Source: https://www.tdcaa.com/journal/spousal-privilege-and-%C2%ADcommon-law-marriage/
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 20:10:16+00:00

Document:
It is often said that absence makes the heart grow fonder. A brief read through some steamy jail mail and one might come to the conclusion that this saying was coined by a dejected lover cooling his heels in the local county lockup. It never ceases to amaze me how the possibility of a long prison sentence tends to be the best couples’ counseling that taxpayer money can buy. It is even more true that a brief discussion with a knowledgeable cellmate can lead a dejected lover to suddenly realize, much to everyone’s surprise, that he is bound within the matrimonial chains of a common-law marriage and his “spouse” cannot testify against him. She now holds the keys to his jail cell. Queue the invocation of the spousal privilege!
While preparing for trial on an aggravated robbery case, my trial partner, Stacey Mathews, and I had the difficult task of defending against just such a claim of spousal privilege based upon the allegation of an informal marriage. Our case was based in large part upon the testimony of the defendant’s girlfriend who was now claiming to be the defendant’s wife and who planned on invoking the spousal privilege at trial. If the court determined that a marriage existed, we would lose the girlfriend’s testimony and several pieces of jail mail, which contained numerous stunning admissions of guilt.
This article will provide a brief overview of the law, detail our efforts in disassembling what we believed to be a sham marriage, and, we hope, provide the reader with some basic tools to assist in combatting any future unfounded claims of spousal privilege.
Rule 504 of the Texas Rules of Evidence details the “Husband-Wife Privileges.” Contrary to popular belief there are actually two separate forms of spousal privilege.2 The first privilege addresses confidential communications made during marriage3 while the second privilege is testimonial and provides the spouse of an accused with a privilege not to be called as a witness for the State.4 Spousal privileges extend to valid informal marriages.5 “Once a common law marriage has been established it is generally given the same legal significance as a ceremonial marriage.”6 However, both privileges require the existence of a valid marriage.
On October 5, 2011, a masked robber walked into a local gas station in Taylor, pointed a gun at the clerk, and demanded money. The clerk recognized the masked intruder and immediately began shouting, “I know you, I know you!” As a frequent patron of the gas station—and recognizing that his master disguise had failed—the robber immediately fled the store and returned to his apartment, which was a whopping three blocks away. Upon returning home, the defendant shared important details of the incident with his girlfriend and prepared for his impending arrest. The defendant was arrested the next day and charged with aggravated robbery.
This letter preceded several others addressed to his girlfriend in which he alluded to his involvement in the armed robbery and made similar admissions. In preparation for trial we began to interview witnesses and one day found ourselves meeting with whom we considered to be the defendant’s girlfriend. She appeared to be very cooperative, indicated that she would be truthful if called to testify, never referred to the defendant as her husband, and most certainly did not give the impression that there was any form of marriage between the two. As the case progressed toward trial the jail mail conversations began to center on the need to invoke spousal privilege to prevent damaging testimony during trial. Eventually it was disclosed to the State that an informal marriage existed and the “wife” would invoke the spousal privilege if called to testify during trial.
I have often been told that hindsight is 20/20. I sat and pondered how I had been so naïve to have missed such an obvious evidentiary problem. Eventually my frustration turned to motivation, and my trial partner and I set out to disassemble what we believed to be a sham marriage. Our case relied in large part on introducing the girlfriend’s testimony and, through her, presenting several pieces of jail mail in which the defendant admitted to committing the offense. If the defendant was able to establish the existence of an informal marriage, not only would we lose the girlfriend’s testimony, but we also risked losing the jail mail admissions, as they could conceivably be classified as confidential communications made during the marriage.
Whether an informal marriage existed was a question of fact, and as the defendant was the party attempting to establish the existence of an informal marriage, the defense bore the burden of proving the above elements by a preponderance of the evidence.21 Rule 104(a) of the Texas Rules of Evidence notes that “[p]reliminary questions concerning the qualification of a person to be a witness, the existence of a privilege, or the admissibility of evidence shall be determined by the court.” “When the existence of an informal marriage must be addressed as a preliminary issue, the trial court is the sole fact-finder and in that capacity may believe or disbelieve all or any part of any witness’s testimony.”22 Courts have traditionally applied “close scrutiny to claims of spousal privilege based on an informal marriage relationship.”23 We now knew these issues would be determined at a pretrial hearing where the court would determine whether an informal marriage existed and if so, whether the spousal privilege applied.
