Lane v. State

933 S.W.2d 504, 1996 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 225, 1996 WL 649142
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Texas
DecidedNovember 6, 1996
Docket71835
StatusPublished
Cited by578 cases

This text of 933 S.W.2d 504 (Lane v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Lane v. State, 933 S.W.2d 504, 1996 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 225, 1996 WL 649142 (Tex. 1996).

Opinions

OPINION

KELLER, Judge.

In a trial beginning in January of 1994, appellant was convicted of the capital murder of eight-year-old Bertha Martinez committed on March 20, 1980, in Hays County.1 The [507]*507jury answered the punishment issues in the State’s favor, and appellant was sentenced to death. Direct appeal to this Court is automatic under Article 37.0711(j).2 Appellant raises thirteen points of error on appeal. We will affirm.

1. Sufficiency of the evidence

a. Underlying offense

The capital murder count in the jury charge contained the underlying offenses of kidnapping and aggravated sexual assault. In various oral confessions, appellant admitted to kidnapping, sexually assaulting, and murdering the victim. In point of error ten, appellant contends that the evidence is insufficient to support his conviction because there is insufficient proof of corpus delicti for kidnapping and there is no “direct” evidence that appellant committed an aggravated sexual assault.

Evidence is sufficient when, viewed in the light most favorable to the verdict, a rational jury could have found the essential elements of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979). In a capital murder prosecution, the evidence need only be sufficient to establish one of the underlying felonies in the indictment. Matamoros v. State, 901 S.W.2d 470, 474 (Tex.Crim.App.1995). Pinkerton v. State, 660 S.W.2d 58, 62 (Tex.Crim.App.1983).

Appellant concedes that the State proved the corpus delicti of aggravated sexual assault; therefore, we need not address whether the corpus delicti for kidnapping was proven so long as the evidence of aggravated sexual assault is otherwise sufficient. Once corpus delicti requirements are satisfied, a confession to the crime is, by itself, sufficient evidence to support a conviction. Fisher v. State, 851 S.W.2d 298, 304 (Tex.Crim.App.1993). Appellant confessed to raping and murdering Bertha Martinez. This confession constitutes sufficient evidence to support the capital murder conviction. See also Muniz v. State, 851 S.W.2d 238, 243-249 (Tex.Crim.App.), cert. denied, 510 U.S. 837, 114 S.Ct. 116, 126 L.Ed.2d 82 (1993). Point of error ten is overruled.

b. Future dangerousness

In point of error eleven, appellant contends that the evidence is insufficient to support the jury’s finding of future dangerousness3 in the punishment phase of the trial. As in questions of guilt, we examine the evidence in the light most favorable to the jury’s determination, and we inquire whether any rational jury could have made that determination beyond a reasonable doubt. Matamoros, 901 S.W.2d at 474.

The State offered evidence of appellant’s future dangerousness through both character testimony and specific instances of conduct. Appellant’s sex offender probation officer testified that appellant repeatedly engaged in inappropriate acts of sexual conduct, including the hoarding of female underwear. In the probation officer’s opinion, appellant would continue to commit criminal acts of violence in the future including inappropriate sexual behavior in prison. A jail sergeant testified that appellant collected, in his prison cell, pictures of little girls cut out of newspapers and magazines. The jail sergeant also believed that appellant would be a future danger to society. The opinion of law enforcement officers, derived from their observations of a defendant, about that defendant’s character and the likelihood of future violence, is some evidence of future dangerousness. Chambers v. State, 866 S.W.2d 9, 17 (Tex.Crim.App.1993), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 114 S.Ct. 1871, 128 L.Ed.2d 491 (1994).

Further, a neighbor testified that she saw a hangman’s noose on a tree near appellant’s house. When she took the noose down, appellant began cursing and screaming and told [508]*508her that she did not know what she had done to herself. On a subsequent day, appellant and a blond-haired boy exited a car and walked toward the neighbor’s children. When they saw the neighbor on her porch, they became startled, ran back to their car, and drove away. As he was driving away, appellant beat the steering wheel, cursing and screaming. The jury could have interpreted appellant’s actions as an attempt to take the children for the commission of offenses similar to the one on trial. These events involving the neighbor, while perhaps not alone enough to support a finding of future dangerousness, constitute some evidence in that regard. See Banda v. State, 890 S.W.2d 42, 51 (Tex.Crim.App.1994), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 115 S.Ct. 2253, 132 L.Ed.2d 260 (1995) (defendant, convicted of capital murder in the course of aggravated sexual assault and burglary, threw woman up against a wall and tried to kiss her after she rebuffed his sexual advances).

Richard Coons, a psychiatrist, testified that appellant possessed multiple sexual disorders, including pervasive/chronic pedophilia. Coons characterized appellant’s sexual drive towards children as “severe” and “including violence.” The psychiatrist also diagnosed appellant as having antisocial personality disorder. Coons further characterized appellant as “compulsive, driven, sexually obsessed” and “violent.” Appellant exhibited “abnormal sexual behavior and a clear willingness to utilize aggression and violence to accomplish those means.” Coons was unable to detect evidence of a conscience within appellant, and the psychiatrist specifically predicted that appellant would engage in violent sexual behavior against males in prison. Psychiatric testimony that a person constitutes a continuing threat to society is, generally, especially persuasive evidence of future dangerousness. Fisher v. State, 851 S.W.2d 298, 304 (Tex.Crim.App.1993).

Perhaps the most significant evidence of future dangerousness is the evidence that appellant participated in another capital murder. In oral confessions, appellant admitted to participating in the 1990 kidnapping, rape, and murder of nine-year-old Nancy Shoemaker in Wichita, Kansas. We have recognized that participation in an offense similar to the one on trial constitutes evidence of future dangerousness. Coleman v. State, 881 S.W.2d 344, 347 (Tex.Crim.App.1994), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 115 S.Ct. 763, 130 L.Ed.2d 660 (1995). See also Barrientes v. State, 752 S.W.2d 524, 526-527 (Tex.Crim.App.1987), cert. denied, 487 U.S. 1241, 108 S.Ct. 2915, 101 L.Ed.2d 947 (1988). The evidence in the present case is sufficient to show that appellant constitutes a future danger to society. Point of error eleven is overruled.

c. Mitigating circumstances

In point of error twelve, appellant argues that the evidence is insufficient to support the jury’s “no” answer to the statutory “Penny ” special issue,4

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
933 S.W.2d 504, 1996 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 225, 1996 WL 649142, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/lane-v-state-texcrimapp-1996.