Richard Espinosa v. State

CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedAugust 5, 2010
Docket13-07-00404-CR
StatusPublished

This text of Richard Espinosa v. State (Richard Espinosa 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
Richard Espinosa v. State, (Tex. Ct. App. 2010).

Opinion



NUMBER 13-07-00404-CR



COURT OF APPEALS



THIRTEENTH DISTRICT OF TEXAS



CORPUS CHRISTI - EDINBURG



RICHARD ESPINOSA, Appellant,



v.



THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee.

On appeal from the 319th District Court of

Nueces County, Texas.



DISSENTING OPINION



Before Justices Yañez, Rodriguez, and Benavides

Dissenting Opinion by Justice Yañez

The majority concludes that no violation of article 46B.007 of the code of criminal procedure occurred when the jury heard evidence that Espinosa was found competent in a separate and unrelated case. (1) I respectfully disagree and accordingly, I dissent.

At trial, the State argued that appellant had a "motive" for his conduct and was, therefore, not insane when the incident occurred. The State relied on two separate but related "motive" theories, both of which involved a prior unrelated alleged offense. First, the State argued that appellant rammed Officer Perez's police car because he was in a "rage"--presumably, at the police--because he had been "arrested" in the prior case. Secondly, the State argued that appellant had been found competent to stand trial in the prior case and was therefore motivated to act in a "bizarre" manner "to somehow influence the competency determination in that case."

I. The Evidence
A. Competency Finding in Prior Case

By his fourth issue, appellant argues that a violation of article 46B.007 of the code of criminal procedure occurred when statements he made during his competency evaluation in the prior case were used against him. (2) As noted, the State's second "motive" theory was that appellant (1) had been found competent to stand trial in the prior case, (2) was facing an upcoming court date in that case, and (3) therefore, had an incentive to behave bizarrely in order to undermine the finding of competency in that case. Outside the presence of the jury, prior to the opening statements, the prosecutor and appellant's counsel discussed the State's theory with the trial court. The prosecutor explained the following to the court:

Well, I would like to fully open with my entire case, meaning I'm going to obviously talk about the case[-]in[-]chief and the rebuttal to what I anticipate their insanity information will be. But as part of that, I feel that I should be able to tell the jury that we plan to bring them a motive and that I should be able to get into the motive, which is in fact that he was on pretrial bond for a case at the time, that he was seeing a pretrial supervision officer, that he had been found competent in that case to stand trial, that he did have a pending trial date in that--in--coming up after the competency. And my theory of what better way to show that you're really not competent to stand trial than to do something completely crazy.



The prosecutor advised the trial court that, in the prior case, appellant had been found competent by Raul Capitaine, M.D., and that a status hearing was scheduled for September. The prosecutor further advised the court,

And like I said, it was not Dr. Kutnick, it was Dr. Capitaine. We can make sure that that's known. We aren't going into any of those facts. I don't intend on admitting any documents from the file, I'm just going to have [the district court clerk] testify to those basic general facts.



Appellant's counsel objected that (1) there was "no relevance" between evidence of the prior case and appellant's insanity defense in the present case, and (2) the probative value of the evidence was substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice. (3) The trial court overruled appellant's objections and ruled that it would "allow the State to go into the fact that [appellant] was on pretrial supervision for another case, but [would not] let the State identify what the type or degree of offense that was." The court clarified that it would permit a pretrial supervision officer and a court clerk to testify that "there was a pending case at the time in which competency was an issue."

During her opening statement, the prosecutor told the jury that the State's motive was that appellant had "another pending charge" and that Dr. Capitaine had "found [appellant] competent to stand trial in that other case." The prosecutor explained,

The State is going to show you that he had a court date coming up on September 9th. Keep in mind this is August 7th. He had a court date coming up on September 9th. He had been found competent to stand trial, so he was looking at going to trial on that case. So what better way to prove that you're not competent than to do something completely crazy, like running into the back of a police car? And we intend to bring you that motive.

During its case-in-chief, the State did not introduce any evidence regarding appellant's competency status in the prior case. After the State rested, the defense's first three witnesses were appellant's father and sister, and Joel Kutnick, M.D., the court-appointed psychiatrist. During its direct examination of Dr. Kutnick, the defense did not make any reference to appellant's competency status in the prior case. However, during the State's cross-examination of Dr. Kutnick, the State elicited the following testimony:

Q [Prosecutor]: Could it also be possible--the State has raised a theory of motive. Could it also be possible that--you know about his other pending case, correct?



A [Dr. Kutnick]: I know some about it, yes.



Q: Could it also be possible that since he had been found competent in that case and was facing a trial in that case[,] that what better way to show somebody you're not competent than to do something completely bizarre and crazy?



A: That's always a possibility. As I said, I also feel--besides him being sick, I also think he is deceptive and manipulative.



The defense next called its own expert, Robert Lee Jimenez, M.D., a psychiatrist.

During its direct examination of Dr. Jimenez, the defense made no reference to appellant's competency status in the prior case.

However, during its cross-examination of Dr. Jimenez, the State elicited the following:

Q [Prosecutor]: Dr. Kutnick--and [defense counsel] has already asked you about this. Dr. Kutnick testified earlier that the most likely scenario on this was that the defendant knew right from wrong, and the reason was because he believed that this was a rage incident and it was likely possible that he was raging at the officers because of the previous arrest for the previous offense. Couldn't that be it?



A [Dr. Jimenez]: No.



Q: Couldn't that be your pattern you're looking for?



A: No. No. I don't think that's sufficient evidence to substantiate that theory, and I so stated earlier.



Q: Couldn't it also be possible that if he had--as you know there was another pending case.

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Richard Espinosa v. State, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/richard-espinosa-v-state-texapp-2010.