The first element of an informal marriage requires that the parties have some agreement to be married.24 If we were able to demonstrate that the parties never actually agreed to be married, we could negate the first element required of an informal marriage. In researching this element we determined that an agreement to be married requires a showing that the parties “intended to have a present, immediate, and permanent marital relationship and that they did in fact agree to be husband and wife.”25 The parties could prove this element by direct or circumstantial evidence and the testimony of only one of the parties “constitutes some direct evidence that the parties agreed to be married.”26 We soon realized that there were only two people who knew if this agreement had been reached and we were not likely to locate any physical evidence to contradict this claim. Thus, we focused our energy in other areas and moved on to the second element.
In establishing the existence of an informal marriage, the second element of Texas Family Code §2.401(a)(2) requires that the parties live together in Texas as husband and wife. We were aware the defendant and his girlfriend were living together in an apartment on the date on which the convenience store was robbed. A subpoena was issued for the apartment lease and our investigator personally served it on the apartment manager. A review of the lease indicated that the parties moved into the apartment approximately seven months prior to the robbery. We interviewed a friend of the girlfriend and the defendant’s previous employer who both told us the couple had a somewhat rocky relationship that began approximately two years earlier.
A few months after the birth of their first child, the defendant moved to Taylor from Houston for a short time and then returned to Houston. He eventually returned to Taylor and the two lived with a friend and eventually moved into an apartment on their own. However, we learned the defendant would frequently leave, sometimes for extended periods. In speaking with the local police department we discovered that the girlfriend had filed a missing persons report during one such episode. However, despite evidence the couple had a somewhat rocky relationship with intermittent breaks, we were aware that “cohabitation need not be continuous for a couple to enter into a common-law marriage.”27 Still not having located our smoking gun, we determined to focus our efforts on the third and final element.
The first item of evidence, the apartment lease, appeared to have been filled out by the parties and indicated that they were married. We spoke with the apartment manager who informed us that, during her interactions with the couple, they held themselves out as husband and wife. However, the application and attached documents were inconsistent. At one point the girlfriend used her maiden name and at other points adopted the defendant’s last name. We disclosed this information to defense counsel and provided him with a copy of the lease.
We located another offense report from when the girlfriend had reported the defendant as a missing person. The initial report taken by the officer again referred to the defendant as the “common law husband.” However, after we obtained the recorded 9-1-1 call, it was clear the girlfriend called to “report her boyfriend missing” and at no time referred to him as her common law husband. This officer had unfortunately made the same assumption as the first officer.
Determined to demonstrate this was a marriage of convenience, we continued to review the physical evidence. We were able to obtain a copy of the girlfriend’s college application, which was executed approximately two months prior to the robbery. On this handwritten application she noted she was both “single” and “single and pregnant.” This document was filled out using her maiden name and contained her signature. Additionally, the electronic documents that were used to determine her eligibility for student loans reflected her marital status to be “single” and contained a similar date.
Spurred on by our recent discovery, we continued to gather documents that would demonstrate that an informal marriage did not exist and was simply a ruse to prevent the State from obtaining valuable testimony. The next set of documents we obtained was from the Texas Health and Human Services Commission and related to the girlfriend’s application for state-funded welfare benefits. We discovered an application containing her signature that was executed approximately three months prior to the robbery in which she indicated she was single and the defendant was single, and which specifically listed the defendant as her “boyfriend.” Additionally, we located an application for state welfare benefits executed 12 days after the robbery in which the girlfriend indicated she was single. These documents strongly contradicted the claim that the couple had entered into an informal marriage.
Despite this discovery, we felt as if we needed a representative of the community who could testify to whether the defendant held his girlfriend out to be his wife. We were aware that “… standing alone, occasional references to each other as ‘husband’ and ‘wife’ and the like are insufficient to establish an informal marriage.”33 The final element of an informal marriage requires both parties to have represented themselves as a married couple.34 We were able to locate the defendant’s previous employer who informed us the defendant worked on and off for him for approximately one year. During this time period he interacted closely with the defendant and specifically noted that the defendant never referred to his girlfriend as his wife. In fact, he noted the defendant consistently held her out to be his girlfriend or “baby mama” but never his wife.
We were done. We had exhausted significant resources in an effort to demonstrate that the alleged marriage was a sham and a last-ditch effort to prevent incriminating testimony from entering into trial. Our final task was to marshal all of the evidence and present it to the court during a pretrial hearing.
