Wright v. State

212 S.W.3d 768, 2006 Tex. App. LEXIS 9322, 2006 WL 3040786
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedOctober 25, 2006
Docket03-05-00419-CR
StatusPublished
Cited by24 cases

This text of 212 S.W.3d 768 (Wright 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
Wright v. State, 212 S.W.3d 768, 2006 Tex. App. LEXIS 9322, 2006 WL 3040786 (Tex. Ct. App. 2006).

Opinion

OPINION

JOHN F. ONION, JR., Justice (Retired).

Appellant Reo Dell Wright appeals his conviction for aggravated sexual assault of a child. See Tex. Pen.Code Ann. § 22.021 (West Supp.2005). The jury found appellant guilty and assessed his punishment at thirty-six years’ imprisonment.

POINTS OF ERROR

Appellant advances two interrelated points of error. Appellant contends that the trial court committed egregious harm by failing to sua sponte include a jury instruction on the burden of proof as to the extraneous offenses (1) in the penalty stage of the trial and (2) earlier in the guilt-innocence stage of the trial. These jury charge issues relate only to two extraneous evidence matters introduced at the guilt-innocence stage of the trial. At neither stage of the trial did appellant request the desired jury instruction or object to its omission. Appellant principally relies upon Huizar v. State, 12 S.W.3d 479 (Tex.Crim.App.2000) and its interpretation of article 37.07, section 3(a)(1). (Tex.Code Crim. Proc. Ann. art. 37.07. § 3(a)(1) (West 2006)). 1 One extraneous unadjudi-cated offense involving the possession and use of crack cocaine was elicited by appellant. 2 The other “bad act” evidence did *770 not in fact reveal misconduct by appellant. Appellant insists that he was entitled in this non-capital case to a sua sponte instruction at each stage of the trial that jurors were not to consider the unadjudi-cated extraneous offense or bad act evidence on the issue of punishment unless they first find that the State proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant committed the extraneous offense or bad act. We will affirm the conviction.

BACKGROUND

Appellant does not challenge the legal or factual sufficiency of the evidence. A brief summary of the facts will place the points of error in proper perspective.

Q.K., the 13-year-old complainant who was 11 years old at the time of the offense, testified that on March 25, 2004, she lived with her mother and stepfather, Edward Earl Johnson, in Temple. Q.K. had been diagnosed by her doctors as having an attention deficit disorder. She had been prescribed Concerta and a sleeping medicine to be taken at night.

Q.K. testified that appellant, her mother’s cousin, came to the house where she lived on the night of March 24, 2004. Q.K. related that she slept that night on a couch or love seat in the living room. Appellant was also to sleep in that room. Q.K. took her sleeping medication before going to bed, but she woke up during the night to find appellant on top of her. Her nightgown had been pulled up and her panties pulled down. She stated that appellant had inserted his penis in her anus. She told appellant to get off of her and dozed off again as a result of the medication. Sometime later in the night, she awakened and found appellant on top of her again, doing the same thing. She insisted that he get off of her. At this point, appellant offered Q.K. $20 if she would let him touch her chest. She refused but succumbed again to the medication and fell asleep. When she woke up the next morning, she ran to tell her mother and stepfather what had happened and heard appellant leaving the house.

Q.K. was allowed to go to school that morning, but the assistant principal, Donna Lammert, noticed a change in Q.K.’s normal demeanor. Subsequently, it became clear there was a problem requiring intervention. Q.K.’s mother and stepfather came to the school and met with Lammert. Q.K. was angry and upset and told what had happened during the night. The Temple Police Department was called. Q.K’s mother left the school because she had outstanding felony arrest warrants for cocaine possession.

*771 After talking to police officers, Q.K. was taken to the Scott and White Hospital for an examination by Alice Linder, a sexual assault nurse examiner. Q.K. repeated the events to Linder. Linder found some brown fecal-like material on Q.K.’s genitals that was consistent with the transfer of fecal matter from the anus to the vaginal area. An abrasion and a tear was discovered between Q.K.’s anus and vagina. According to Linder, nothing in the examination was inconsistent with Q.K.’s revelation of the previous night’s events. Linder took swabs from the various areas in the genital and anal portions of Q.K.’s body which were submitted to the Department of Public Safety laboratory in Waco along with other items taken by the police from the Johnson home where Q.K. lived. Despite Q.K.’s statement that appellant placed his penis “in her butt,” Nurse Lin-der expressed her opinion that Q.K.’s female sexual organ had also been penetrated. The DPS laboratory report reflected that no semen or sperm was found on the submitted items. DPS chemists did locate a mixture of Q.K.’s and appellant’s DNA on the swab taken from the perianal area between Q.K.’s anus and vagina.

Appellant did not testify. He called a Temple police officer to point out an inconsistency between Q.K.’s trial testimony and her earlier statement to the officer about when appellant left the Johnson house in the morning after the commission of the offense. The other defense witness was Q.K.’s stepfather, Edward Earl Johnson, whom appellant attempted to use to establish the defensive issue of fabrication of the sexual assault charge.

EXTRANEOUS MATERIAL INTRODUCED AT GUILT-INNOCENCE STAGE

At this point, we will point out that the evidence which appellant claims entitled him to a sua sponte jury instruction on the burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt at both stages of the trial under the authority of article 37.07, section 3(a) and Huizar.

During the guilt-innocence stage of the trial, appellant sought to establish a defensive issue of fabrication concerning the instant offense. He attempted to show a conspiracy between Q.K. and her stepfather. In doing so, appellant elicited evidence of his own conduct. On cross-examination, appellant elicited from Q.K. that her mother, Lisa Johnson, had problems in the past with the use of cocaine; that appellant and her mother had smoked crack cocaine together and that on the night in question, Q.K. did not see them smoking crack cocaine, but could smell it through the bathroom door. Appellant also elicited from Q.K. that she was disappointed in her mother’s use of cocaine, that she had asked her mother to stop, but her mother did not. Q.K. said, “I’m just a child. I can’t tell my mother what to do.” When asked if she blamed appellant for her mother’s use of cocaine, Q.K. responded, “My mother was smoking crack for a long, long time, and I believe he was too.”

On further cross-examination, appellant’s counsel asked Q.K. whether she and her stepfather had decided to make up this story about appellant because he was using crack cocaine and getting her mother “back to smoking.” She responded, “My momma was smoking before he [appellant] came back to Temple ...”

Later, appellant’s counsel called Edward Earl Johnson as a defense witness.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
212 S.W.3d 768, 2006 Tex. App. LEXIS 9322, 2006 WL 3040786, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/wright-v-state-texapp-2006.