Slott v. State

824 S.W.2d 225, 1992 WL 20907
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJanuary 8, 1992
Docket09-90-161 CR
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 824 S.W.2d 225 (Slott 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
Slott v. State, 824 S.W.2d 225, 1992 WL 20907 (Tex. Ct. App. 1992).

Opinions

OPINION

BROOKSHIRE, Justice.

The appellant, Debbra Slott, was charged by indictment with the murder of Donna Raney by stabbing her with a knife. The case proceeded to trial before a jury on May 21, 1990. After all the evidence was presented, the court charged the jury with instructions regarding Murder and the lesser included offenses of Voluntary Manslaughter, Involuntary Manslaughter, Criminally Negligent Homicide, and Aggravated Assault. The jury found the appellant guilty of the offense of voluntary manslaughter.

During the punishment phase of the trial, the State elicited testimony from the appellant’s present husband regarding two separate incidents of family violence involving the appellant. One altercation happened one week prior to the incident before the court in which the appellant threatened her husband with a knife and commanded him to leave the premises. The second incident occurred during an attack by her husband, in which she cut him with a knife while he was beating her. Upon cross examination of the appellant regarding her ex-husband, Mike Gordon, the State asked the question, “has there been a time when you struck him in the body with a knife?” The appellant answered, “Yes, sir.” She then went on to relate that it was done in self-defense while her ex-husband was attacking her at home. The State then attempted to question the appellant regarding the possibility of ever having assaulted her first husband, one Mr. McGowen, but the defense objected and the court sustained it.

The jury assessed the maximum sentence of twenty (20) years with an affirmative finding of Use of a Deadly Weapon.

The appellant urges two points of error: (1) that the trial court erred in allowing the introduction of evidence of extraneous offenses to the jury at the punishment phase of the trial; and (2) that the trial court erred in denying a requested jury charge submitted by the defense regarding the lesser included offenses.

[226]*226Any discussion of submitting “extraneous offense” evidence at the punishment phase of a trial must of necessity begin with Tex.Code Crim.PROC.Ann. art. 37.07 (Vernon Supp.1991). Prior to its effective date of September 1, 1989, several cases had held that evidence of specific conduct was not admissible to show the character of the defendant at the punishment phase of trial. Kingsley v. State, 784 S.W.2d 688 (Tex.Crim.App.1990); Murphy v. State, 777 S.W.2d 44 (Tex.Crim.App.1989); Drew v. State, 777 S.W.2d 74 (Tex.Crim.App.1989). The Court of Criminal Appeals in the case of Miller-El v. State, 782 S.W.2d 892 (Tex.Crim.App.1990), stated that “deciding what punishment to assess is a normative process, not intrinsically fact-bound” in quoting from the Murphy decision. The court also observed that “what evidence should be admitted to inform that normative decision is not a question of logical relevance, but of policy.” The court when on to state that apart from art. 37.07 § 3(a), “the legislature has not set a coherent policy to guide courts in discerning what evidence is appropriate to the punishment deliberation.” The Miller-El court held that in moving in to fill the policy void the court would hold that evidence of “the circumstances of the offense itself, or ... the defendant himself,” will be admissible at the punishment phase citing the Murphy, supra at page 63. Two months later on March 21, 1990, in Griffin v. State, 787 S.W.2d 63 (Tex.Crim.App.1990), the court altered its stance in Murphy by holding that the defendant placed his “suitability” for probation in issue and thereby consented to admission of prior conduct evidence by the State.

On August 30, 1990, in McMillian v. State, 799 S.W.2d 311 (Tex.App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 1990, pet. granted), the court admitted evidence of an unadjudicated subsequent offense in response to defendant’s application for probation. The court held that amended art. 37.07 § 3(a), was effective for trials commencing on or after September 1, 1989, and that the amended code permitted the State to offer “any matter the court deems relevant to sentencing.” The court also observed that in response to the Miller-El case the legislature had acted by revising § 3(a) to adopt a policy of admitting anything relevant under the Rules of Evidence. Tex.R.Crim.Evid. 401 was cited to define relevancy as well as Rule 403 to determine exclusion if the probative value substantially outweighs the danger of unfair prejudice, or if it confuses the issues, or if it would be misleading to the jury. The Houston Court noted no conflict between art. 37.07 § 3(a) as amended and Tex.R.Crim.Evid. 404, notwithstanding the fact that Rule 404(c) exempts only art. 37.071 of the Tex.Code Crim.Proc. from that rule.

Within one week, on September 5, 1990, this Court in Huggins v. State, 795 S.W.2d 909 (Tex.App.—Beaumont 1990, pet. ref’d), held that under the amended art. 37.07 § 3(a), evidence of extraneous, unadjudicat-ed offenses was relevant to assessment of punishment and further that evidence as to matters which the court deems “relevant to sentencing” is independent and separate from evidence of the defendant’s prior criminal record, his general reputation, and his character.

On March 6,1991, this Court again wrote on the issue at bar in Hunter v. State, 805 S.W.2d 918 (Tex.App.—Beaumont 1991, pet. granted).1 In citing Huggins, supra, we again held that the legislature has provided that any matter that the court deems relevant to sentencing is admissible under Tex.Code Crim.Proc. art. 37.07 § 3(a).

In the same month and year, in the case of Cannon v. State, 807 S.W.2d 631 (Tex.App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 1991, no pet.), that court held that evidence of a pending, unadjudicated charge was properly admitted during the punishment phase of the trial, the charge being relevant to the jury’s deliberation on punishment, especially in view of the fact that the pending charge and the charge for which he was convicted were one and the same.

On April 3, 1991, in the case of Gallardo v. State, 809 S.W.2d 540 (Tex.App.—San Antonio 1991, pet. granted), the court [227]*227agreed with the Huggins case and the McMillian case and after examining the construction of § 3(a) of art. 37.07, stated that the article as amended, “... simply puts before a jury assessing punishment in a felony case the same information presently available to juries in capital cases and to courts assessing punishment in other cases.” This case noted that when the court assesses punishment in a non-capital case, it is expressly permitted to consider pre-sentence investigation reports which may contain evidence of unadjudicated offenses.

The case of Hubbard v. State, 809 S.W.2d 316

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824 S.W.2d 225, 1992 WL 20907, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/slott-v-state-texapp-1992.