Shoaf v. State

706 S.W.2d 170, 1986 Tex. App. LEXIS 12560
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedApril 2, 1986
Docket2-81-244-CR
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 706 S.W.2d 170 (Shoaf 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
Shoaf v. State, 706 S.W.2d 170, 1986 Tex. App. LEXIS 12560 (Tex. Ct. App. 1986).

Opinion

OPINION

HILL, Justice.

The appellant, Cornelius Shoaf, was convicted by a jury of the murder of Sandra Shoaf. The jury assessed his punishment at twelve years and six months in the Texas Department of Corrections.

This Court initially affirmed. Upon rehearing, this Court, relying on Cobarrubio v. State, 675 S.W.2d 749 (Tex.Crim.App.1983), reversed, holding that the charge to the jury was fundamentally defective because it failed to require the State to meet its burden of establishing beyond a reasonable doubt that Shoaf was not acting under the immediate influence of sudden passion arising from an adequate cause.

In July, 1985, the Court of Criminal Appeals, noting that Shoaf had not lodged this objection to the charge at trial, remanded the cause to this Court for further proceed *172 ings consistent with their opinion in Almanza v. State, 686 S.W.2d 157 (Tex.Crim.App.1985).

Inasmuch as appellant did not object at trial to the error in the court’s charge, we must next decide whether the error was so egregious and created such harm that appellant has not had a fair and impartial trial — in short, “egregious harm”. See id. at 171; TEX.CODE CRIM.PROC.ANN. art. 36.19 (Vernon 1981).

In making this determination, “the actual degree of harm must be assayed in light of the entire jury charge, the state of the evidence, including the contested issues and weight of probative evidence, the argument of counsel and any other relevant information revealed by the record of the trial as a whole.” Almanza, 686 S.W.2d at 171. The purpose of this review is to illuminate the actual, not just theoretical, harm to the accused. Id. at 174.

The victim, Sandra Shoaf, Cornelius’ wife, was found in her home by relatives. She died from multiple stab wounds and blows to the head. Cornelius voluntarily testified before the Tarrant County Grand Jury. His testimony was offered into evidence at trial. In his testimony, Cornelius told of an argument he and Sandra had beginning one morning about a note he had co-signed for another woman. He said that late in the evening the deceased took up the argument again. He testified that she threatened divorce, insulted him by calling him “the biggest sucker around,” and told him she was going to make a fool out of him and take everything he had. Instead of telling the jurors that this made him angry and upset, he said he had just laid his head on the dining room table because he was tired. He said that when he looked up toward the kitchen, Sandra was approaching him with a knife. He then told of a fierce struggle. He related that the wounds she suffered, including those he inflicted with a heavy kitchen pot, were due to his efforts to disarm her as she tried to stab him with the knife.

In closing arguments, Cornelius’ attorney emphasized a lack of intent to kill and self-defense, although he briefly urged the jury to consider voluntary manslaughter as well as lesser-included offenses in the event that they did not accept his claim of self-defense.

In view of the fact that voluntary manslaughter was an incidental and not a primary defensive theory, we find that any harm caused to Cornelius Shoaf by the error in the charge was not egregious. Lawrence v. State, 700 S.W.2d 208 (Tex.Crim.App.1985); but see Castillo-Fuentes v. State, 707 S.W.2d 559 (Tex.Crim.App.1986) (voluntary manslaughter was the primary defense, not an incidental defensive theory).

Shoaf contends that since this error in the charge is a violation of his rights under the United States Constitution, as outlined in Mullaney v. Wilbur, 421 U.S. 684, 95 S.Ct. 1881, 44 L.Ed.2d 508 (1975), that we should apply the standard of harmless error review set forth in Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967), rather than the Alman-za standard. We decline to do so, holding that federal constitutional rights are subject to the reasonable application of a state contemporaneous objection rule. See Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U.S. 72, 97 S.Ct. 2497, 53 L.Ed.2d 594 (1977). We overrule ground of error number one.

Prior to reversing this cause on rehearing by sustaining ground of error number one, then Associate Justice W.A. Hughes, Jr. authored an opinion which discussed Shoaf’s grounds of error numbers two, three, and four. We adopt as our opinion the following portion of that original opinion:

“Sandra Shoaf, appellant’s wife, phoned her mother, Mrs. Flora Crawford, at about 11:30 p.m., May 14, 1979. After the call, Mrs. Crawford expected Sandra to come over to her house that night. Mrs. Crawford called back to the Shoaf house and appellant told her she was in the bathroom and he would have her call back. Mrs. Crawford again called the Shoaf residence *173 and was told by appellant that she could not speak to Sandra because they were talking over their problems and he was begging her not to leave.

Mrs. Crawford then called her daughter, Caroline Williams, and asked that Mrs. Williams and her husband, Lee, go to the Shoaf residence, which they did. No one came to the door when the doorbell was rung. The Williamses entered the house and found Sandra lying unconscious in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor. Appellant was not seen at the scene. Mrs. Williams went forthwith to a neighbor’s house and called the police.

The police arrived and, on getting no response (other than a moan) to their doorbell ringing and vocal announcements, entered the house. Police Sergeant Charles Weldon Moyers found Sandra on the kitchen floor, where he noted multiple wounds to her head and body. Paramedics took her to the hospital where she died of her wounds hours later.

Sergeant Moyers searched the house and found no other persons therein. He did find a bloody pot and knife in the kitchen and some bloody blue jeans in a bedroom. A billfold containing appellant’s driver’s license was found in the jeans by Sergeant Hargraves of the Forest Hill Police Department at about 1:30 a.m. of May 15th. And at 11:00 a.m. of May 15th, Chief Alan Duane Selman of the Forest Hills Fire Department found appellant sleeping in a closet in a vacant house seventy-five feet from the Shoaf residence. He was wearing only underpants and socks. He had cuts on his hands and blood on his body. Chief Sel-man found appellant by observing blood on the curb, driveway and front door of the vacant house and a trail of blood through the house to the bedroom where appellant was found in the closet.

Over appellant’s objection, part of his grand jury testimony was admitted into evidence.

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Bluebook (online)
706 S.W.2d 170, 1986 Tex. App. LEXIS 12560, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/shoaf-v-state-texapp-1986.