In the

Court of Appeals

Second Appellate District of Texas

at Fort Worth

___________________________

No. 02-20-00028-CR

___________________________

On Appeal from the 431st District Court

Denton County, Texas

Trial Court No. F18-3564-431

Before Gabriel, Kerr, and Bassel, JJ.

Memorandum Opinion by Justice Gabriel

CHARLES SALAS JR., Appellant

V.

THE STATE OF TEXAS
2

MEMORANDUM OPINION

Appellant Charles Salas Jr. appeals from his conviction for assault against a 

family or household member and from his enhanced sixty-year sentence. Salas 

challenges the sufficiency of the evidence to justify the jury’s rejection of his 

justification defense of self-defense; however, the evidence, which included the 

victim’s statements to the police immediately after the offense and the nature of his 

injuries, allowed a rational fact-finder to reasonably determine that Salas had 

committed assault and had not acted in self-defense. Salas also argues that the trial 

court abused its discretion by admitting a video of Salas’s commentary while he was 

being transported to jail because it constituted inadmissible character-conformity 

evidence. Because Salas’s relevance objection at trial did not preserve his appellate 

argument based on character conformity, we do not address the merits of this issue. 

Finally, Salas argues that his sentence is constitutionally disproportionate to the nature 

of the offense; however, he has procedurally defaulted this complaint by failing to 

bring it to the attention of the trial court. Therefore, we affirm the trial court’s 

judgment.

I. BACKGROUND

Salas lived with his father (Charles Sr.), mother (Sandra), and nephew (Jesse). 

One night, Salas and Charles Sr. began arguing about Salas’s girlfriend. Sandra and 

Charles Sr. asked Salas to leave the home. Salas walked out the front door, and 

Charles Sr. followed him out. Jesse heard arguing and went outside to see what was 
3

happening. Salas hit Charles Sr., and Jesse stepped between the two. Salas then hit 

Jesse twice in the face, causing Jesse to fall back. Salas left. 

Sandra called 911 and told the dispatcher that Salas had hit Charles Sr. and had 

pushed Charles Sr. and Jesse down. She also gave the dispatcher a description of 

Salas. Officer Niko Bookman responded to the call and located Salas while driving to 

the scene. Salas told Bookman that Charles Sr. and Jesse “had jumped on him.” 

Salas, who was not wearing a shirt, had no injuries. Bookman placed Salas in the back 

of his patrol car and drove to Salas’s home. 

When Bookman arrived, he spoke to Jesse and noticed that Jesse had bleeding 

cuts near his right eye and on his chest. Jesse told Bookman that Salas had hit Charles 

Sr. first and had then hit Jesse in the eye when Jesse tried to intervene. Sandra and 

Charles Sr. told the other responding officer, Officer Jasmine Badiru, that Salas was 

upset about his girlfriend, that their attempts to calm him down enraged him, that 

Charles Sr. told Salas to leave, and that Salas hit Jesse when he tried to step between 

Charles Sr. and Salas. Charles Sr. and Sandra said that Salas had hit Charles Sr. as 

well. Badiru noticed that Charles Sr. had injuries to his right eye and left arm and that 

Jesse had injuries to his right eye and chest. However, Charles Sr., Sandra, and Jesse

refused to give written statements and stated they did not want to “press charges.” 

Nevertheless, Bookman arrested Salas based on their verbal reports of Salas’s actions 

and Charles Sr.’s and Jesse’s injuries consistent with those statements. 
4

While Bookman drove Salas to jail, Bookman’s body camera recorded what 

Salas was saying. He was “upset and irate,” cursing in a steady stream of invectives,

which included ethnic slurs and gendered insults. Salas’s comments were not the 

product of any questioning by Bookman. Salas threatened to “kill your b---- a-- when 

I get out” and that “you’re gonna burn, [ethnic slur].” Salas also said, “[H]e’s lucky I 

didn’t knock him out like I did the last two or three times.” Bookman presumed that 

Salas’s rant was directed at Charles Sr. 

