Opinion ID: 487424
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Altered States (of mind)

Text: 24 The State's position on appeal is that the jury in the Rodriguez trial did not necessarily decide De La Rosa's state of mind when he fired the shot that killed Lee. It contends that the jury in the Rodriguez case could have found De La Rosa shot at Lee and killed Rodriguez out of the sudden passion resulting from the struggle over the gun, without deciding De La Rosa's state of mind when he shot at and killed Lee. 12 25 The State's position is flawed in three respects: (i) the record reflects no evidence or argument to the jury to support a conclusion that De La Rosa's state of mind changed; (ii) such a verdict would be contrary to Texas law and could not have been upheld on appeal; and (iii) the two criminal acts evolved from the same criminal episode without sufficient separation to base a finding of changed intent. 26 In order to distinguish the two states of mind, the State relies on our holding in Douthit v. Estelle, 540 F.2d 800 (5th Cir.1976). In Douthit the defendant was indicted separately for raping a woman in three different counties during a twenty-two hour period. The defendant was first tried and acquitted of the third rape and contended that the acquittal collaterally estopped the State from prosecuting him for rape in the first assault. A realistic and practical inquiry into the jury's verdict demonstrated that the verdict could have been based on a change in the woman's consent between the different occurrences. The defendant offered evidence that the woman consented to the third act which was not present at the first abduction. Thus, the jury's acquittal of rape on the third occasion did not necessarily decide the woman's consent at the first rape because sufficient evidence was introduced to support a change in the victim's consent between the criminal acts. The criminal acts in Douthit were removed from each other by considerable time, distance, and circumstances which are not present here. Absence of Malice 27 We addressed a more analogous set of facts in Green v. Estelle, 601 F.2d 877 (5th Cir.1979), where two boys were abducted and placed in the trunk of a car and were both killed by a volley of gunfire into the trunk. On the basis of collateral estoppel, we held that the defendant's conviction of murder without malice for one of the killings precluded, on the basis of collateral estoppel, a conviction for murder with malice for killing the second boy. The record showed that the two victims were killed almost simultaneously and no one was able to tell from the evidence which boy was wounded first or which boy died first, id. at 879. No rational trier of fact could have found a change in the defendant's state of mind in that time frame under those circumstances. 28 Green is controlling on the instant case. Both Lee and Rodriguez were killed as a result of two shots fired by De La Rosa one after the other. The evidence does not show which victim was shot first and, if anything, supports the State's position taken at the Rodriguez trial, that the first shot killed Rodriguez. There was similarly no legally sufficient evidence indicating a change in Lee's state of mind between these two near simultaneous shootings. 13 His conduct in the death of both victims was the same, De La Rosa fired at Lee with the intent to kill Lee. 29 The Texas Court of Appeals reached a similar conclusion in Garcia v. State, 718 S.W.2d 785 (Tex.App.--Corpus Christi 1986). A street brawl of one to two hundred people and nine to fifteen police officers evolved from the violently opposed arrest of Garcia's brother and sister. Two police officers chased another subject near a residence and were standing next to each other when Garcia shot one of them with a shotgun. Officer Ayala testified that he heard a shot and saw his partner fall to the ground. He turned and saw Garcia with a shotgun and heard a clack-clack as Garcia pumped the shotgun and fired again at him. Ayala was able to jump behind a wall and out of the line of fire. Garcia was tried for capital murder for shooting a police officer and was convicted of voluntary manslaughter. Garcia challenged his indictment for attempted capital murder of the second police officer who was standing next to the first and was shot at a couple of seconds later. The court relied on Green in finding that the two acts were separate criminal acts but involved one state of mind. The State failed to introduce sufficient evidence on which a reasonable jury could find the defendant altered his state of mind.