Spence v. State

795 S.W.2d 743, 1990 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 115, 1990 WL 79092
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Texas
DecidedJune 13, 1990
Docket69341
StatusPublished
Cited by127 cases

This text of 795 S.W.2d 743 (Spence 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
Spence v. State, 795 S.W.2d 743, 1990 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 115, 1990 WL 79092 (Tex. 1990).

Opinion

OPINION

PER CURIAM.

David Wayne Spence, appellant herein, was convicted of the offense of capital murder, namely, the capital murder of Jill Montgomery, henceforth Montgomery, one of the victims of the “Lake Waco” murders, while in the course of committing the offense of aggravated kidnapping of Montgomery. See V.T.C.A.Tex.Penal Code, Sec. 19.03(a)(2). After convicting appellant of capital murder, the jury answered the submitted special issues in the affirmative. See Art. 37.071(b)(1) and (2), V.A.C.C.P. Therefore, appellant’s punishment was assessed by the trial judge at death. Appeal from the trial court to this Court is automatic. See Art. 37.071(h), V.A.C.C.P. We affirm. 1

Appellant does not challenge the sufficiency of the evidence at either the guilt or the punishment phase of the trial; therefore, we will dispense with all but the most cursory recitation of the facts and directly address appellant’s points of error.

On July 13, 1982, around 8:00 p.m., near dusk, Montgomery and her friends Rice and Kenneth disappeared after going to Koehne Park, which is located on Lake Waco. Their bound and tortured bodies were discovered in the woods of nearby Speegleville Park the next day. All of the bodies had numerous knife wounds which were described by Dr. M.G.F. Gilliland, the pathologist, as “torture wounds.” Both females had several human bite marks on their chests and shoulders. Both had been raped. Gilliland testified that all three of the victims died as a result of multiple stab wounds.

Appellant presents thirteen points of error in this appeal: Appellant complains in one point of error that he was not allowed to make an adequate offer of proof at trial for this Court to assess the validity of his pretrial motion to dismiss the indictment. He attacks, in three points of error, the admission of evidence linking him to the crime by a comparison of his dental arrangement with the bite marks left on the female victims. He contends, in two points of error, that he should have been allowed to explain the law of circumstantial evidence to the prospective jurors during voir dire examination. In one point of error, he *747 asserts that he should have been allowed to bring evidence before the jury that tended to show that someone else may have committed the capital murder of Montgomery for which he was charged in this cause. Appellant’s remaining seven points of error attack the trial judge’s decision to admit several types of testimony, namely: testimony from Daryl Beckham, henceforth Beckham, a witness who had been previously hypnotized; testimony from Jerry Jennings, henceforth Jennings, a witness who allegedly was compensated by the State for his testimony; testimony at the punishment phase of the trial by Lisa Ka-der, henceforth Kader, a woman who was raped by appellant; and testimony by Dr. James W. Jolliff, henceforth Jolliff, a psychiatrist who testified that appellant was a menace to society. We overrule all of appellant’s points of error and affirm his conviction and sentence of death.

In appellant’s first point of error 2 , he maintains that he was not allowed to make a complete offer of proof on his contention that the State improperly delayed his indictment, causing substantial prejudice to his defense.

Appellant’s pretrial motion to dismiss the indictment averred that his right to due process of law under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution was violated by the State’s deliberate action of delaying the return of appellant’s indictment. The record reflects that at the pretrial hearing to dismiss the indictment, appellant’s counsel was not allowed to present testimony or make an offer of proof in order to support his claim. Thus, appellant claims that there was no evidence in the record upon which this Court can review his claim.

The record, however, is now complete. On October 12, 1988, this Court ordered that appellant’s appeal be abated and remanded the case to the trial court for a hearing so that appellant could properly, although belatedly, perfect the record on his motion to dismiss the indictment. This Court ordered the trial judge to conduct a hearing on “only that testimony and evidence excluded by the Court at the pretrial hearing to which counsel objected and made a thwarted offer of proof.” (Emphasis supplied.) Spence v. State, 758 S.W.2d 597, 600 (Tex.Cr.App.1988). At the hearing on remand appellant asked the questions which he had originally asked at the pretrial hearing, but which he did not receive answers to at that time. Appellant also asked additional questions which were in response to the testimony given at the hearing on remand. At the hearing on remand, however, the trial judge allowed appellant to go into not only those matters which were originally raised at the pretrial hearing but also those reasonably related to them. We find that appellant was given extremely wide latitude by the trial judge in presenting evidence on several issues. The State objected to most of this evidence on the ground of irrelevance, but the trial judge allowed appellant to introduce it as a "bill on the bill.”

Appellant now complains, in his first point of error, that he was not even allowed a “bill on the bill” regarding the following: (1) the evidence that was presented to the Grand Jury to obtain the indictment; (2) the dates upon which the District Attorney first obtained such evidence; and (3) the action that was taken against appellant by the District Attorney between the time the evidence was obtained and the time it was presented to the Grand Jury. Appellant also contends that he should have been granted discovery of the Grand Jury testimony and relevant parts of the District Attorney’s files. Thus, appellant contends that his attempt to perfect the record to show deliberate, prejudicial, pre-indictment delay was again thwarted. 3

*748 Appellant’s complaint before us now is that he was not allowed to make an offer of proof as to the dates that the District Attorney’s office obtained the evidence used against him and as to what action was taken between those dates and the date of his indictment, November 21, 1983. We infer from the record that appellant became a suspect around September 9, 1982, or near the time when he was arrested and incarcerated in the McLennan County Jail on an unrelated aggravated sexual assault charge, for which he was convicted and sentenced to serve 90 years in the penitentiary. 4 We find that appellant’s questions were sufficiently answered at the hearing on remand.

The record reflects that Vic Feazell, henceforth Feazell, who was then the District Attorney for McLennan County, and who was also one of the prosecutors at appellant’s trial, testified at the remand hearing. In regard to the investigation and evidence against appellant, Feazell testified that “nobody came with a suitcase and laid it on the library table with the evidence in it. This evidence was gathered bit by bit, piece by piece.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
795 S.W.2d 743, 1990 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 115, 1990 WL 79092, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/spence-v-state-texcrimapp-1990.