Court Opinion

ID: 9772895
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 17:32:26.065648+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:49.097846
License: Public Domain

OPINION ON STATE’S MOTION FOR REHEARING
Raymond Edmund LaPoint, hereinafter appellant, was the driver of a van, equipped with sophisticated communications devices capable of intercepting police broadcasts, who transported one Daniel Gaston Shockley and a variety of implements, of a kind routinely used to commit burglary, to the front entrance of a pharmacy, locked and not then open for business, shortly after midnight. Shockley exited the van and entered the pharmacy. Appellant drove away, but was apprehended moments later and returned to the scene, where Shockley was discovered inside the building. Both were placed under arrest and charged with burglary. A jury convicted appellant of the alleged offense pursuant to an available statutory theory of complicity,1 and assessed his punishment at confinement in the Texas Department of Corrections for a term of 11 years and a day.
On appeal the Dallas Court of Appeals reversed the conviction due to a defective jury charge, citing Cumbie v. State, 578 S.W.2d 732 (Tex.Cr.App.1979). LaPoint v. State (Tex.App. 05-84-0069-CR, 1/4/85). We granted the State’s Petition for Discretionary Review and remanded to the Court of Appeals for consideration of the error in the jury charge in light of Almanza v. State, 686 S.W.2d 157 (Tex.Cr.App.1985), decided after the original opinion of the Court of Appeals.
On remand the Court of Appeals withdrew its original opinion and turned its attention to other grounds of error. In another unpublished opinion the Court of Appeals again reversed the conviction, holding that the trial court, over objection, had erred in instructing the jury that “the act of breaking and entering a building at nighttime raises a presumption that the act was done with intent to commit theft.” LaPoint v. State (Tex.App. 05-84-00669-CR, 12/30/85). We again granted the State’s Petition for Discretionary Review to determine the correctness of this second holding of the Court of Appeals.
On original submission, a majority of this Court affirmed the Dallas Court of Appeals, holding that a jury charge, drawn pursuant to V.T.C.A. Penal Code, § 2.052 *191and instructing that an intent to commit theft may be inferred from unlawful entry of a building at night, was erroneous and, under the circumstances of this case, harmful to appellant. We granted the State’s motion for rehearing to consider whether our harm analysis on original submission was correct. After reconsideration, we have concluded that appellant did not, in fact, suffer any harm from the instruction.
The analysis prescribed by Art. 36.19, V.A.C.C.P.,3 as authoritatively interpreted by this Court in Almanza v. State, supra, requires a determination by the reviewing court whether, in case objection was made to the charging defect at trial, the error “was calculated to injure the rights of defendant.”
In Almanza, this Court held that Article 36.19, V.A.C.C.P. (1974),[ ] prescribes the manner in which jury charge error is reviewed on appeal. 686 S.W.2d at 171. Instead of automatically reversing convictions for technical charging errors, an appellate court must undertake a two-step process of review. First, an appellate court must determine whether error exists in the charge. Second, the appellate court must determine whether sufficient harm was caused by the error to require reversal of the conviction. Id. See Jones v. State 720 S.W.2d 535, 536 (Tex.Cr.App.1986).
The degree of harm that must be present to require reversal of a case depends upon whether the error was preserved or unpreserved. Concerning error that was preserved at trial by a timely and specific objection, that error must have been “calculated to injure the rights of [the] defendant.” Article 36.19, V.A.C.C.P. (1974); Almanza, supra, at 171. In other words, a defendant must have suffered “some” actual, rather than theoretical, harm from the error. Id. Presumably, this Court chose the term “some” to indicate the minimum degree of harm necessary for reversal of cases involving preserved charging error. However, that term was left undefined.3 We now expressly find that, in the context of Almanza, supra, and Article 36.-19, supra, the presence of any harm, regardless of degree, which results from preserved charging error, is sufficient to require reversal of the conviction. Cases involving preserved charging error will be affirmed only if no harm had occurred. See Id. at 171 (“In other words, an error which has been properly preserved by objection will call for reversal as long as the error is not harmless.”)
Arline v. State, 721 S.W.2d 348, 351 (Tex.Cr.App.1986).
It is the defendant’s burden under Art. 36.19 to persuade the reviewing court that he suffered some actual harm as a consequence of the charging error. If he is unable to do so, the error will not result in a reversal of his conviction.
