Walker v. State

300 S.W.3d 836, 2009 Tex. App. LEXIS 7763, 2009 WL 3153288
Court of Appeals of Texas·Decided October 1, 2009·No. 2-07-272-CR·Published·Cited by 82 cases

Opinions

OPINION

TERRIE LIVINGSTON, Justice.

I. Introduction

Appellant Korey Demaine Walker appeals his conviction and sixty year sentence for attempted capital murder.1 See Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 15.01 (Vernon 2003), § 19.03 (Vernon Supp. 2009). In four points, appellant asserts that the trial court violated his Sixth Amendment right to confrontation and the right to expose bias on the part of a witness under Texas Rule of Evidence 613(b) by refusing to allow a line of questioning, that the trial court erred by failing to include a mistake of fact instruction in its instruction on self-defense, and that the trial court erred by providing an incomplete and ineffective limiting instruction regarding prior inconsistent statements used for impeachment purposes by a State’s witness. We affirm.

II. Background

A. The Shooting

On May 8, 2002, appellant pled guilty to possession of more than four but less than two hundred grams of a controlled substance. Appellant did not appear at his January 10, 2003 sentencing hearing, so the trial court forfeited his bond and issued a warrant for his arrest.

Tarrant County Sheriffs Department Deputy Andrew Tatsch, who was charged with executing appellant’s warrant, received new information regarding appellant’s whereabouts from appellant’s girlfriend, Joyce Williams, on September 11, 2003.2 The trial court changed the ad[841] dress of the warrant, and Deputy Tatsch arranged for three other deputies, Deputies Hernandez, Johnston, and Pickle, to assist him in executing it. They met at a Costco near appellant’s apartment at 6:00 a.m. on September 12, 2003, for a briefing with Deputy Tatsch. At the briefing, each deputy saw a photograph of appellant.

The deputies arrived at appellant’s apartment around 6:45 a.m. Over the next forty-five minutes to an hour, the deputies intermittently knocked on the front door and announced their presence, getting progressively louder to the point of banging on the door and yelling for appellant to come out. Appellant never answered the door, but Deputies Hernandez, Johnston, and Pickle each independently noticed what they believed to be someone looking through the blinds.

When appellant did not come to the door, the deputies asked the apartment complex to bring a key to unlock appellant’s front door. Jess Cross, the apartment complex’s maintenance technician, arrived at appellant’s apartment around 8:00 a.m. and gave the key to the deputies. The deputies had contacted a supervisor, Sergeant White, who arrived about the same time. When appellant still did not come to the door, the deputies used the key to attempt to open the door, but the door was locked from the inside with a keyless deadbolt.

Sergeant White authorized the deputies to breach the door by force. The deputies knocked at least one to two more times, and when there was still no response, Deputy Tatsch used a ram and forced the door open. Deputies Tatsch and Johnston entered the apartment first, followed by Deputy Hernandez and Sergeant White. Once inside, Deputy Tatsch announced his presence, stating, “sheriffs department, felony warrant.”

The deputies made their way to the closed bedroom door. Deputy Tatsch kicked open the door. As the door slammed back shut, a shot was fired, and Deputy Tatsch was hit by the bullet.3 Although Deputy Tatsch did not see a muzzle flash from a gun, he did see appellant crouched down by the bed in the bedroom, and he felt the blast hit him. Deputies Tatsch and Johnston returned fire through the closed door. The two deputies then retreated around a corner as Deputy Hernandez, who was by the front door, called to Deputy Pickle to get an ambulance. Deputy Johnston testified that appellant, holding a gun in front of him, walked over to where Deputy Johnston was lying on the floor, then, after Deputy Johnston shot at him, kept going toward the door where he collapsed. Deputy Hernandez testified that when he looked back into the apartment, he saw appellant leaving the bedroom with a gun in his hand. Fearing for his life, Deputy Hernandez shot appellant twice. All of these events lasted approximately seventeen seconds.

After the shooting was over and appellant was subdued, Deputy Tatsch was taken to a hospital, where he was treated for his gunshot injuries. The surgeon who operated on Deputy Tatsch testified that he would have died without the surgery. [842] Appellant was treated for his injuries at the scene and then taken into custody.

After the incident was over, the deputies and Sergeant White were separated, and detectives from the Fort Worth Police Department interviewed each of them independently. The police department conducted criminal and administrative investigations but did not file charges against any of the officers from the sheriffs department.

B. Trial proceedings

A grand jury indicted appellant for attempted capital murder and two counts of aggravated assault. Appellant pled not guilty at the outset of his trial. During cross-examination, appellant’s counsel asked Sergeant White questions about the investigation following the incident. Appellant asked whether Sergeant White had an attorney present when he gave his statement to Detective Jamison, a detective for the major case unit of the Fort Worth Police Department. After Sergeant White admitted that a CLEET attorney was present, appellant asked Sergeant White if he knew about his Gamty rights.4 The prosecutor objected to the question on relevance grounds. After hearing arguments on the issue, the trial court sustained the objection; appellant made a bill for appellate review. During the questioning under the bill, Sergeant White testified that he did not invoke his Gamty rights. Appellant attempted to impeach this claim by showing that before his interview with Detective Jamison, Sergeant White read a card provided by the attorney, who was present during the interview, that stated he reserved his right to remain silent under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments and that “this is Garrity.” But Sergeant White testified that he did not think this meant he invoked his Garrity rights because he gave a statement anyway.

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Walker v. State, 300 S.W.3d 836, 2009 Tex. App. LEXIS 7763, 2009 WL 3153288 (Tex. Ct. App. 2009).

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