Schuessler v. State

719 S.W.2d 320, 1986 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 839
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Texas
DecidedOctober 15, 1986
Docket289-83
StatusPublished
Cited by63 cases

This text of 719 S.W.2d 320 (Schuessler 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
Schuessler v. State, 719 S.W.2d 320, 1986 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 839 (Tex. 1986).

Opinions

OPINION ON STATE’S MOTION FOR REHEARING

CAMPBELL, Judge.

Appellant was convicted by a jury of the offense of murder. Punishment was assessed at-30 years confinement in the Texas Department of Corrections. The Eighth Court of Appeals reversed the conviction, holding that appellant, contrary to the jury’s verdict, had established his affirmative defense of insanity by a preponderance of the evidence.1 Schuessler v. State, 647 S.W.2d 742 (Tex.App.—El Paso 1983).

We granted the State’s petition for discretionary review to determine the correctness of that holding.2 On original submission, we affirmed the judgment of the Court of Appeals. We have since granted the State’s motion for rehearing and will now withdraw our original opinion and reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals.

I. Facts

A detailed examination of the facts in this case is necessary for this Court to review the Court of Appeals’ decision on the insanity issue. In particular, we must focus upon all facts that might be relevant to the defense of insanity. We begin by outlining those facts established by lay wit[322]*322ness testimony. We then outline those facts established by expert witness testimony.

A. Lay Witnesses

On January 16, 1980, appellant, his wife and their four year old daughter, upon appellant’s sudden urging,3 left their home in Phoenix, Arizona, and drove to San Carlos, Arizona, to visit relatives. At a family party both appellant and his wife consumed beer. Appellant’s wife acknowledge that some persons may have smoked marijuana at the party. Appellant’s wife fought with her brother and became increasingly intoxicated. She eventually left without her husband and daughter and returned to Phoenix. Appellant, accompanied by his daughter, left Phoenix the next day in his car.

On January 19, 1980, appellant was seen driving his car alone at high speeds, with a flat tire, while chasing another driver in Scurry County, Texas. After several miles, the female driver of the car being chased stopped at her father’s service station and asked her father for help. Appellant exited his car and unsuccessfully attempted to give the woman two stuffed toy animals.

The local sheriff’s office received a call for assistance. Appellant was subsequently arrested for driving on a public road with an expired driver’s license and taken to the county jail in Snyder, Texas. The arresting officer recovered from appellant the two stuffed animals and two articles of clothing — a blouse and a pair of lady’s pants. The officer was told that appellant believed that the stuffed animals were hexed and that the license plate of the car he had been chasing “was a message from the devil that he was supposed to give those hexed dolls to her.” (R. 11-356).

At the county jail, appellant called his brother Don Schuessler in Barnes, Kansas. The arresting officer spoke with the brother and informed him that appellant had been arrested and “that he was upset, emotionally upset, mentally upset possibly, and needed some assistance_” (R. 11-217). Later that evening, appellant told the arresting officer and another officer that he had killed his daughter.4 Appellant also stated that his wife had been killed by her brother; however, the officer later established that appellant’s wife was alive.5

In describing the death of his daughter, appellant “went into a story telling [the officers] of a Black Horse religion or Black Horse voodoo. He said that the devil was going to take his daughter’s soul.” (R. 11-224). He also said “that he had seen her head getting bigger and bigger and her arms and legs were getting smaller and he had to strangle her to keep the devil from taking her over.” (R. 11-358). Appellant stated that his daughter was crying and he slapped her and then choked her to death. While choking her, appellant’s daughter kicked him in the shins. Appellant stated that “he had to kill her real quick to keep the devil from getting her soul.” (R. II-224).

Appellant then “indicated that he traveled for a long ways and felt of her and made sure she was deceased and he stopped and put her out beside the road. He didn’t know here he was at, but along side the road somewhere.... He said he didn’t have time to bury the body. He was in a hurry.” (R. 11-225).

