Ramjattansingh v. State

548 S.W.3d 540
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Texas
DecidedJune 6, 2018
DocketNO. PD–0972–17
StatusPublished
Cited by87 cases

This text of 548 S.W.3d 540 (Ramjattansingh v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ramjattansingh v. State, 548 S.W.3d 540 (Tex. 2018).

Opinion

NEWELL, J., delivered the unanimous opinion of the Court.

The State's DWI information in this case alleged that Appellant, Jason Ramjattansingh, had committed the offense of driving while intoxicated. It also alleged that he had an alcohol concentration level of 0.15 or more "at the time the analysis was performed," as the Class A DWI statute requires. But the information went further, alleging that Ramjattansingh also had this alcohol concentration level "at or near the time of the commission of the offense," which the statute does not require. The jury charge tracked the information, requiring the jury to find this extra element. The jury convicted Appellant, but the court of appeals reversed. The court, measuring the sufficiency of the evidence under the charge given, found the evidence insufficient to prove the extra element. Under Malik , when a jury instruction sets forth all the elements of the charged crime but incorrectly adds an extra element, a sufficiency challenge is assessed against the elements of the charged crime, not against, as the Supreme Court has put it, "the erroneously heightened command in the jury instruction."1 This is true where, as here, the extra element was included in the charging instrument. And this is true where, as here, the State fails to object to the erroneously heightened jury instruction.

I. Background

A. Facts

At 9:32 p.m., on April 9, 2015, tow truck driver Joshua Wilson dialed 911 to report he was following a "drunk driver" who was "all over the road" and had almost caused several accidents. Wilson (referred to by police as the "wheel witness") described the vehicle and provided the license plate number. With his tow truck's amber lights on, Wilson got the attention of the driver, Appellant, who pulled off the road into a public parking lot. Still on the phone with *544the dispatcher, Wilson reported that he and the driver had stopped. HPD Officer Saul Delacruz arrived within minutes, in anticipation of the arrival of a DWI unit. Delacruz found Appellant and Wilson standing outside their vehicles. Wilson told Delacruz that Appellant had been driving erratically and almost hit other vehicles. Delacruz himself noticed Appellant swaying, deemed him intoxicated, and, by 9:48, had detained Appellant for suspicion of driving while intoxicated.

Officer Anasa Beaudion arrived around 10:05 to conduct the DWI investigation. She took Appellant out of Delacruz's patrol vehicle and removed his handcuffs. She observed a strong odor of alcohol on Appellant's breath and that he was unable to balance himself. She asked him if he'd been drinking. Appellant "said he had some shots, shots of alcohol," and that he had started drinking "around 5:00." Beaudion administered three field sobriety tests-the horizontal nystagmus test, one-leg stand test, and walk-and-turn test.

Appellant could not finish the horizontal nystagmus test because "he was not holding his head still." And he showed signs of intoxication during the other two tests: "three out of the four clues" on the one-leg stand test, and "six out of the eight clues" on the walk-and-turn test. By 10:40, Beaudion had decided that Appellant was "very intoxicated" and she placed him under arrest and took him to HPD's Central Intoxication Center. The results of the two breath samples given, one at 11:29 and one at 11:30, were ".235 and .220 grams per 210 liters of breath." According to Carly Bishop, the technical supervisor for DPS's Safety Breath Alcohol Testing Program, it would take the average person "11 standard shots" to get to such an alcohol concentration, and that person would have lost the normal use of his physical or mental faculties.

But Bishop could not calculate Appellant's alcohol concentration at the time of driving. She lacked the facts-the time of Appellant's last meal and what he consumed, the time of his last drink, and the time of the stop-necessary to do so. Bishop allowed that it was possible Appellant could have downed all the shots immediately before getting behind the wheel, causing his alcohol concentration to be rising at the time of driving.

B. Trial

The State charged Appellant with Class A driving while intoxicated.2 The information set out all the elements of the offense of driving while intoxicated, as follows:

Comes now the undersigned Assistant District Attorney of Harris County, Texas on behalf of the State of Texas, and presents in and to the County Criminal Court at Law No. _____ of Harris County, Texas, that in Harris County, Texas, JASON RAMJATTANSINGH, hereafter styled the Defendant, heretofore on or about April 9, 2015, did then and there unlawfully operate a motor vehicle in a public place while intoxicated.

In a separate paragraph, the State also alleged that Appellant's offense should be elevated to a Class A misdemeanor by virtue of having a blood alcohol content over 0.15. But rather than simply tracking the language of the statute by alleging that Appellant's alcohol concentration was at least 0.15 "at the time the analysis was performed", the information added an extra element, emphasized here, as follows:

It is further alleged that, at the time of the analysis and at or near the time of *545the commission of the offense , an analysis of the Defendant's BREATH showed an alcohol concentration level of at least 0.15.

The jury was charged on both the Class A and Class B misdemeanor offenses of DWI. Both required the jury to determine that Appellant was intoxicated at the time he was driving. The Class A jury charge contained the extra language requiring the jury to determine that Appellant had an alcohol concentration of at least .15 at the time of the analysis. But it also contained the extra element, again, emphasized here,

Therefore, if you believe from the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that in Harris County, Texas, JASON RAMJATTANSINGH, hereafter styled the Defendant, heretofore on or about April 9, 2015, did then and there unlawfully operate a motor vehicle in a public place while intoxicated, and you further find that an analysis of the Defendant's breath showed an alcohol concentration of at least .15 at the time of the analysis, and at or near the time of the commission of the offense , then you will find the Defendant guilty.

The jury specifically found Appellant guilty "of driving while intoxicated with a breath analysis of at least .15 at the time of the analysis, and at or near the time of commission of the offense, as charged in the Information."

C. Appeal

Appellant asserted on appeal that the evidence was legally insufficient to sustain the jury's finding of guilt on the Class A misdemeanor. The court of appeals agreed.3 The court noted that the Texas DWI statute "merely requires a defendant to have an alcohol concentration of .15 at the time of analysis to elevate the offense to a Class A misdemeanor."4 But the State's information alleged more: "that Ramjattansingh had an alcohol concentration of .15 or more both at the time of the analysis and at or near the time of the offense."5

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
548 S.W.3d 540, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ramjattansingh-v-state-texcrimapp-2018.