Kiser v. State

893 S.W.2d 277, 1995 Tex. App. LEXIS 192, 1995 WL 51658
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedFebruary 9, 1995
Docket01-91-00512-CR
StatusPublished
Cited by31 cases

This text of 893 S.W.2d 277 (Kiser 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
Kiser v. State, 893 S.W.2d 277, 1995 Tex. App. LEXIS 192, 1995 WL 51658 (Tex. Ct. App. 1995).

Opinion

OPINION

FRANK C. PRICE, * Justice.

A jury convicted appellant of aggravated sexual assault, Tex.Penal Code Ann. § 22.021 (Vernon 1994), 1 and assessed his punishment at 10 years confinement and a fine of $10,000. The jury also found that appellant used or exhibited a deadly weapon — i.e., a knife — during the commission of the offense or during the immediate flight therefrom. In five points of error, appellant contends that the evidence is insufficient to sustain his conviction; and also that the trial court committed reversible error in overruling his objection to evidence of his extraneous misconduct; in overruling his objection to the absence of an instruction in the jury charge on the lesser included offense of aggravated assault; and in denying his two motions for mistrial — one based on improper jury argument by the state, and the other on the state’s alleged failure to disclose evidence in accordance with the trial court’s discovery order. We affirm.

We review the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict, to determine whether any rational trier of fact could have found all the elements of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 2789, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979). This standard of review applies to both direct and circumstantial evidence. Geesa v. State, 820 S.W.2d 154, 158, 159 n. 6, 160 n. 8, 161 (Tex.Crim.App.1991); *279 Carlsen v. State, 654 S.W.2d 444, 449 (Tex.Crim.App.1983). We may not act as a thirteenth juror in assessing the evidence. Moreno v. State, 755 S.W.2d 866, 867 (Tex.Crim.App.1988). If there is evidence that establishes guilt, beyond a reasonable doubt, and if the trier of fact believes that evidence, we may not reverse the judgment on sufficiency of the evidence grounds. Id. In this instance, an additional principle of appellate review also applies: to the extent that appellant’s conviction rests upon circumstantial evidence, his conviction cannot stand unless the circumstances exclude every other reasonable hypothesis except that of appellant’s guilt. Humason v. State, 728 S.W.2d 363, 366 (Tex.Crim.App.1987). 2

In the light most favorable to the verdict, the evidence shows the following. On the evening of Sunday, March 25, 1990, appellant, his ex-wife Denise, 3 and Denise’s best friend, the complainant, went out together to a comedy club and then to a restaurant. Afterward, appellant and Denise dropped the complainant off at her home, then went to pick up them seven-year-old son Bradley from Denise’s parents. On the way, appellant and Denise got into an argument about whether she would spend the night with him again that night 4 as she had on the preceding two nights. The argument continued while they were there, and after they left at 11:30 p.m. Appellant pulled the emergency brake, physically grabbed Denise, and started choking her, angry that she refused to sleep with him that night, and he accused her of sleeping with another man. Denise managed to pull into a convenience store parking lot, where she got away, went into the store, and asked the clerk to call 911. Appellant followed her, and dragged her back outside, where they found that Bradley had locked them out of the car. Soon after, a police officer arrived. As soon as the officer drove up, appellant left and began walking home, which was about a third of a mile away. At Denise’s request, the officer followed her to her sister’s house. On the way, they passed appellant, who jumped out in front of Denise’s car to try to stop her and talk to her. Appellant telephoned Denise at her sister’s house just as she arrived there, but she did not want to speak with him.

After Denise hung up on appellant and unplugged her phone, appellant called the complainant, who had already gone to sleep for the night. He was crying uncontrollably, and saying, “I have messed up with Denise. I have really messed up with her this time. You have to help me, Denise is at her sister’s and she’s taken the phone off the hook. And I have got to talk to her. Would you please go talk to her for me?” The complainant advised appellant to “give her some space” and “just talk to her tomorrow.” Appellant kept begging and crying and would not let her go back to bed, so, like Denise, the complainant hung up on appellant and also unplugged her phone, after it immediately began ringing again, over and over.

Later that night, the complainant awoke to find a naked man on top of her, in the dark, choking her. When she could not get his hands off her throat, she grabbed the intruder’s testicles as hard as she could. He then grabbed her arm and started hitting her, repeatedly in the face, over and over, until *280 she could no longer move. Next, he put a pillowcase over her head, and tied it on with rope, tying her right arm to her neck at the same time. He then tied the complainant’s left arm to her left knee with electrical tape. The complainant felt a knife under her right arm, and heard the intruder take a condom out of its package and put it on. She begged for her life; she was afraid to scream because she thought no one would hear her. The intruder then forced her to engage in vaginal intercourse with him, but kept losing his erection. After three or four times, he quit. The complainant heard him in the hallway and the kitchen. He then returned to the bedroom and turned on the light. She was too afraid to turn her face and try to see, through the pillowcase, who it was, because she feared if she recognized him, he would kill her. After a while, the light went out, and he sat on the edge of the bed and laid the knife on her chest, pointed at her throat. Throughout the whole episode, the intruder had never said a word. After a minute or so, he got up. The complainant listened, but never could hear him leave. At length, she could wait no longer, and jumped out of her bedroom window and ran to her neighbor’s house, where they called 911 for help. That was about 2:45 a.m. Sheriffs Deputy Ciara-mitaro arrived five or 10 minutes later, followed almost immediately by an ambulance, which took the complainant to a hospital.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
893 S.W.2d 277, 1995 Tex. App. LEXIS 192, 1995 WL 51658, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/kiser-v-state-texapp-1995.