Salas was indicted with two counts of assault causing bodily injury to a 

household or family member—Charles Sr. and Jesse—both third-degree felonies

based on the jurisdictional indictment allegation that Salas had been previously 

convicted of an assaultive offense against a household or family member in 2004. See 

Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 22.01(a)(1), (b)(2)(A); Price v. State, 457 S.W.3d 437, 442 (Tex. 

Crim. App. 2015); Reyes v. State, 314 S.W.3d 74, 81 (Tex. App.—San Antonio 2010, no 

pet.). The indictments additionally included two nonjurisdictional punishmentenhancement paragraphs, alleging that Salas had been convicted of felony assault 

involving family violence in 2010 and 2016. See Reyes, 314 S.W.3d at 80 (citing Brooks 

v. State, 957 S.W.2d 30, 33–34 (Tex. Crim. App. 1997)). These two prior felony 

allegations enhanced Salas’s possible punishment range from that of a third-degree 

felony to a term of “life, or for any term of not more than 99 years or less than 25 

years.” Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 12.42(d).
5

At trial, Charles Sr. and Jesse stated that they did not remember the details of 

the incident and did not want to testify against Salas. Sandra also was reluctant to

testify at trial. Charles Sr. testified that he did not know if he was truthful when he 

had talked to Badiru at the scene about what had happened; but Jesse testified that he 

would not have lied to the police that night. Charles Sr. believed the incident was “a 

little bit of [his] fault for following [Salas] outside.” 

Salas testified that after he tried to leave the house, Charles Sr. grabbed Salas’s 

left arm, blocking Salas’s exit. Salas “softly just set [Charles Sr.] to the side” when 

Jesse suddenly appeared behind Salas. Salas “lift[ed] his hand” to defend himself 

from Jesse while also “dealing with” Charles Sr. who was “in front of [Salas] at the 

same time.” Salas testified that Charles Sr. frequently frustrated him and knew “how 

to push [his] buttons” but that Charles Sr. was his best friend.

The jury found Salas not guilty of the assault against Charles Sr. but guilty of 

the assault against Jesse. At the punishment hearing, Salas pleaded true to the two 

punishment-enhancement paragraphs. The jury heard evidence regarding Salas’s 

criminal history: (1) a 2007 misdemeanor conviction for harassment, (2) two 2005 

misdemeanor convictions for violating a protective order, (3) a 2005 felony conviction 

for possession of a controlled substance, and (4) a 1998 state-jail felony conviction for

possession of a controlled substance. Additionally, the jury heard that Salas had five 
6

prior convictions for assault involving family violence, four of which were felonies.1

At the time of trial, Salas also stood accused of assault involving his girlfriend after he

had allegedly chased her, grabbed her by the hair to pull her to the ground, and hit her 

repeatedly in the face with a closed fist. After the punishment trial, the jury assessed 

Salas’s punishment at sixty years’ confinement. 

On appeal, Salas challenges the sufficiency of the evidence to convict him in

light of his justification defense, the admission of the audio from Bookman’s body 

camera, and the length of his sentence. 

II. SUFFICIENCY OF THE EVIDENCE

Salas argues that no evidence supported the jury’s implied rejection of his 

justification defense of self-defense. He argues that because the jury should have 

viewed his actions “solely from [his] perspective,” the evidence did not support a 

finding contrary to Salas’s testimony about the assault, rendering the jury’s verdict 

“irrational.” 

When a defendant raises a justification defense such as self-defense, the jury’s 

guilty verdict is an implicit factual finding that it rejected the defense. See Saxton v. 

State, 804 S.W.2d 910, 913–14 (Tex. Crim. App. 1991); see also Tex. Penal Code Ann. 