In preparation for the pretrial hearing we found ourselves facing an ethical dilemma. As the party wishing to establish the existence of the privilege, the defendant bore the burden to prove the elements of an informal marriage by a preponderance of the evidence. If the defendant did not wish to testify, he would likely be required to elicit the girlfriend’s testimony. Bringing forth such testimony subjected the girlfriend to the possibility of self-incrimination and/or perjury. The evidence we had collected strongly contradicted the claim that she and the defendant were married, and the evidence would establish she had executed government documents and applied for financial assistance as a “single” applicant.
Understanding our ethical obligations—and in an attempt to avoid any appearance of impropriety—we determined that the best course of action was to request that the court appoint her an independent attorney to advise her of her rights. At the State’s request the court appointed an attorney to represent the girlfriend and the case was reset.
After meeting with the girlfriend, her attorney requested that the State grant her use immunity in exchange for her truthful testimony. We prepared a use immunity agreement and requested the court execute the document. The girlfriend had now been immunized and the road was cleared for a final hearing to determine whether an informal marriage existed.
Throughout this process we had kept the accused robber’s defense attorney appraised of the documentation we were recovering and prior to the hearing allowed him to review all of the documents. As the defense bore the burden, counsel began the hearing by calling the girlfriend. She admitted that no legal marriage existed. She testified that “in her heart she felt she was married” but she understood that she was not legally married. On cross-examination, she authenticated the documents we had collected and they were admitted into evidence.
The defense put forth a valiant effort in attempting to show that an informal marriage existed and that the witness had simply changed her testimony when faced with the possibility of criminal sanctions. The girlfriend’s mother testified that she considered the defendant to be her daughter’s husband and that the defendant and her daughter held themselves out to others as husband and wife. However, the court was not swayed by this position and later ruled that there was no marriage.
It had been our firm belief that the alleged marriage was one of convenience that was ordained for the purpose of thwarting the prosecution. However, after listening to the girlfriend’s testimony, I decided that the truth lay somewhere in the middle. Perhaps she did feel in her heart that she and the defendant were married. Perhaps she did have every intention of marrying the defendant at some point in the future. Unfortunately for the defendant, the law does not reward intentions of the heart with a marriage license.
1 Tompkins v. State, 774 S.W.2d 195, 209 (Tex. Crim. App. 1987) (quoting Welch v. State, 207 S.W.2d 627 (Tex. Cr. App. 1948)).
5 See Reece v. State, 772 S.W.2d 198 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 1989, no pet.); see also Tompkins,774 S.W.2d at 207.
6 Weaver v. State, 855 S.W.2d 116, 120 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 1993, no pet.).
9 Bear v. State, 612 S.W.2d 931, 932 (Tex. Crim. App. 1981).
16 Gibbons v. State, 794 S.W.2d 887, 893 (Tex. App.—Tyler 1990, no pet.); see also T.R.Evid. 504(b)(3).
20 Tex. Fam. Code §2.401(a)(2).
21 Small, et. al. v. McMaster, 352 S.W.3d 280, 282 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2011, pet. denied).
22 Kennedy v. State, No. 2-07-008-CR, 2008 Tex. App. LEXIS 4607 at *8 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth June 19, 2008, pet. ref’d) (not for pub.).
23 Reece, 772 S.W.2d at 200.
24 Tex. Fam. Code §2.401(a)(2).
25 Small, 352 S.W.3d at 283 (citing Eris v. Phares, 39 S.W.3d 708, 714 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2001, pet. denied)).
28 Tex. Fam. Code §2.401(a)(2).
29 Grigsby v. Reib, 105 Tex. 597, 153 S.W. 1124, 1130 (Tex. 1913).
30 Flores v. Flores, 847 S.W.2d 648, 652 (Tex. App.—Waco 1993, writ denied).
31 Small, 352 S.W.3d at 286.
32 Small, 352 S.W.3d at 286 (citing Danna v. Danna, No. 05-05-11472-CV, 2006 Tex. App. LEXIS 2368 at *4 (Tex. App.—Dallas March 29, 2006, no pet.)).
34 Small, 352 S.W.3d at 285.
35 Tompkins, 774 S.W.2d at 209 (quoting Johnson v. State, 122 Tex. Crim 224, 54 S.W.2d 140, 141 (1932)).

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