That night, appellant refused to eat and slept on the floor of his cell under his bunk with a blanket hung across the front of the [323]*323bunk. The next day, his brother Don and another brother, John Schuessler, arrived at the county jail. Appellant gave no outward sign of recognizing his brothers. After speaking with appellant and observing his confused mental state, the brothers further questioned appellant concerning the death of his daughter. However, after several unsuccessful attempts to obtain information about the daughter and her possible location, appellant was released to his brothers’ care, and they returned with appellant to Kansas.6

During the drive to Kansas, appellant refused to eat food and claimed that he had no need to eat to live. However, he ate several cigarette butts and blistered his lips with burning cigarettes. He occasionally rubbed himself with and smelled a bar of soap he had retained from the jail. Appellant also emptied his brothers’ suitcases and “seemed to be looking in and around and under and everything_” (R. II-368). In various conversations with appellant about his early childhood and grade school, the brothers found that appellant “seemed to remember most of the stuff real clear.” (R. 11-368).

After passing through Dallas, appellant “made what appeared to be a little man or doll of (sic) whatever out of a match box and cigarettes” and became alternately agitated and calm over the direction of travel. (R. 11-369-70). The three brothers arrived at Don Schuessler’s home in Barnes, Kansas, at four or five o’clock in the morning, and then went to the family’s house nearby in Hanover, Kansas.

While playing with Don Schuessler’s one year old son, the child “let out a kind of a holler” and appellant “ran out of that room and ran into the other room, ... and he sat in the comer and he was crying” and shaking. (R. 11-374). Earlier, John Schuessler observed appellant stare at a crack in the wall. Later, John Schuessler discovered that appellant had rearranged an upstairs bedroom, in which he had slept as a youth, to create a nest-like bed on the floor. Upon realizing that appellant was missing, John Schuessler discovered appellant “a block and a half away huddled in a chicken coop with a big fuzzy blanket around him and when we got back in the house and confronted him with it he said he was lost.” (R. 11-395). John Schuessler then noticed that appellant had earlier defecated into a cardboard box in the kitchen, using a dish rag as toilet paper. When confronted, appellant did not appear to know it was wrong that he had defecated in the box.

That afternoon Don and John Schuessler observed appellant running barefoot and in light summer clothing across a field despite a freezing temperature. The brothers chased appellant and found him with wet legs and feet from falling into a frozen river. While being returned to his brother’s house, appellant grabbed a light pole and refused to move further.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Madison McDonald v. the State of Texas
Court of Appeals of Texas, 2024
Joseph Farek v. State
Court of Appeals of Texas, 2019
Hines v. State
570 S.W.3d 297 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 2018)
Carlos Whitcomb v. State
Court of Appeals of Texas, 2018
Luis Castruita v. State
Court of Appeals of Texas, 2018
Watson v. State
204 S.W.3d 404 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 2006)
Mark Irwin Stevens v. Lynn Stevens
Court of Appeals of Texas, 2006
Lee Thomas Butler v. State
Court of Appeals of Texas, 2006
Euleses Nejandro Davila v. State
Court of Appeals of Texas, 2006
Yjinio Galindo v. State
Court of Appeals of Texas, 2004
Christopher Dewayne Marshall v. State
Court of Appeals of Texas, 2004
Dashield v. State
110 S.W.3d 111 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 2003)
Dashield, Gary Alan v. State
Court of Appeals of Texas, 2003
McNair v. State
75 S.W.3d 69 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 2002)
Aschbacher v. State
61 S.W.3d 532 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 2001)
Torres v. State
976 S.W.2d 345 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1998)
Schexnider v. State
943 S.W.2d 194 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1997)
Moranza v. State
913 S.W.2d 718 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1996)
Clewis v. State
922 S.W.2d 126 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 1996)
White v. State
890 S.W.2d 131 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1994)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
719 S.W.2d 320, 1986 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 839, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/schuessler-v-state-texcrimapp-1986.