48 hours on three occasions that month and appellant confirmed that he had. Appellant confirmed also that a compliance officer had been to his registered address in Temple to check on him. Glisson asked what his son had told the officer, and appellant stated that his son had told the officer that appellant no longer lived at that address in Temple.

At trial, the State called several witnesses to establish that appellant had been outside of Bell County for an extended period of time during the first three months of 2013. Patton testified that he saw appellant sitting outside “from time to time” and that appellant would come in to the park’s office to do his laundry “regularly,” perhaps once a week. In the middle of the week, Patton testified, appellant would usually come into the office to chat. Patton testified that appellant was at the RV park “most of the time” and that he saw appellant talking to neighbors three to four times a week. Patton also testified that he saw appellant’s vehicle every day and on the weekends, but that appellant would be gone “for hours during the day.” Patton’s records indicated that appellant paid rent for his space in the RV park on January 4, February 2, and March 6 before he was arrested and taken into custody. Robin Miller, a fellow resident of the RV park, testified that she saw appellant “regularly, daily” for “about two months.” Miller also testified that appellant’s vehicle was at the park “often[;] it didn’t move very much.” Miller stated that there were probably four days in which she did not see appellant throughout the two months that his trailer was at the park. Miller also testified that appellant had installed a satellite dish into the ground outside of his trailer.

Appellant called three witnesses in his defense. Appellant’s first witness was Terri Allen, his ex-wife, who testified that appellant was receiving treatment and “therapy” in The Woodlands and so had his trailer in the RV park for “convenience.” Allen testified that between January and March 2013, appellant visited her in Crockett, in Houston County, and that she also visited him at his trailer in Mont-gomeiy County. Allen confirmed that appellant had “sometimes” spent 48 hours with 'her either in Houston County or Montgomery County, but was unable to give an exact number of times in which this occurred. Allen said that it was “possible” that appellant could have visited her for 48 hours on three separate occasions in one month. Robert Clark, appellant’s neighbor at the RV park, testified that appellant was “gone a lot” and that appellant “went to Temple and Houston for doctor[’]s appointments and things like that.” Clark testified also that he “never” saw appellant' at the park for 48 hours, three times a month. Appellant’s medical case manager, Christine Leopold, testified that the mailing address appellant provided her was in Temple, Bell County. Appellant also introduced a statement from his bank, which indicated that he had made three transactions in Temple in the month of January. The bank statement also indicated transactions completed in Lufkin, Conroe, Willis, Tyler, and Livingston— none of which are located in Bell County— in January and February.

The jury convicted appellant on all three counts. The court sentenced appellant to 25 years in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Institutional Division. Appellant timely filed this appeal.

Analysis

In his only issue on appeal, appellant contends that the evidence present[466]*466ed at trial was insufficient to support the jury’s verdict of guilt. ■ It is undisputed in this case that appellant was a person required to register as a sex offender under Texas Code of Crirpinal Procedure chapter 62. We need only determine whether the evidence was sufficient to support a finding that appellant failed to comply with the requirements of chapter 62 — reporting a change of address and registering as a sex offender frequently visiting a location. When reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence, we examine all of the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict and determine whether a rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979); Price v. State,

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
492 S.W.3d 462, 2016 WL 2343913, 2016 Tex. App. LEXIS 4613, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/julian-v-state-texapp-2016.