§§ 9.02, 9.31(a). When a defendant raises self-defense, he bears the burden to 

1The misdemeanor assault conviction was alleged as a jurisdictional 

enhancement; two of the four felony assault convictions were alleged as punishment 

enhancements.
7

produce some evidence supporting the defense, and the State bears the burden of 

persuasion to disprove the defense by proving its affirmative case beyond a 

reasonable doubt. See Braughton v. State, 569 S.W.3d 592, 608 (Tex. Crim. App. 2018); 

see also Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 2.03(c). To resolve whether the evidence is sufficient

to support the jury’s implicit rejection of a justification defense, we do not look to 

whether the State produced evidence refuting the defendant’s self-defense testimony; 

rather, we view the evidence in the light most favorable to the jury’s verdict to 

determine whether any rational trier of fact would have found the essential elements 

of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt and also would have found against the 

defendant on his defensive issue beyond a reasonable doubt.2 See Braughton, 

569 S.W.3d at 608–09; see also Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 2.03(b). In short, we do not 

view the justification evidence solely from the defendant’s perspective in our 

sufficiency review, as Salas asserts; we review all of the evidence in light of and in 

favor of the jury’s rejection of the defense.

3

 See Saxton, 804 S.W.2d at 914; Smith v. 

State, 355 S.W.3d 138, 146 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2011, pet. ref’d).

2

Salas does not dispute that the State presented sufficient evidence of the 

elements of assault involving family violence.

3The defendant’s perspective comes into play when determining whether the 

evidence sufficiently raised self-defense such that the defendant is entitled to a selfdefense jury instruction. See Ferrel v. State, 55 S.W.3d 586, 591 (Tex. Crim. App. 2001). 

Such an instruction was included in Salas’s jury charge. 
8

“[A] person is justified in using force against another when and to the degree 

the actor reasonably believes the force is immediately necessary to protect the actor 

against the other’s use or attempted use of unlawful force.” Tex. Penal Code Ann. 

§ 9.31(a). Thus, self-defense is justified when “the amount of force actually used was 

permitted by the circumstances.” Alonzo v. State, 353 S.W.3d 778, 783 (Tex. Crim. 

App. 2011); see Kelley v. State, 968 S.W.2d 395, 399 (Tex. App.—Tyler 1998, no pet.) 

(“The amount of force used must be in proportion to the force encountered.”). Here, 

the jury saw pictures of Jesse’s injuries, which were consistent with Jesse’s statement

to Bookman that Salas had hit Charles Sr., Jesse had then stepped between Charles Sr. 

and Salas, and Salas had hit Jesse in the face twice. Charles Sr. and Sandra similarly

told Badiru that Salas had hit Charles Sr. and then Jesse after he had stepped between 

Charles Sr. and Salas. There was evidence that Jesse used no physical force against 

Salas and did not threaten to do so,

4

rendering Salas’s use of force against Jesse 

unreasonable and, thus, unjustified. See, e.g., Graves v. State, No. 01-13-00630-CR, 

2014 WL 2809814, at *2 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] June 19, 2014, no pet.)

(mem. op., not designated for publication); Bottenfield v. State, No. 12-02-00113-CR, 

2002 WL 31835289, at *2–3 (Tex. App.—Tyler Dec. 18, 2002, no pet.) (not 

designated for publication); Payne v. State, No. 05-01-01289-CR, 2002 WL 1494710, at 

*2 (Tex. App.—Dallas July 15, 2002, no pet.) (not designated for publication). See 

4Although Salas told Bookman that Jesse had “jumped on him,” Salas testified

at trial only that Jesse suddenly appeared behind him.
9

generally Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 9.31(b)(1) (providing use of force not justified “in 

response to verbal provocation alone”). And the jury was entitled to discount Salas’s 

claim of self-defense and to instead credit what Jesse, Charles Sr., and Sandra had told 

Bookman and Badiru at the scene. See Little v. State, No. 05-14-00697-CR, 2015 WL 

5022283, at *6 (Tex. App.—Dallas Aug. 25, 2015, pet. ref’d) (mem. op., not 

designated for publication); Smith, 355 S.W.3d at 146; Payne, 2002 WL 1494710, at *2. 

