Moore v. State

553 S.W.3d 119
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJune 14, 2018
DocketNo. 06-17-00157-CR
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 553 S.W.3d 119 (Moore 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
Moore v. State, 553 S.W.3d 119 (Tex. Ct. App. 2018).

Opinion

Opinion by Justice Moseley

In Bowie County, Texas, Michael Moore was convicted of felony murder and sentenced to life in prison and assessed a $10,000 fine. On appeal, Moore argues that (1) the trial court violated his Sixth Amendment rights by allowing a pathologist to testify as to the manner and means of the victim's death and (2) when the jury returned with a verdict form indicating both guilty and not guilty, the trial court erred by instructing the jury to continue its deliberations "without first inquiring of the jury if not guilty was their verdict."

We affirm the trial court's judgment because (1) the pathologist's testimony did not violate the Confrontation Clause and (2) error regarding the verdict procedure was not preserved.

*121I. Factual and Procedural Background

On November 21, 2015, Moore called the emergency 9-1-1 number because his girlfriend's two-year-old child was not breathing. Shortly thereafter, Jeremy Courtney, a patrol sergeant with the Texarkana, Texas, Police Department, arrived at the home, where he saw Moore performing CPR on the child as directed through the telephone by a 9-1-1 operator. Paramedic, Donna Berry, arrived at the home a couple of minutes after Courtney, and Berry observed that the child did not have any open wounds or obvious broken bones, that the child's body "had no warmth in it whatsoever," that he was not breathing, and that he had no pulse. Berry saw vomit on the floor but there was no chewed food in the child's mouth and his airway was clear. Other first responders continued performing CPR on the child, who was taken to Wadley Hospital, where he was declared dead.

Moore said that about ten minutes prior to Courtney's arrival, the child had "consumed a large amount of pizza," and he had eaten until he vomited in the floor. When the child would not stop vomiting, Moore placed him in the bathtub, and Moore told the officer that the child might have a bruise or injury because he (Moore) had slipped and fallen four or five times while removing the child from the bathtub and carrying him into the living room. However, Courtney testified that he saw no skid marks on the floor or plates, pizza, or pizza boxes in the room and, further, that the vomit in the floor was not consistent with a child throwing up after having choked on food. Other responding officers gave similar testimony regarding their observations in the home. Because he believed the evidence was inconsistent with Moore's statements and further investigation was needed, Courtney requested another officer to come to the home and establish it as a crime scene. Courtney then contacted the child's mother, Alicia Carter, who was at work at the time, informed her of the situation, and personally took her to the hospital.

The police spoke with Moore several times, recording at least one of the interviews. In his statements to police, Moore indicated that the incident was a tragic accident. Just as Moore told Courtney on the day in question, he claimed that the child started vomiting and that Moore believed he had eaten too much too quickly and had stuffed his mouth too full. He put the child in the bathtub to clean him up, but he started vomiting again and had trouble breathing. Moore turned on the shower, believing that it could help the child breathe because he said that this helps Moore breathe when he experiences asthma-related breathing difficulty. He said that he tried to call Carter six times (this claim being corroborated by data on Carter's cell phone) but when she did not answer, he called 9-1-1. At that point, he was worried and frantic, and while carrying the child from the tub into another room, he fell into a wall once and fell again in the kitchen due to fluid on the floor from a leaking refrigerator. He said that he followed the 9-1-1 operator's directions regarding the way to perform CPR because he had never done it before.

After an autopsy was performed, Moore was arrested and indicted for felony murder. The indictment alleged that in the course and furtherance of committing the felony offense of injury to a child, Moore caused the child's death by "hitting [the child] with or against an unknown object" or "causing trauma to [the child] by a manner and means unknown." Moore entered a plea of not guilty.

During the trial, the jury heard the testimony of the responding police officers and paramedics as well as Carter and the *122child's grandmother. Moore's recorded interview was played for the jury. Numerous photographs of the child, taken the day before the incident, the outside and inside of the home, and the vomit found in the residence were admitted into evidence. The jury also saw photographs taken during the autopsy that showed various injuries on the child's head, neck, and chest. As a part of its case-in-chief, the State called Dr. Tracy Dyer, a forensic pathologist, as an expert witness. Over Moore's objections, Dyer testified that the child had "numerous bruises on every surface of [his] head," and in her expert opinion, based on her review of the autopsy, histological slides, and photographs taken in the case, the child's death was caused by blunt force trauma.

The jury returned a verdict of guilty. After the punishment phase, Moore was sentenced to life in prison and assessed a $10,000 fine. Moore's motion for new trial was overruled by operation of law, and he now appeals from his conviction.

II. Did Dyer's Testimony Violate the Confrontation Clause?

In his first point of error, Moore contends that allowing Dyer to present expert testimony violated his rights under the Confrontation Clause because her testimony was based in part on an autopsy she did not perform and histological slides that she did not prepare.

The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that "[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right ... to be confronted with the witnesses against him...." U.S. CONST. amend. VI. "[T]o implicate the Confrontation Clause, an out-of-court statement must (1) have been made by a witness absent from trial and (2) be testimonial in nature." Woodall v. State , 336 S.W.3d 634, 642 (Tex. Crim. App. 2011) (citing Crawford v. Washington , 541 U.S. 36, 50-52, 59, 124 S.Ct. 1354, 158 L.Ed.2d 177 (2004) ). A statement is "testimonial" when circumstances objectively indicate it was taken for the primary purpose of "establish[ing] or prov[ing] past events potentially relevant to later criminal prosecution." Davis v. Washington , 547 U.S. 813, 822, 126 S.Ct. 2266

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Bluebook (online)
553 S.W.3d 119, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/moore-v-state-texapp-2018.