Swarb v. State

125 S.W.3d 672, 2003 Tex. App. LEXIS 10197, 2003 WL 22862191
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedDecember 4, 2003
Docket01-02-01080-CR
StatusPublished
Cited by144 cases

This text of 125 S.W.3d 672 (Swarb 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
Swarb v. State, 125 S.W.3d 672, 2003 Tex. App. LEXIS 10197, 2003 WL 22862191 (Tex. Ct. App. 2003).

Opinion

OPINION

EVELYN V. KEYES, Justice.

Appellant, Barry Brent Swarb, pleaded not guilty to felony possession of methamphetamine under one gram. The jury found appellant guilty, and the trial court assessed punishment at 20 months’ confinement in the state jail. In six points of error, appellant challenges (1) the denial of his motion to suppress, (2) the admission of extraneous offense evidence, (3) the legal sufficiency of the evidence, and (4) the overruling of his objections to the State’s jury arguments. We affirm.

Facts

While on work release from the Brazos County Jail, appellant went to the Burle-son County Jail, where he attempted to deliver methamphetamine to his incarcerated wife. Appellant was not immediately arrested and returned to the Brazos County work release program. Later the same day, after obtaining an arrest warrant for appellant for the delivery of methamphetamine in a correctional facility, 1 Investigator Glidewell and Lieutenant Norsworthy went to the Brazos County Jail, where appellant was located, to execute the arrest warrant. 2

*678 When Glidewell and Norsworthy arrived at the jail premises, Glidewell recognized appellant’s vehicle in the public parking lot. Looking inside the vehicle with the aid of a flashlight, the officers noticed suspected methamphetamine on the floorboard of the vehicle.

After arresting appellant pursuant to the arrest warrant, Glidewell obtained appellant’s consent to search the vehicle. Appellant filled out the consent form noting the year, make, body style and license number of the truck. Appellant also provided Glidewell with the keys to his vehicle.

During the search, Glidewell, Norswor-thy, and another ofScer located several pieces of aluminum foil and some pens with the ink cartridges removed, both containing possible methamphetamine residue, a bottle of nail polish, and empty packages of pseudoephedrine, a common precursor used in creating methamphetamine. All evidence was submitted to the laboratory for analysis. Glidewell and Norsworthy testified that they did not attempt to lift fingerprints from the evidence primarily because it would not be possible to obtain a fingerprint from crumpled aluminum foil. Analysis nevertheless revealed that some of the aluminum foil evidence contained methamphetamine. Appellant was then charged by indictment in Brazos County with possession of a controlled substance under one gram. 3

Trial

In his pretrial motion in limine, appellant requested that the State not mention or allude to any previous criminal record and/or arrest of appellant. The trial court granted appellant’s motion, but noted that the State could introduce evidence that it had a warrant for appellant’s arrest, that the officers were serving the warrant, and that his vehicle was located where the warrant was served. The court, however, prohibited the mention of the words “Brazos County Minimum Security Jail.” The court also prohibited mention that appellant had possessed or delivered an illegal substance in a correctional facility, although the State was permitted to elicit testimony that the officers had a warrant for appellant’s arrest. Finally, the court overruled appellant’s motion in limine request and allowed testimony of the service of an arrest warrant on the defendant.

During its case-in-chief, while examining Investigator Glidewell, the State elicited testimony that Glidewell had obtained an arrest warrant for appellant. After Glide-well’s testimony, the court immediately provided a limiting instruction to the jury noting that they could not consider the fact that an arrest warrant had been issued for appellant in their determination of guilt, but could consider it only for “informational purposes.” The State then admitted Exhibit No. 2 (a copy of the arrest warrant that Glidewell obtained on July 8, 2001) for the appellate record. Exhibit No. 2 was not shown to the jury. The court also admitted Exhibit No. 2A (a copy of the arrest warrant which redacted the description of the offense in Burleson County). 4 Exhibit No. 2A was shown to the jury and admitted for all purposes.

During the State’s presentation of its case, and on cross-examination of the *679 State’s witnesses, appellant introduced his defensive theory that the methamphetamine could have been left or placed in his vehicle by someone else. On cross-examination, appellant tried to elicit testimony that the driver’s side door of the truck could have been opened without a key, that the arresting officers did not take fingerprints from the evidence found in appellant’s truck, and that a nail polish bottle was found inside the truck. 5 Based on appellant’s cross-examination of the State’s witnesses and the questions about the keys, the fingernail polish bottle, and the failure to take fingerprints — implying that someone else possessed the methamphetamine found in appellant’s truck — the State urged the court for permission to elicit testimony under Rule 404(b) about the Burleson County delivery of methamphetamine to the jail to show appellant’s intent, plan, knowledge, and absence of mistake or accident that methamphetamine was in his vehicle. Appellant objected, noting that admitting such evidence would be “character assassination.” The court overruled appellant’s objection and permitted testimony of the reason for the Burleson County arrest, and the judgment in the Burleson County offense case. In response to appellant’s objection, the court noted: “Well, counsel, I would agree with you had there not been the implication to the jury via the questioning regarding the bad door, the nail polish, the implication being that there have been other people in the car. Therefore, it must have been somebody else’s controlled substance. I believe the door has been opened.”

The court also overruled appellant’s Rule 403 objection, finding that the probative value outweighed the potential prejudicial effect. The court also provided a limiting instruction to the jury that they were to consider the extraneous offense only for “purposes of proving intent or knowledge in this particular case and for no other purposes.” The court explained to the State that it could recall Officer Glidewell to testify in more detail about the Burleson County offense itself and that it could “indicate to the jury that the defendant pled no contest.... What [appellant] did or did not get in punishment is not relevant.” The State then recalled Glidewell and offered Exhibit No. 2 (the non-redacted arrest warrant) for all purposes. Glidewell testified that the arrest warrant was based on information that appellant had tried to bring methamphetamine to his wife in jail on the same day that the methamphetamine was located in appellant’s car.

The State also introduced Exhibit No. 27, the Burleson County judgment for prohibited substance in a correctional facility, for appellate record purposes only and Exhibit No. 27A, a redacted Burleson County judgment, to be shown and exhibited to the jury.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
125 S.W.3d 672, 2003 Tex. App. LEXIS 10197, 2003 WL 22862191, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/swarb-v-state-texapp-2003.