Quincy Reshawn Gilstrap v. the State of Texas

CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedFebruary 21, 2024
Docket05-22-01031-CR
StatusPublished

This text of Quincy Reshawn Gilstrap v. the State of Texas (Quincy Reshawn Gilstrap v. the State of Texas) 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
Quincy Reshawn Gilstrap v. the State of Texas, (Tex. Ct. App. 2024).

Opinion

AFFIRM as MODIFIED; and Opinion Filed February 21, 2024

S In The Court of Appeals Fifth District of Texas at Dallas No. 05-22-01031-CR

QUINCY RESHAWN GILSTRAP, Appellant V. THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee

On Appeal from the 292nd Judicial District Court Dallas County, Texas Trial Court Cause No. F21-75410

MEMORANDUM OPINION Before Justices Molberg, Reichek, and Smith Opinion by Justice Smith A jury convicted appellant Quincy Reshawn Gilstrap of aggravated robbery,

and the trial court assessed appellant’s punishment at sixty years’ confinement. In

four issues, appellant challenges the sufficiency of the evidence to support his

conviction and several of the trial court’s evidentiary rulings. The State brings a

cross-issue to correct an error in the trial court’s judgment. We modify the judgment

and affirm the judgment as modified. Factual and Procedural Background1

At approximately 11 a.m. on February 27, 2021, a man wearing a face mask,

dark hoodie, and yellow reflective vest entered a Metro by T-Mobile store on

Mockingbird Lane in Dallas. The man approached store manager Shanawaz Khoja,

pointed a black revolver at Khoja, and ordered him to get on his knees. The man

then ordered Khoja into a back office and made him lie face down on the floor. A

second man, wearing a face mask, light gray Nike hoodie, and jeans with two

distinctive holes in each leg, entered the store and emptied the cash register. The

second man then went into the back office, where he pulled out a black and silver

semiautomatic handgun and pointed it at Khoja. The men removed cellphones and

a tablet from a safe and placed them into a black drawstring bag. They ordered

Khoja to wait by the store’s rear exit until they left.

Surveillance footage showed a blue Ford Escape driving back and forth in

front of the store for about thirty minutes before the robbery. Dallas Police

detectives, working on the FBI Violent Crimes Task Force, learned that the same

vehicle had been captured on surveillance video at the scene of a similar robbery at

a Metro by T-Mobile store in Garland on February 21, 2021. Both robberies were

committed in the daytime by two men wearing face masks and hoods. In both

robberies, one of the men (Suspect 1) wore a yellow reflective vest and entered the

1 The factual background is derived from the testimony and evidence admitted at trial. –2– store first, followed a short time later by the other man (Suspect 2). Suspect 1

appeared to wear the same dark hoodie in both robberies. In each robbery, the store

employee was taken to the back office and then ordered to wait in the rear of the

store until the suspects had left. In each robbery, the suspects stole cell phones from

the store’s safe, and Suspect 2 took money from the cash register.

Searching license-plate records, detectives identified a 2011 Ford Escape

matching the description of the vehicle seen on surveillance video at the Dallas and

Garland robberies registered to appellant and his wife, Inderpreet Kaur. The last two

numbers of that Escape’s license plate matched a partial license-plate number seen

on the Escape in the video from the Garland robbery. Police obtained a warrant to

place a GPS tracking device on the Escape and, on February 28, a detective located

the Escape at a North Dallas bar where the girlfriend of appellant’s half-brother,

Markeis Williams, worked. The detective followed the Escape to a Hyatt hotel in

Garland, where he was able to place the tracker on the Escape.

Later that morning, an FBI agent conducting surveillance at the Hyatt saw a

couple, whom he recognized from their driver license photos as appellant and Kaur,

get into the Escape and drive to a convenience store. Surveillance cameras captured

appellant getting out of the Escape and entering the store. He was wearing jeans that

appeared to be identical to the distinctive jeans worn by Suspect 2 during the Dallas

robbery.

–3– Hotel records showed that appellant was staying at the Hyatt at the time of

both robberies. Surveillance video from the Hyatt lobby on the morning of February

27 showed a man wearing the same shoes, hoodie, and distinctive jeans worn by

Suspect 2 during the Dallas robbery. Video footage recorded approximately three

hours after the robbery showed the same man entering the hotel with another man,

who was wearing a dark hoodie that was consistent with the hoodie worn by Suspect

1 in the robbery. The second man was carrying a dark drawstring bag that resembled

a drawstring bag used during the robbery. Hyatt surveillance video from February

21 showed a man leaving the hotel at around 11:20 a.m., wearing what appeared to

be the same clothing Suspect 2 was wearing during the Garland robbery later that

afternoon. From their investigation, detectives concluded that Williams and

appellant were Suspects 1 and 2, respectively.

On March 4, appellant’s Escape was tracked traveling from Kansas to Dallas.

A Dallas Police fugitive officer later located the Escape near Williams’s apartment

in Dallas. The officer saw appellant and Kaur get out of the vehicle and go inside a

convenience store. The next day, detectives discovered that someone had removed

the tracking device from the Escape.

On March 10, arrest warrants were issued for appellant, Williams, and Kaur,

and search warrants were issued for their residences and the Escape. Officers found

the Escape parked in the garage of appellant’s and Kaur’s home in Wichita, Kansas.

Inside the home, officers found clothing that matched the clothing worn by Suspect

–4– 2 during the Dallas and Garland robberies. Inside the Escape’s trunk, officers found

a yellow reflective vest that looked like the vest Suspect 1 wore in both robberies.

The search of Williams’s apartment yielded several more reflective vests, a pair of

boots that appeared to be the same boots worn by Suspect 1 in the Garland robbery,

and a .38 revolver that appeared to be the same revolver used by Suspect 1 in both

robberies. The gun used by Suspect 2 was never found.

Police also seized cellphones belonging to appellant, Kaur, and Williams.

Data extracted from Kaur’s and Williams’s phones showed that, approximately three

hours before the Dallas robbery, Williams texted Kaur, “It’s time to wake up and

clock in.” Shortly after the robbery, appellant texted Kaur that he had “[j]ust paid

the phone bill,” and, within the following thirty minutes, appellant texted Kaur:

“Bout to check this bill it’s a little high so we trying to get a refund”; “[W]e checking

something out really quick . . . give me til bro come out of here and I’ll let you know

something”; and “Okay we price checking real quick.” One of the lead detectives

investigating the robbery testified that he believed appellant’s texts referred to the

robbery and “scouting another area.”

Data obtained from Williams’s cellphone showed that, while appellant was

texting Kaur, Williams was Googling LG tablets and, more specifically, Metro by

T-Mobile LG tablets. Williams also visited a website called IMEI.info, where he

–5– looked up an IMEI number2 that matched the IMEI number of a tablet stolen from

the Dallas store. Later that afternoon, Williams Googled “metro pcs news dallas,”

“metro by mobile robberies,” “metro by mobile robberies dallas,” and “local

robberies in Dallas.” On March 5, the day the tracking device was removed from

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