Lott v. State

695 S.W.2d 237, 1985 Tex. App. LEXIS 6715
Court of Appeals of Texas·Decided June 6, 1985·No. 13-84-003-CR·Published·Cited by 6 cases

Opinions

OPINION

KENNEDY, Justice.

A jury found appellant guilty of murder and assessed his punishment at 99 years in the Texas Department of Corrections.

Although appellant does not contest the sufficiency of the evidence to support the conviction, a summary of the facts is necessary to place in perspective appellant’s challenge to the admissibility of certain evidence.

Appellant was indicted for killing Rona Lou Brown, the manager of an apartment complex. According to Dorothy Jerauld, Brown’s mother, appellant came to the manager’s office at about 3:00 p.m. on November 9, 1982, and requested that he be allowed to enter the apartment where he had previously lived with his girlfriend, Granelda Henderson. Brown informed appellant that Henderson had requested the door locks to be changed and that since his name was not on the apartment lease, she could not allow him to enter Henderson’s apartment. Appellant again said that he wanted to enter Henderson’s apartment and Brown again refused, saying that his entry was a matter between Henderson and him. At that point appellant pulled a gun, said “I won’t have it, you hear? I won’t have it,” shot Brown in the head and fled. Brown died later that day as a result of the gunshot wound.

Robert Rico, the apartment complex maintenance man, testified that shortly before the shooting appellant had asked him for directions to the manager’s office. Appellant was clearly identified through the testimony of Rico and Jerauld.

Other evidence introduced by the State showed that two days before the shooting appellant and Henderson had engaged in a heated argument while Henderson removed some of her belongings from the apartment, that appellant accused Henderson of destroying some of his property, and that appellant finally threatened Henderson saying, “You’re going to get it.”

The State also introduced evidence showing that around 3:40 p.m. on November 9, 1982, about a half-hour after appellant shot Rona Lou Brown, he entered a Gibraltar Savings and Loan Office where he shot and killed Granelda Henderson, his former girlfriend. It is this evidence which appellant contends in his second ground of error should have been excluded and which, he says, constitutes reversible error.

Prior to trial, the trial court held a hearing out of the jury’s presence and ruled that evidence relating to Granelda Henderson’s death would be admitted. Appellant objected outside the presence of the jury, and the trial court gave counsel a “running [240] Bill of Exceptions.” No further objection was necessary to preserve the complaint for appellate review. TEX. CODE CRIM. PROC.ANN. art. 40.09, § 6(d)(3) (Vernon Supp.1985).

At trial evidence of the killing of Granel-da Henderson was admitted through a teller of the Gibraltar Savings and Loan and the medical examiner.

It is well settled that an accused is entitled to be tried on the accusation made in the State’s pleading and that he should not be tried for some collateral crimes or for being a criminal generally. Albrecht v. State, 486 S.W.2d 97 (Tex.Crim.App.1972). In its appellate brief, the State, relying on two exceptions to the rule stated in Al-brecht, argues that the killing of Granelda Henderson was admissible to either show appellant's motive or as “res gestae” of the charged offense, contending that the Henderson murder was necessary for the jury to understand the context of the Brown killing. While Albrecht sets forth various exceptions to the general rule stated above, the “true” test of extraneous offense evidence admissibility was set forth recently in Williams v. State, 662 S.W.2d 344 (Tex.Crim.App.1983), where it was held that evidence of extraneous offenses committed by the accused may become admissible upon a showing by the prosecution both that the transaction is relevant to a material issue in the case and that the relevancy value of the evidence outweighs its inflammatory or prejudicial potential. See also Boutwell v. State, No. 711-83 (Tex.Crim.App. April 24, 1985); Gonzalez v. State, 688 S.W.2d 185 (Tex.App.—Corpus Christi, 1985).

It has also been stated, however, that what occurs immediately prior and subsequent to the commission of the offense on trial is always admissible under the reasoning that events do not occur in a vacuum and the jury had a right to have the offense placed in its proper setting so that all evidence may be realistically evaluated. Maddox v. State, 682 S.W.2d 563 (Tex.Crim.App.1985) (Clinton, J., concurring). As noted by Judge Clinton, when evidence is offered under this “context of offense” rationale, the prejudicial nature of it will rarely render it inadmissible so long as it truly sets the stage for the jury’s comprehension of the whole criminal transaction.

While it is obvious that the two shootings were not contemporaneous, it is apparent that the hostility — both before the crime and after the crime — between Gra-nelda Henderson and appellant played a significant role in appellant’s motivation in committing the murder of Rona Lou Brown. It has been held that even if the motive is not an essential element of the offense, “evidence of motive is always admissible because it is relevant as a circumstance tending to prove the commission of an offense.” Bush v. State, 628 S.W.2d 441 (Tex.Crim.App.1982). (emphasis in original) While the State clearly established appellant’s ill-feelings toward Henderson by showing facts of the couple’s pre-killing disputes, the fact that appellant killed his girlfriend shortly after Brown is specifically relevant in showing his motives or feelings at the time Brown was killed.

It has also been stated that where two or more offenses are so blended or connected with one another, evidence of the commission of any or all of them is admissible on the trial for any offense which is itself a detail of the whole scheme, Euziere v. State, 648 S.W.2d 700 (Tex.Crim.App.1983), and that where an offense is one continuous transaction, or another offense is part of the case on trial or closely interwoven or blended with the case on trial, proof of all the facts relating to the transaction or other offense is proper as part of the circumstances attending the offense. Hoffert v. State, 623 S.W.2d 141 (Tex.Crim.App.1981).

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Lott v. State, 695 S.W.2d 237, 1985 Tex. App. LEXIS 6715 (Tex. Ct. App. 1985).

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Lott v. State
695 S.W.2d 237 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1985)