McClendon, Robert Blakely v. State

CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJune 2, 2005
Docket14-03-01166-CR
StatusPublished

This text of McClendon, Robert Blakely v. State (McClendon, Robert Blakely 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
McClendon, Robert Blakely v. State, (Tex. Ct. App. 2005).

Opinion

Affirmed and Opinion filed June 2, 2005

Affirmed and Opinion filed June 2, 2005.

In The

Fourteenth Court of Appeals

_______________

NO. 14-03-01166-CR

ROBERT BLAKELY MCLENDON, Appellant

V.

THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee

___________________________________________________

On Appeal from the 183rd District Court

Harris County, Texas

Trial Court Cause No. 940,096

O P I N I O N

Appellant, Robert Blakely McLendon, appeals a conviction for arson on the grounds that: (1) the evidence is legally and factually insufficient; (2) the State commented on his failure to testify; and (3) the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress.  We affirm.

I.  Factual and Procedural Background


Michael Edwards, a River Oaks Patrol security officer, was on duty the night of November 30, 2002.  He had been instructed to keep a special watch on the house under construction at the address of 3005 Del Monte, in Houston, because the property was owned by a prominent Enron executive.  At approximately three o=clock in the morning, Edwards noticed a suspicious vehicle, a black Lincoln Navigator, parked in front of 3005 Del Monte.  As he approached the vehicle, Edwards noticed a white male running from the front of the house toward the vehicle.  As Edwards turned on his lights, the man jumped into the vehicle and drove away.  As he was looking for a specific address to call in a report on the suspicious vehicle, Edwards noticed the house at 3005 Del Monte was on fire.  Edwards gave a description of the vehicle and its license plate number to the dispatcher and followed the Navigator through the neighborhood and onto the Southwest Freeway.  The man eventually abandoned the vehicle and ran away through an open field toward an apartment complex.  Edwards noted the license plate number of the vehicle and reported it to the Houston Police Department (HPD).  Later that morning, HPD and River Oaks Patrol officers determined the registered owner of the Navigator was appellant, Robert Blakely McLendon. 

An arson investigator, Nathaniel Gee, conducted a cause and origin investigation and concluded the fire at 3005 Del Monte was incendiary, not accidental.  Gee found a large can at the scene, which was later determined to have contained diesel fuel.  Debris collected from the fire was examined, and chemists found it contained a flammable heavy-petroleum distillate, such as diesel fuel.  Leo Gonzalez, a senior investigator with the Houston Fire Department, placed a photograph of appellant in a photo array, which he showed to Edwards.  When Edwards viewed the photos, he originally identified the photograph in position number two[1] as the man he saw running from the house, but then stated the man in photograph number one looked similar to the man he identified.

Based on the investigation and Edwards’s identification, Gonzalez obtained an arrest warrant for appellant and arrested him at his apartment.  At the time of his arrest, appellant was driving the black Navigator with the same license plates as the vehicle observed at the scene of the fire.  Later, Edwards positively identified appellant at a live line-up.


Appellant was charged with arson of a habitation.  Before closing arguments, appellant requested and received an instruction on the lesser-included offense of arson of a building.  The jury convicted appellant of the lesser-included offense.  After finding the allegations in the enhancement paragraph true, the jury assessed punishment at thirty-five years= confinement in the Texas Department of Criminal JusticeCInstitutional Division and imposed a fine of $10,000.

II.  Issues and Analysis

A.        Is the evidence legally and factually sufficient to support appellant=s conviction for arson?

Appellant contends the evidence is legally and factually insufficient to support his conviction because it failed to establish he started the fire.  Specifically, appellant contends the evidence shows, at best, he was merely present at 3005 Del Monte and left in his vehicle before the fire began.

1.         Estoppel as a Bar to Challenge Legal Sufficiency

Appellant requested and received a charge on the lesser-included offense of arson of a building.  The jury convicted appellant of the lesser-included offense.  The State argues appellant is now estopped from challenging the legal and factual sufficiency of the evidence supporting this conviction.  The State relies on a line of cases from the Court of Criminal Appeals indicating that a defendant who invokes the benefit of a lesser-included offense by either requesting a jury charge on it or by not objecting to its submission is estopped from complaining on appeal that the evidence is legally insufficient to support a conviction on the lesser offense.  See State v. Yount, 853 S.W.2d 6, 9 (Tex. Crim. App. 1993) (majority opinion citing Lee estoppel rule with approval and as analogous to rule applied by the court in Yount); State v. Lee, 818 S.W. 2d 778, 781 (Tex. Crim. App. 1991) (plurality op.), overruled on other grounds by Moore v. State, 969 S.W.2d 4 (Tex. Crim. App. 1998); Bradley v. State, 688 S.W.2d 847, 853 (Tex. Crim. App. 1985) (plurality op. and dictum).   

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