Shoemaker v. State ex rel. Protection of C.L.

493 S.W.3d 710, 2016 WL 2342853, 2016 Tex. App. LEXIS 4594
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedMay 3, 2016
DocketNO. 01-15-00371-CV
StatusPublished
Cited by27 cases

This text of 493 S.W.3d 710 (Shoemaker v. State ex rel. Protection of C.L.) 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
Shoemaker v. State ex rel. Protection of C.L., 493 S.W.3d 710, 2016 WL 2342853, 2016 Tex. App. LEXIS 4594 (Tex. Ct. App. 2016).

Opinion

OPINION

Harvey Brown, Justice

Daniel Shoemaker challenges a protective order entered in favor of Clarissa2 under Chapter 7A of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure. He argues that (1) legally and factually insufficient evidence exists to support the order and (2) provisions of the statute allowing a trial court to issue a protective order in favor of a complainant who is a victim of the defendant’s stalking violate the constitutional right to due process. We affirm.

Background

In October 2014, Clarissa, through the Travis County Attorney’s Office, filed an application for a protective order against Shoemaker under article 7A of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure, which allows a trial court to issue a protective order in favor of a person that the trial court has “reasonable grounds” to believe is a victim of a stalking statute, Section 42.072 of the Penal Code'. Clarissa sought the order in response to interactions she had with Shoemaker‘over a six-year period. These events began in 2008 when Clarissa and Shoemaker were coworkers at a schóol and culminated in 2014 with an email Shoemaker sent Clarissa. After an evidentiary hearing, the trial court granted the protective order.

A. Contact at school

Clarissa and Shoemaker were co-workers at Parkside Community School “for a few months” in 2008 and 2009. Shoemaker taught guitar at the school,'and Clarissa was “lead guide.” They worked in different buildings at the school.

According to Clarissa’s testimony at the protective-order hearing, Shoemaker invited her to different functions but she declined his invitations. He then began confronting her in front of other co-workers and when she was alone in her classroom. Clarissa testified that Shoemaker was “persistent and aggressive” and would enter her “classroom uninvited and unannounced multiple times. He sometimes would come in while [she] was on the computer and [her] back was to the door, would sneak up behind [her] and demand to know why [she] was not returning his advances.”

Two co-workers also testified'that Shoemaker visited Clarissa in her classroom. The first testified that she heard Clarissa ask Shoemaker to leave: “I heard her say you can’t come into my classroom demanding my attention like this, and he said well you better get used to it[;] I’m going to be around for a long'time.” The second coworker likewise testified that Shoemaker harassed Clarissa. She testified that Shoemaker kept “probing’ Clarissa on why she would not go out with him, then his “tone of voice changed[,] kind of got a [713]*713little agitated ... it was the constant probing that made me uncomfortable.”

Eventually, Clarissa sent Shoemaker an email telling him that she “did not want any more contact from him at all.” But Shoemaker still continued to enter' her classroom and contact her in person and via email and text messaging. As a result, Shoemaker’s supervisor, Joe Bruno, told him not to come near Clarissa, her classroom, or her building. According to Bruno, Shoemaker violated these instructions. Because of his “harassments” of Clarissa, Bruno fired Shoemaker in February 2009. Bruno’s wife, who was friends with Clarissa, testified that she feared that Shoemaker would harass Clarissa and asked Clarissa to “spend the night somewhere else besides her apartment,” the night Shoemaker was fired.

Shoemaker denied that he violated his employer’s instructions, that any such instructions existed, or that he threatened any member. of the school. He agreed that he asked Clarissa out multiple times, but he claimed that he was not harassing her; on at least one occasion, for example, he testified that she said she would ‘“take a rain check” on his invitation.

B.Hike and bike trail

In April 2009, Clarissa encountered Shoemaker while on a hike and bike trail with a friend. Clarissa testified that Shoemaker “began to follow us and then he verbally attacked me getting -into my face and ... yelled what is your f — ing problem, where is your f — ing integrity you got me fired — [H]e kept pushing and getting in my face and screaming obscenities at me.” Her friend “intervened and got in his face and he backed down.” Clarissa’s friend also testified that- Shoemaker was “very confrontational,” “very aggressive,” “very aggravated,” and “very, very angry” when he confronted Clarissa and that the friend “stepped in between them to break them up.” Shoemaker acknowledged the interaction during his testimony; but he denied that he was “threatening” Clarissa.

C. Cactus Café

• In February 2011, Clarissa and Bruno attended a concert at Cactus Café. Clarissa testified that she saw Shoemaker looking at her “aggressively” at the café' and that she “was frightened .'.. that he was going to do something to me, attack me or humiliate me or something.”

Later that night, someone shoved her and she fell intp Bruno. Although she did not see Shoemaker push her, she felt certain it was him. She filed assault charges against Shoemaker, but they were dismissed because-she failed to appear'at a hearing on the charges.

Bruno testified .that he saw Shoemaker “mosey around behind us and pretend to trip and fall into [Clarissa], and next thing I knew she ,was pushed' into me.” He received a text from Shoemaker the following day that said that it was “great to see you-all there, and then went downhill from there to you two are the most despicable pair of people I’ve ever met, and Joe Bruno you should have your teeth kicked in.”

Two witnesses at the Cactus Café that evening testified that they did not witness any shoving, although neither saw Clarissa at the café. .Shoemaker likewise denied that he shoved Clarissa. Shoemaker also claimed that the text he sent Bruno was not meant literally.

D. Yelp review

In March 2013, Shoemaker posted a Yelp review of the school where he formerly worked with Clarissa. In that review, he calls Clarissa a “diva with.her opera and theater background, in addition to being [Bruno’s] favorite teacher.” He public[714]*714ly quoted statements, allegedly made by Bruno, that Clarissa was a “high-maintenance woman” who would “always have trouble finding a mate” in that review. Shoemaker blamed Clarissa for his dismissal from the school. He accused Clarissa of “trying to get” him fired and of “concocting” the Cactus Café incident. At the end of the review, after complaining of both Clarissa and Bruno, he wrote that he has “never met anyone more deserving of getting kicked right in the teeth.”

E. 2014 email

In 2014, Shoemaker sent Clarissa an email that she considered “malicious and threatening.” It said:

No productions for this fall, eh? Karma’s a b — . I guess enough people read the review I left on Google, almost 9,000 reads at this point, and figured out what a psychotic freak you are.... As long as you and [Bruno] don’t come clean from what you did to me, I will make it my mission to always spread the truth about you two. Always.

F. 2014 Apartment incident

Clarissa testified that shortly after receiving the 2014 email, she came home from work and “saw [Shoemaker] sitting in front of my apartment in his car. [She was] not 100 percent sure it was him, but [she] believe[d] it was him.” After first seeing Shoemaker, she “stepped back behind some trees ...

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
493 S.W.3d 710, 2016 WL 2342853, 2016 Tex. App. LEXIS 4594, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/shoemaker-v-state-ex-rel-protection-of-cl-texapp-2016.