Mills v. State

625 S.W.2d 47, 1981 Tex. App. LEXIS 4379
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedNovember 18, 1981
Docket04-81-00047-CR
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 625 S.W.2d 47 (Mills 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
Mills v. State, 625 S.W.2d 47, 1981 Tex. App. LEXIS 4379 (Tex. Ct. App. 1981).

Opinion

OPINION

Before ESQUIVEL, BUTTS and CANTU, JJ.

BUTTS, Justice.

This is an appeal from a conviction for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. The jury found the appellant guilty, and assessed punishment at three (3) years’ confinement, which was probated upon their recommendation. The sufficiency of the evidence is not challenged on appeal.

The record reflects that between 1:00 and 2:00 a. m. on June 1,1978, two teenage girls went to a JACK IN THE BOX restaurant in San Antonio. They gave some beer to appellant and his two companions, Beaver and Rodriguez. After the girls left the restaurant, the appellant and his companions drove by them and made a rude remark. The girls were frightened by the remark and ran back to the JACK IN THE *49 BOX for help. Two other young men offered to drive them home, and they accepted.

The young men drove the girls to the place where appellant and his companions were standing and one of the young men asked if the appellant and his companions were “hassling these chicks”. Rodriguez responded by pulling out a sawed-off shotgun and shooting a tire on the young men’s car. Appellant’s car left quickly and the men whose tire had been shot stopped at Fargo’s restaurant to call the police. After the police arrived, one of the girls spotted appellant’s car driving by, and she pointed it out. Officer Jack Day of the Leon Valley Police Department began to pursue the appellant’s car. The pursuit took place on several streets at a speed of about 55 or 60 miles per hour. At some point, Rodriguez leaned out the window and fired two shots from a shotgun at the pursuing police car. They blew out the left headlight and turn signal of the police car and damage was also done to the overhead light bar. The speed of the chase then greatly increased, exceeding 120 miles per hour, with Day firing his service pistol with his left hand. No one was wounded and eventually appellant stopped his car. Appellant was immediately arrested along with Beaver. Rodriguez escaped, but was apprehended soon after. Appellant had been driving the car during the entire chase.

In his first ground of error, appellant asserts that the trial court erred in failing to charge the jury on the lesser included offense of reckless conduct. Appellant maintains that because he was driving the car, there was no evidence of assaultive conduct by him and that he could only be found guilty under the law of parties if he was criminally responsible for the offense which was committed by Rodriguez, who shot the gun. He further contends that under the law of the parties, he was entitled to the charge of reckless conduct since the evidence raised the possibility that the companion’s conduct constituted reckless conduct rather than aggravated assault.

In Royster v. State, 622 S.W.2d 442 (Tex. Cr.App.1981), the plurality opinion set out the two step analysis which is to be used in determining whether a charge on a lesser included offense is required. First, the lesser included offense must be included within the proof necessary to establish the offense charged. Secondly, there must be some evidence in the record that the defendant, if guilty of anything, is guilty only of the lesser included offense. This two-step analysis has consistently been employed in recent opinions dealing with the necessity of a charge on a lesser included offense. Royster v. State, supra; see also, Watson v. State, 605 S.W.2d 877, 884 (Tex.Cr.App. 1980); Simpkins v. State, 590 S.W.2d 129, 134 (Tex.Cr.App.1979); Wilder v. State, 583 S.W.2d 349, 361 (Tex.Cr.App.1979), vacated and remanded on other grounds,- U.S. -, 101 S.Ct. 3133, 69 L.Ed.2d 987, (1981); Wright v. State, 582 S.W.2d 845, 847 (Tex.Cr.App.1979); Briceno v. State, 580 S.W.2d 842, 844 (Tex.Cr.App.1979); Thomas v. State, 578 S.W.2d 691, 698 (Tex.Cr.App.1979); Williams v. State, 575 S.W.2d 30, 33 (Tex.Cr.App.1979); Dovalina v. State, 564 S.W.2d 378, 383 (Tex.Cr.App.1978); McBrayer v. State, 504 S.W.2d 445, 447 (Tex.Cr.App.1974). In a concurring opinion in Royster, supra, two members of the Court of Criminal Appeals would have used, instead, the analysis set forth by Mr. Justice Goldberg in Sansone v. U. S., 380 U.S. 343, 85 S.Ct. 1004, 13 L.Ed.2d 882 (1965), that:

“A lesser-included offense instruction is only proper where the charged greater offense requires the jury to find a disputed factual element which is not required for conviction of the lesser-included offense.”

In analyzing the instant case under the Sansone test, we find that the evidence did not warrant submission of a charge on the lesser included offense of recklessness.

Further, under the test stated in the plurality opinion in Royster, supra, the evidence presented under the law of parties failed to raise the possibility that appellant was guilty of only reckless conduct, if anything.

*50 We find no error in the court’s refusal to submit appellant’s specially requested jury charges on the lesser-included offense of reckless conduct.

In ground of error number two, appellant asserts that the court erred in overruling the appellant’s special plea and Motion to Dismiss because the appellant already had been convicted of an offense arising from the same transaction. Appellant’s plea of jeopardy is predicated upon the fact that prior to the trial in the instant case, he was convicted of the offense of evading arrest. Tex.Penal Code Ann. § 38.04. Appellant argues that the trial in the instant case was, in effect, a trial for an offense arising out of the same criminal transaction and thus, violates the doctrine of carving. In Simco v. State, 9 Tex.App. 338, 349 (1880), the doctrine was recognized as “allowing] the prosecutor to carve as large an offense out of a single transaction as he can, yet he must only cut once.”

The question before us is whether the offenses of evading arrest and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon are separate and distinct offenses under the facts of this case, so that the doctrine of carving would not apply, or whether only a single transaction occurred requiring the application of the carving doctrine.

In Hawkins v. State,

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