Saxton v. State

776 S.W.2d 685, 1989 Tex. App. LEXIS 2080, 1989 WL 91942
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedAugust 17, 1989
DocketC14-87-441-CR
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 776 S.W.2d 685 (Saxton 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
Saxton v. State, 776 S.W.2d 685, 1989 Tex. App. LEXIS 2080, 1989 WL 91942 (Tex. Ct. App. 1989).

Opinions

OPINION

SEARS, Justice.

This is an appeal from a conviction for the offense of murder. A jury found Appellant guilty as charged and found that a deadly weapon was used in the offense. Following a presentence investigation, the court assessed Appellant’s punishment at fifteen years in the Texas Department of Corrections and restitution in the amount of $1,300.00. We reverse the judgment of the trial court and render a judgment of acquittal.

Appellant asserts three points of error • on appeal. In his first point of error, Appellant contends that the evidence was insufficient to support his conviction because the evidence raised the defense of self-defense and the State failed to disprove self-defense beyond a reasonable doubt. We agree.

Self-defense is a justification excluding criminal responsibility under Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 9.31 and, as such, is a defense. Luck v. State, 588 S.W.2d 371, 375 (Tex.Crim.App.1979), cert, denied, 446 U.S. 944, 100 S.Ct. 2171, 64 L.Ed.2d 799 (1980). Once a defendant has met his burden of producing sufficient evidence to raise the defense, the State is required to disprove that defense beyond a reasonable doubt. Tex.Penal Code Ann. § 2.03(d) (Vernon 1974); Van Guilder v. State, 709 S.W.2d 178, 181 (Tex.Crim.App.1985), cert, denied, 476 U.S. 1169, 106 S.Ct. 2891, 90 L.Ed.2d 978 (1986); Luck v. State, 588 S.W.2d at 375. Therefore, the State must produce evidence which establishes beyond a reasonable doubt that Appellant did not act in self-defense. However, for an appellate court to find as a matter of law that the defendant acted in self-defense, the evidence on that issue must be uncontradicted and no issue thereon presented for the jury’s determination. Jenkins v. State, 740 S.W.2d 435, 438 (Tex.Crim.App.1987).

We find from our review of the record that the State produced no evidence to refute Appellant’s claim of self-defense. We find that all of the evidence is uncon-tradicted and is consistent with self defense.

Appellant testified at the guilt-innocence phase of the trial. He testified that he had invited the deceased over for a drink and after a few drinks on the patio it began to rain and they moved into the living room. The conversation turned to a mutual former girlfriend, Diane Hoge, and the deceased became agitated. Appellant testified that the deceased continued to get more and more belligerent, refused to leave the house although Appellant repeatedly asked him to leave. Appellant continued to ask him to leave and then picked up his pistol from the bedroom. He stated that, “I thought maybe that would convince him to leave, ... and he wouldn’t. It just kept getting worse.” Appellant was sitting on the loveseat with his pistol in his hand laying on his right leg. He testified the decedent “kept easing toward” him, walking between the other sofa and the coffee table and then suddenly he lunged at Appellant. Appellant continued, “I don’t think he meant to come over the coffee table. I think he meant to kick it out of the way, and I can’t remember whether he literally kicked it out of the way or in the process of lunging at me that he hit the table with his leg.” Appellant estimated that the deceased was about five feet from [687]*687him when he lunged and stated that he did not aim the pistol when it fired.

Appellant stated that the deceased was very angry, threatened to kill him and that when the deceased lunged, Appellant was frightened for the safety of his family and himself. He reiterated that he was terribly afraid and his state of mind was “totally fear”. When asked why he told people at the scene it was an accident, Appellant responded, “Because I didn’t mean to kill him, I didn’t want to kill him, and I felt like that if I — when I went and got the gun, I felt like that maybe that would make him leave.”

Appellant did not remember when he actually pulled the trigger because “[e]very-thing happened so fast,” but stated he “knew he was close because he was in the process of coming at me ... reaching for me.” After the shooting he laid the gun on the coffee table and went to tell his wife to call the police and ambulance.

Officer Johnson, the first officer to arrive at the scene, testified that Appellant related to him the events preceding the shooting. The officer’s testimony regarding this oral statement was consistent with Appellant’s testimony concerning those events. The officer testified that his impression was that the shooting was an accident.

Officer Peoples, the officer who took Appellant into custody, testified as to Appellant’s voluntary statements at the time of his arrest. This officer’s testimony was also consistent with all of the other testimony and it also failed to refute the evidence of self-defense.

The paramedic, Richard Hernandez, testified as to his conversation with Appellant and his observations at the scene of the shooting. None of his testimony was inconsistent with Appellant’s, nor did it refute the evidence of self-defense.

Ms. Wilker, the crime scene investigator, testified that the gun recovered at the scene had one fired cartridge under the hammer and five unfired rounds. She testified she recovered the gun from the coffee table in Appellant’s living room and that the gun had blood on it. She photographed the scene and identified a photograph offered at trial as depicting where a fired bullet went through the ceiling of Appellant’s living room with blood spatters around it. She did not attempt to recover the bullet or determine the angle at which it passed through the ceiling. She stated that the bullet hole was “north” of the coffee table, but that she did not make any measurements of the scene. She stated that she did not search the deceased for weapons and did not observe any weapons on or near the body. However, she recalled that the officers who inventoried the deceased’s pockets discovered a closed pocketknife in his pocket. She also testified that the entry wound was in the deceased’s chest about six inches down from the sternal notch at the midline and the exit wound was in his back about five inches down from the nape of the neck and four inches to the right. Ms. Wilker testified that she noted signs of disorder at the scene: a broken green plastic ashtray with broken fragments near the body; a broken glass on top of the coffee table; one of the legs to the coffee table was laying on the floor underneath the coffee table which was balancing on three legs; and a crushed pack of cigarettes and a glass ashtray or dish lay next to the deceased’s foot. She stated that the location of these items was consistent with someone falling into the coffee table or lunging across the coffee table in an attempt to attack someone else.

Mr. Charley Anderson, a police firearms examiner, examined Appellant’s weapon and testified that it was a single action revolver and therefore the hammer must be fully cocked in order to fire. He testified that the trigger pull was approximately 2¾ pounds and was considered “light” and not safe to carry around.

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Bluebook (online)
776 S.W.2d 685, 1989 Tex. App. LEXIS 2080, 1989 WL 91942, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/saxton-v-state-texapp-1989.