White, Chelice Alton v. State

• Court: Court of Appeals of Texas
• Decided: August 22, 2002
• Docket: 01-02-00480-CR
• Status: Published

Opinion

Opinion issued August 22, 2002

In The

Court of Appeals

For The

First District of Texas

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NO. 01-02-00480-CR

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EX PARTE CHELCE A. WHITE, Appellant

On Appeal from the 23rd District Court

Brazoria County, Texas

Trial Court Cause No. 42,320

MEMORANDUM OPINION

Appellant Chelce A. White appeals the trial court's order reducing his bail from $500,000 to $475,000.

Facts

Appellant is charged with murdering his wife. At the bail reduction hearing, appellant testified that his family attempted to, but could not raise the necessary funds for the $500,000 bond. He testified that his family could raise the necessary funds and collateral for a bond ranging from $50,000 to $150,000. Aside from this testimony, appellant introduced no other evidence of his financial resources. He adduced no evidence regarding his income, assets, or credit worthiness.

The trial court reduced appellant's bail to $475,000.

Appellant contends that bail of $475,000 is excessive.

Analysis

A defendant has the burden to show that bail is excessive. Ex parte Rubac, 611 S.W.2d 848, 849 (Tex. Crim. App. 1981); Ex parte Willman, 695 S.W.2d 752, 754 (Tex. App.--Houston [1st Dist.] 1985, no pet.).

The legislature has prescribed five criteria for determining the amount of bail. See Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Ann. art. 17.15 (Vernon Supp. 2002). In this case, we need only consider the first two:

(1) The bail shall be sufficiently high to give reasonable assurance that the undertaking will be complied with.

(2) The power to require bail is not to be used as to make it an instrument of oppression.

Art. 17.15 (1),(2). Because appellant has failed to provide this Court with a record containing information regarding his financial resources, we are unable to determine an amount that would be sufficiently high to assure his appearance at court when summoned. Therefore, we need not address the second criterion.

Appellant has not carried his burden to show that the amount of bail is unreasonable. See Ex parte Chavfull, 945 S.W.2d 183, 186-87 (Tex. App.--San Antonio 1997, no pet.) (in murder case, court of appeals affirmed bail of $750,000 based in part on appellant's inconclusive evidence regarding his financial circumstances).

We overrule appellant's sole point of error.

We affirm the trial court's pretrial order setting bail.

PER CURIAM

Panel consists of Justices Hedges, Taft, and Jennings.

Do not publish. Tex. R. App. P. 47.