See generally Chambers v. State, 805 S.W.2d 459, 461 (Tex. Crim. App. 1991) (“As 

factfinder, the jury is entitled to judge the credibility of witnesses, and can choose to 

believe all, some, or none of the testimony presented by the parties.”). Viewing the 

evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict and deferring to the jury’s 

credibility choices, we hold that the evidence is sufficient to support the jury’s implicit

rejection of Salas’s self-defense claim. We overrule issue one.

III. ADMISSION OF EVIDENCE

Salas contends that the trial court abused its discretion by admitting the audio 

from Bookman’s body camera, which recorded Salas’s constant swearing while being

driven to jail. Salas is correct that we review the admission of the audio for an abuse 

of discretion, see Montgomery v. State, 810 S.W.2d 372, 391 (Tex. Crim. App. 1991) (op. 

on reh’g), but we find no abuse here.

At trial, Salas unsuccessfully objected to the admission of the audio on the basis 

that it was “irrelevant as to what happened after the arrest.” See Tex. R. Evid. 401. 

On appeal, he argues that the evidence was inadmissible because it was “pure 
10

impermissible character conformity evidence,” rendering the exhibit irrelevant 

because it did not make a fact of consequence more or less probable.

5

 See Tex. R. 

Evid. 404(a)(1). Salas’s relevance objection did not alert the trial court that his 

exclusion theory was based on character-conformity considerations; thus, he has failed 

to preserve this issue for our review. See Golliday v. State, No. 02-15-00416-CR, 

2019 WL 1830606, at *2 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth Apr. 25, 2019, pet. ref’d) (en banc) 

(mem. op., not designated for publication).

Even if preserved, however, Salas’s argument has no merit. Evidence is 

relevant if it tends to make a fact more or less probable and if the fact is of 

consequence to the action. Tex. R. Evid. 401. “Evidence need not by itself prove or 

disprove a particular fact to be relevant; it is sufficient if the evidence provides a small 

nudge toward proving or disproving some fact of consequence.” Stewart v. State, 

129 S.W.3d 93, 96 (Tex. Crim. App. 2004). But evidence of a person’s character trait

is inadmissible solely to prove that, on a particular occasion, he acted in conformity

with that trait. Tex. R. Evid. 404(a)(1). Thus, character evidence is admissible only if 

it has relevance to a noncharacter-conformity issue of consequence. See Robbins v. 

State, 88 S.W.3d 256, 259 (Tex. Crim. App. 2002); Powell v. State, 63 S.W.3d 435, 439 

5To the extent Salas attempts to argue on appeal that the admission of the

audio was unduly prejudicial under Rule 403, that contention was not raised in the 

trial court and is, thus, not preserved for our review. See Lopez v. State, 200 S.W.3d 

246, 251 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2006, pet. ref’d); see also Medina v. State, 

7 S.W.3d 633, 643 (Tex. Crim. App. 1999); Reed v. State, 550 S.W.3d 748, 760 n.8 (Tex. 

App.—Texarkana 2018, no pet.).
11

(Tex. Crim. App. 2001); Atlas v. State, No. 02-15-00380-CR, 2017 WL 2813162, at *4 

(Tex. App.—Fort Worth June 29, 2017, no pet.) (mem. op., not designated for 

publication). Character evidence has a purpose apart from proof of conformity if it is 

admitted to rebut a defensive theory. Robbins, 88 S.W.3d at 259; Powell, 63 S.W.3d at 

439. 

Salas’s spontaneous comments on the audio recording occurred immediately 

after the assault and showed his belligerence and hostility, especially at Charles Sr. In 

short, the exhibit showed Salas’s state of mind around the time of the offense, which 

was a contested issue at trial based on Salas’s justification defense. See, e.g., Powell, 

63 S.W.3d at 439; Duntsch v. State, 568 S.W.3d 193, 226 (Tex. App.—Dallas 2018, pet. 

ref’d). Thus, the audio recording was relevant because it tended to make a fact of 

consequence more or less probable and because it had a purpose apart from character 

conformity. See Powell, 63 S.W.3d at 439; Lott v. State, 662 S.W.2d 450, 452 (Tex. 

