Riddle v. State

888 S.W.2d 1, 1994 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 70, 1994 WL 242673
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Texas
DecidedJune 8, 1994
Docket71011
StatusPublished
Cited by163 cases

This text of 888 S.W.2d 1 (Riddle 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
Riddle v. State, 888 S.W.2d 1, 1994 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 70, 1994 WL 242673 (Tex. 1994).

Opinions

OPINION

McCORMICK, Presiding Judge.

Appellant was convicted by a jury in Potter County of capital murder pursuant to V.T.C.A., Penal Code, Section 19.03(a)(2). After the jury answered the special issues in the affirmative, the trial court imposed the death penalty. Article 37.071(b), V.A.C.C.P. In an automatic, direct appeal to this Court, appellant raises sixteen points of error. We shall affirm.

At trial, appellant testified he and the victim had known each other for several years. On October 9, 1988, appellant and a friend drove to the victim’s home to see if he wanted to go drinking. Appellant testified he carried a tire iron so he could pry the screen off the kitchen window to gain entry, but found a door unlocked. Appellant entered the victim’s house through an unlocked door and found him “drunk, passed out” in the bedroom.

Appellant woke the victim and began to talk to him. The victim told appellant he wanted to have a homosexual relationship with him. As appellant got up to leave, the victim grabbed appellant by the arm, pulled appellant on top of him, put his lips on appellant’s ear, and put one hand on appellant’s butt. Appellant hit the victim “on the top” of his head with the tire iron. Appellant testified that after he struck the first blow, appellant got out of the bed and the victim “raised his hands up, grabbed his head and started moaning.” Appellant testified he inflicted more blows to the victim, and the more he hit him the madder he got. The victim was struck in the head at least fifteen times. As appellant left the house, he took the victim’s wallet and his car.

The forensic pathologist, who conducted the victim’s autopsy, testified the victim’s blood-alcohol level was .29% which showed the victim was extremely intoxicated to the degree that his motor and sensory functions were “totally out.” The pathologist further testified the cause of death was multiple blunt force trauma, and the fatal blow was one which struck the victim “behind the left ear in the mastoid area and compressed the spinal cord.” The pathologist also testified the first blow was not the fatal blow.

In points of error two and three, appellant contends the trial court erroneously denied his challenges for cause to venire-members Payne and Miller because they could not distinguish between the terms “intentionally” and “deliberately,” and any pro[3]*3fessed ability by them to distinguish those terms was based on the State’s use of misleading hypotheticals which effectively destroyed any meaningful difference between those terms in violation of Lane v. State, 743 S.W.2d 617 (Tex.Cr.App.1987), and its progeny. The record reflects appellant peremptorily struck Payne and Miller after the trial court denied his challenges for cause to them. After appellant had exhausted his fifteen peremptory strikes, the trial court granted appellant another peremptory strike which he used. Appellant later requested another peremptory strike to use on venire-member Glenn which the trial court denied. Appellant informed the trial court he would have used a peremptory strike on Glenn had the trial court not erroneously denied his challenges for cause to several other venire-members including Payne and Miller. Glenn was seated as the twelfth juror. To demonstrate reversible error, appellant must show the trial court erroneously denied his challenges for cause to both Payne and Miller. See Martinez v. State, 763 S.W.2d 413, 416 (Tex.Cr.App.1988).

During the State’s voir dire examination of Payne, the prosecutor discussed the terms “intentional” and “deliberate” as follows:

“Q. Now, let’s go to the first question. Remember that I told you that murder is the knowing and intentional causing the death of another individual. And for our hypothetical, we’ve already found that he knowingly and intentionally caused that death.
“So, when the Legislature constructed this question and used the word “deliberately,” obviously, they were looking for more than knowingly and intentionally, because it would be silly to have you answer that question twice.
“A Right.
“Q. And you would probably agree with me that in every day life, you and I may interchange intentionally and deliberate. You know, you and I just talking on the street, I might use deliberate in one sentence, and you might use intentionally the next time—
“A. Right.
“Q. —with the same — well, obviously, the Legislature is looking for more.
“A. Uh-huh.
“Q. And we suspect — or we think — there is no definition for it at this time. There might be by the time we get to trial, but there is no definition for deliberately at this time.
“But I believe they are looking for more thought process.
“A. Uh-huh.1
“Q. You will receive a definition for intentionally. We already have one of those, and we’ve had one of those for a long time. And that is, a person acts intentionally or with intent with respect to the nature of his conduct, when it is his conscious objective or desire to engage in the conduct or to cause the result.2
“It’s either his conscious objective or his desire to engage in that conduct or to cause the result.
“Now, if I’m sitting at my desk, and I’m beginning to write some note, message or something. I pick up this pen, and I begin to write with it, and I stop and look back at the other pen for a moment and go ahead and pick it up and I use this one, certainly it’s an intentional act when I pick this up. It was my conscious objective and desire to use this pen.
“It was also an intentional act when I picked this one up, but not only was it intentional, it was also deliberate. I had that thought process. I thought about it a moment. Do you follow me?
“A. Yes.
“Q. If you were going to take a trip from here to Red River — you know, there’s at least two routes. There’s more than that, [4]*4but, you know, you can either go Boys Ranch Road and to Dalhart, or you can go to Dumas to Dalhart.
“You get up in the morning, you pack your car with the intention of going to Red River. Then you pull up at a stop sign to make your decision as to whether or not you are going to take Boys Ranch Road, or you’re going to go through Dumas.
“It was certainly your conscious objective and desire to go to Red River. You did that as an intentional act. Then you make a decision as to which route you’re going to take. That’s also an intentional act. But in addition thereto, it’s a deliberate act, because you had more thought process. You thought about it longer.
“Do you follow me and see the distinction I’m making between those two?
“A. Yes.
“Q. All right.

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Bluebook (online)
888 S.W.2d 1, 1994 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 70, 1994 WL 242673, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/riddle-v-state-texcrimapp-1994.