Plattenburg v. State

972 S.W.2d 913, 1998 Tex. App. LEXIS 5048, 1998 WL 472603
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedAugust 12, 1998
Docket09-97-211 CR
StatusPublished
Cited by17 cases

This text of 972 S.W.2d 913 (Plattenburg 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
Plattenburg v. State, 972 S.W.2d 913, 1998 Tex. App. LEXIS 5048, 1998 WL 472603 (Tex. Ct. App. 1998).

Opinion

*915 OPINION

WALKER, Chief Justice.

Maverick Laderiek Plattenburg appeals his conviction and life sentence for capital murder. The State did not seek the death penalty. The brief presents nine points of error for our review.

The first two points of error concern the denial of a challenge for cause:

Point of error one: The court erred in not striking for cause the juror Mr. Hed-rick.
Point of error two: The court erred in not allowing appellant an additional peremptory strike after appellant was forced to exercise a peremptory strike to strike Mr. Hedrick.

The following exchange occurred during voir dire:

THE COURT: I can’t remember what your problem was.
MR. HEDRICK: Well, the question about whether I could give probation for ten years or less convicted of murder.
THE COURT: The question should be in the light of any form of intentional homicide that you can think of, whether it is a mercy killing, regardless of past provocations, regardless of the character of the defendant, regardless of the character of the victim, are you telling me — are you telling me your mind is completely closed to even consider probation?
MR. HEDRICK: No, some of the things that you just mentioned, no, I would certainly consider it probation.
THE COURT: So, in a murder ease, it would be possible for you to consider the full range of punishment. There might be some areas where you certainly wouldn’t give it, maybe you wouldn’t even give a ten-year sentence for, but you would keep an open mind, wait until you heard the evidence.
MR. HEDRICK: Yes.
THE COURT: Okay. Any further questions?
MR. PINK: Yes, sir. I appreciate you coming up. I appreciate your response. I heard the Judge talk about mercy killing or something to that effect. Is that what you had in mind, you say you couldn’t consider probation?
MR. HEDRICK: Yes, that would be one of the circumstances, but there are others.
MR. PINK: Could you give me another where you would consider probation for?
MR. HEDRICK: Just have to be the individual situation. I can’t think of anything specific.
MR. PINK: Well, something bothers you about the concept of probation for murder with we that he why (sic) you’re here we don’t want to criticize you. We want to know how you honestly feel. I take it that how you feel about a probation when a person has been found guilty of murder of killing another person?
MR. HEDRICK: I’m sorry, I don’t understand the question.
MR. PINK: In a situation where a person has been found guilty of murder, killing another person, taking a human life, some of the things like you have heard today, could you — honestly could you consider probation in a case like that?
THE COURT: In what kind of case?
MR. PINK: In a ease where a person has been killed, murder.
MR. HEDRICK: Maybe there is insanity or maybe there’s some other type of circumstance.
MR. PINK: What I’m saying, if he was insane, the person if he was insane, he wouldn’t be here.
THE COURT: Only if he was found insane to the degree that met the legal standard. There might be mental conditions that did not amount to a complete defense in some cases, but it might mitigate the offense to some degree. So, you continue to say you could keep your mind open—
MR. HEDRICK: I could keep my mind open.
THE COURT: To the possibility? All right. I’m going to keep you. Thank you, sir. I will ask you to take a few minutes recess, then come back. All right.

*916 The trial court denied defense counsel’s challenge for cause.

At the conclusion of jury selection, defense counsel asked for an additional peremptory strike because “we run out of strikes and there is another juror, I think it is Juror Number 11. We felt that Juror Number 18, I think it was, should have been struck for cause and we ask for one additional strike ... that we may use on another juror.”

The record does not contain the jury lists, and Plattenburg’s designation of record does not ask that they be included in the clerk’s record. We cannot discern whether defense counsel exercised a strike to remove Hedrick from the panel. Assuming the record supports such a conclusion, we find no abuse of discretion in the trial court’s rulings. Prospective jurors must be willing to consider the full range of punishment applicable to the crime charged and a person who testifies unequivocally that he could not do so is properly the subject for a challenge for cause. Banda v. State, 890 S.W.2d 42, 55 (Tex.Crim.App.1994). A challenge for cause must be granted against a prospective juror who admits bias but states that the bias can be set aside; the trial court still retains discretion to determine whether the prospective juror was biased in the first place. Quinn v. State, 958 S.W.2d 395, 408 (Tex. Crim.App.1997). Although defense counsel argued the trial court’s examples were not close enough to the facts of the case, hypothetical fact situations can be used to explain the application of the law, so long as they are not used to commit the venire person to particular facts. Heiselbetz v. State, 906 S.W.2d 500, 511 (Tex.Crim.App.1995). Venireperson Hedrick stated he would keep his mind open and indicated a willingness to consider the full range of punishment for murder.

Furthermore, any error would be harmless since Plattenburg stands convicted of an offense for which probation is not available. Because he was convicted of capital murder, any error relating to the punishment range of the lesser-ineluded offense of murder made no contribution to appellant’s conviction or punishment. King v. State, 953 S.W.2d 266, 268 (Tex.Crim.App.1997). Points of error one and two are overruled.

Plattenburg’s next two points of error concern the admission of his confessions:

Point of error three: The trial court erred in admitting the written statements of appellant in view of the fact that appellant was not allowed to communicate with his attorney.

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Bluebook (online)
972 S.W.2d 913, 1998 Tex. App. LEXIS 5048, 1998 WL 472603, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/plattenburg-v-state-texapp-1998.