Smith v. State

65 S.W.3d 332, 2001 WL 1560936
Court of Appeals of Texas·Decided December 28, 2001·No. 10-00-193-CR·Published·Cited by 89 cases

Opinions

OPINION

VANCE, Justice.

Edward Lee Smith (Smith) was convicted of the felony offense of driving while intoxicated (DWI). The trial court sentenced Smith to ten years in prison and a fine of ten-thousand dollars. Smith brings this appeal citing twenty instances of error. We will affirm.

FACTS

On the morning of January 9, 2000, Smith finished a night-shift at work and drove to a local fast-food restaurant for breakfast. He used the restaurant’s drive-through to place his order. While Smith waited for his food, restaurant employees told Officer Joe Neal of the Waco Police Department, who was inside the restaurant at the time, that Smith smelled of alcohol and that he was drinking a can of beer. Neal went outside and motioned for Smith to park in the restaurant’s parking lot. Neal saw cans of beer inside Smith’s vehicle. Neal also observed that Smith smelled of alcohol and that his eyes were blood-shot. The officer then asked Smith to perform standardized field-sobriety tests. After Smith failed all three tests, Neal placed him under arrest for DWI. Neal transported Smith to jail. At the jail, Smith chose to take a breathalyzer test which would measure his breath-alcohol concentration. Smith’s test results yielded two measurements that exceeded the legal limit of 0.08, the first result was 0.082 and the second was 0.086.

Smith was indicted by a grand jury for the offense of felony DWI. Tex. Pen.Code Ann. § 49.09(b) (Vernon Supp.2001). He pled not guilty to the charge. After a trial, a jury found Smith guilty and assessed a sentence of ten years in prison and a ten-thousand-dollar fine.

DISCUSSION

Smith alleges twenty points of error. Verdict

In points one, two, three, and four, Smith contends that the jury’s verdict does not support a conviction for felony DWI. According to Smith, the verdict supports only a conviction for misdemeanor DWI. The following is the relevant excerpt from the trial court’s guilt/innocence charge:

Now, if you find from the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that on or about the 9th day of January, 2000, in McLennan County, Texas, the defendant, Edward Lee Smith did then or there drive or operate a motor vehicle in [337]*337a public place while the said defendant was intoxicated by not having the normal use of mental or physical faculties by reason of the introduction of alcohol into the body, or by having an alcohol concentration of at least 0.08 and if you further find from the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant previously thereto had been at least twice convicted of the offense of being intoxicated while operating a motor vehicle in a public place, to wit:
(1) on the 8th day of October, 1992, in the County Court at Law of McLen-nan County, Texas, in Cause Number 922116CR2 the said Edward Lee Smith, under the name of Edward Lee Smith,
(2) on the 19th day of September, 1985, in the County Court at Law of McLennan County, Texas, in Cause Number 851171CR1, the said Edward Lee Smith, under the name of Edward Lee Smith, and
And that the two convictions became final prior to the commission of the primary offense of Driving While Intoxicated alleged to have been committed on or about the 9th day of January, 2000, if it was committed, as alleged in the indictment, then you will find the defendant guilty of the felony offense of Driving While Intoxicated as alleged in the indictment.
Unless you so find beyond a reasonable doubt, or if you have a reasonable doubt thereof, you will acquit the defendant of the felony offense of Driving While Intoxicated as alleged in the indictment.

Accompanying the court’s charge was the following verdict form:

We, the jury, find the defendant, Edward Lee Smith, guilty of the offense of Driving While Intoxicated, as alleged in the indictment....
We, the jury, find the defendant, Edward Lee Smith, not guilty....

Smith’s defense counsel objected to the failure of the court to modify the verdict form so that it required the jury to explicitly state that it found Smith had been twice convicted of DWI. The trial court overruled the objection and submitted the verdict form as it is written above. Using the verdict form provided, the jury found Smith guilty.

Smith’s argument on appeal is that the jury should have been required to find by special issue that he had twice been convicted of DWI. Accordingly, he says the jury’s verdict was insufficient to convict him of felony DWI. We disagree.

Under section 49.04 of the Penal Code, driving while intoxicated is a Class B misdemeanor. Tex. Pen.Code Ann. § 49.04(b) (Vernon Supp.2001). If it is shown at trial that the defendant has been convicted of two prior DWI offenses, the offense is elevated to a third degree felony. Id. § 49.09(b).1

The prior convictions are elements of the felony DWI offense. Gibson v. State, 995 S.W.2d 693, 696 (Tex.Crim.App.1999). In Tamez v. State, the Court of Criminal Appeals held that in cases when the defendant agrees to stipulate to the two previous DWI convictions, the State can read the indictment at the beginning of the trial, including mention of the two jurisdictional prior convictions, but is foreclosed from presenting specific evidence of [338]*338the nature of the convictions during its case-in-chief. 11 S.W.3d 198, 202 (Tex. Crim.App.2000). The fact of convictions is admitted into evidence by stipulation as part of the State’s proof during the guilt-innocence stage of the trial. Gibson, 995 S.W.2d at 696. Smith stipulated that he had previously been convicted as alleged in the indictment, and the stipulation was admitted into evidence as State’s Exhibit 1.

In its decisions in Ta/mez and Gibson, the Court does not state there is a requirement that the jury in a felony DWI case be given a special issue on whether or not the defendant has been convicted twice before of DWI. The elements can be stated in the body of the court’s charge and the jury instructed to find that those elements exist before finding the defendant guilty of the felony. If the jury finds the defendant guilty, it presumably has found that all the elements of the offense have been proven.

Smith relies on an intermediate appellate court decision that does not support his argument. In State v. Mewbourn, the Tyler court of appeals stated that “the prior convictions must be included in the jury charge and found to be true before a jury may find a defendant guilty of the offense of felony DWI.” 993 S.W.2d 771, 773 (Tex.App. — Tyler 1999, no pet.). The Tyler court did not state that the jury must find by special issue that the prior convictions existed. The court was stating only that the jury must find the prior-offense elements of the felony DWI offense to be true before it can find the defendant guilty.

Points one, two, three, and four are overruled.

State’s Comments During Closing Argument

In Smith’s fifth, sixth, and seventh points of error, he complains that during closing argument, the State made two statements regarding his failure to testify.

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Smith v. State, 65 S.W.3d 332, 2001 WL 1560936 (Tex. Ct. App. 2001).

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