App.—Corpus Christi–Edinburg 1983, pet dism’d); see also Robbins, 88 S.W.3d at 261–

62; Stirman v. State, No. 11-12-00090-CR, 2014 WL 1285773, at *7 (Tex. App.—

Eastland Mar. 31, 2014, pet. ref’d) (mem. op., not designated for publication). The 

trial court did not abuse its discretion by admitting this relevant evidence.

And even if the trial court had abused its discretion by admitting the exhibit, 

the State aptly argues that Salas would not have been harmed because the exhibit was 

relevant to Salas’s hostility toward Charles Sr., and the jury acquitted Salas of 

assaulting Charles Sr. See Tex. R. App. P. 44.2(b). We overrule issue two.
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IV. LENGTH OF SENTENCE

Finally, Salas argues that his sixty-year sentence was unconstitutionally 

disproportionate to the nature of the offense. Before imposing the sentence assessed 

by the jury, the trial court asked Salas whether there was any reason why sentence 

could not be imposed. Salas’s counsel responded, “No, Your Honor.” Salas did not 

file a motion for new trial. Disproportionate-sentence claims must be raised in the

trial court either at sentencing or in a motion for new trial in order to preserve such a 

claim for our review. See Kim v. State, 283 S.W.3d 473, 475 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth 

2009, pet. ref’d). Salas did neither; thus, he has procedurally defaulted his appellate

claim. See id. We overrule issue three.

Even if this claim could be raised for the first time on appeal, cf. Mizell v. State,

119 S.W.3d 804, 806 (Tex. Crim. App. 2003), we would conclude that the length of 

Salas’s sentence does not raise an inference that it was unconstitutionally 

disproportionate. Although assault causing bodily injury is a misdemeanor offense, it 

becomes punishable as a third-degree felony if committed against a family or 

household member. See Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 22.01(b)(2)(A). And Salas’s two 

prior felony family-violence assaults enhanced the available punishment range to

twenty-five to ninety-nine years’ or life confinement. See id. § 12.42(d). Along with 

the circumstances of the charged offense, the jury heard evidence of Salas’s extensive 

criminal history, most of which underscored Salas’s penchant for assaultive and 

harassing behavior. We would conclude, therefore, that the severity of Salas’s
13

sentence, which was within the applicable sentencing range, was not 

unconstitutionally disproportionate in light of the circumstances of the charged 

offense and his prior offenses. See Rummel v. Estelle, 445 U.S. 263, 276 (1980); State v. 

Simpson, 488 S.W.3d 318, 323 (Tex. Crim. App. 2016); Karrenbrock v. State, No. 02-16-

00386-CR, 2018 WL 5289352, at *4–6 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth Oct. 25, 2018, pet. 

ref’d) (mem. op., not designated for publication); Shivers v. State, No. 02-16-00387-CR, 

2017 WL 6884303, at *4 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth Oct. 19, 2017, pet. ref’d) (mem. 

op., not designated for publication).

V. CONCLUSION

The jury heard evidence showing that Salas’s belief that force was necessary 

was unreasonable; thus, the jury’s implicit rejection of Salas’s justification defense of 

self-defense was rational and supported by the evidence. By only objecting on the 

basis of relevance at trial, Salas failed to preserve his appellate argument that the audio

recording of his ride to jail was inadmissible character-conformity evidence. And 

Salas similarly procedurally defaulted his disproportionate-sentence claim by failing to 

raise it in the trial court. We affirm the trial court’s judgment. See Tex. R. App. P. 

43.2(a).
14

/s/ Lee Gabriel

Lee Gabriel

Justice

Do Not Publish

Tex. R. App. P. 47.2(b)

Delivered: October 29, 2020