Under Almanza, supra, we examine the entire record of trial to determine whether appellant might have been acquitted, convicted of a lesser offense, assessed a more lenient punishment, or advantaged in some other significant manner, had the trial judge omitted from his jury charge the erroneous instruction on the presumptive effect of nighttime entry. Bearing upon *192this question is the character and quantum of evidence tending to indicate a larcenous intent, whether the objectionable instruction authorized inferences which would not otherwise have been available to the jury, the extent to which the instruction unduly emphasized the weight to be given selected evidence, and the manner or degree to which the instruction was exploited during final argument by the prosecutor.
The instruction here in question was a rather straightforward application of Penal Code § 2.05, supra, to evidence of nighttime entry. Accordingly, the jurors were informed that they might infer intent to commit theft from the mere fact of entry into a closed building at night. However, they were not required to make this inference and might have refused to do so even absent controverting evidence. Although the Penal Code refers to permissible inferences of this kind as “presumptions,” it is worth noting that they are neither conclusive nor rebuttable in the ordinary sense. Juries are not required by law to treat the predicate fact as anything more than relevant evidence of the presumed or ultimate fact — something they would be entitled, and perhaps also obliged, to do even without aid of any presumption. Under § 2.05, the jury was equally free to ignore the significance of nighttime entry in passing upon appellant’s intent, even if he had offered no other evidence of a nonculpable purpose. Cf. Bellamy v. State, 742 S.W.2d 677 (Tex.Cr.App.1987) (jury instruction constitutionally defective and harmful because it “never clearly informed the jury that it was free to reject the presumption”).
The problem with giving a § 2.05 instruction in the instant context is that the Penal Code nowhere identifies the inference from nighttime entry to larcenous intent as a “presumption.” Because § 2.05 expressly applies only “[w]hen this code or another penal law establishes a presumption,” it clearly does not apply where, as here, the inference principally represents a means for appellate courts to sustain the sufficiency of evidence on the element of larcenous intent in a burglary prosecution. Aguilar v. State, 682 S.W.2d 556, 558 (Tex.Cr.App.1985). The instruction is, therefore, erroneous not because it is false, but because the Penal Code does not expressly authorize it. Indeed, the instruction accurately describes a permissible inference which, if the jury opts to make it, will be held sufficient by an appellate court to prove larcenous intent.
However, and for the same reason, the giving of such an instruction when not expressly authorized by the Penal Code constitutes an impermissible comment upon the weight of evidence. Browning v. State, 720 S.W.2d 504, 508 (Tex.Cr.App.1986). It tells jurors that the evidence they heard is legally sufficient for an affirmative finding upon one essential element of the alleged offense. This our law expressly forbids. See Art. 36.14, V.A.C.C.P.
Nevertheless, in light of the evidence actually adduced and the closing arguments actually made, we are unpérsuaded that the accurate, albeit erroneous, instruction made any contribution to the jury’s verdict whatsoever. Mental culpability must necessarily be proven, if at all, by circumstantial evidence. Where it is alleged that an accused entered a building with intent to commit theft, and not that he committed or attempted to commit theft, it is to be expected that no direct evidence of appropriation exists. The jury must, therefore, infer intent of the accused from the circumstances surrounding his entry. Although appellant, who was convicted for his complicity in this burglary, based his defensive argument upon the claim that his codefendant, Daniel Gaston Shockley, entered the pharmacy believing it to be open for business, virtually every circumstance relevant to the question militates against the plausibility of his claim. When discovered inside the store, Shockley was crouched behind a shelf in such manner as to suggest deliberate concealment. The store, although illuminated somewhat by interior lighting, was significantly dimmer than during normal business hours. No other persons, let alone pharmacy employees, were then present, and Shockley’s representations upon being apprehended that he had remained in the store after it closed were patently false in light of the fact that *193one of the arresting officers had personally seen him enter the store only moments before. Indeed, the store had been closed for several hours when Shockley, by appellant’s own reckoning, entered it. It is little wonder, quite apart from the fact of nighttime entry, that the jury found his defense utterly implausible.
Certainly, the possibility of mistake would have been theoretically more probable had Shockley entered the store during daylight hours. But, given circumstances of the instant cause, it seems certain that the jury would have convicted appellant anyway. Nighttime entry is a significant factor in determining criminal intent only because it tends to indicate a surreptitious purpose associated with criminality. When other circumstances fail to disclose such a purpose, the fact that conduct occurred under cover of darkness is sufficient to supply the deficiency. Here, however, no such deficiency existed. Appellant’s purpose was made abundantly clear by the plethora of burglary tools surrounding Shockley in the store, the possession by appellant of communications devices and other tools linking him with Shockley in the store, the total absence of any indicia that the pharmacy was open for business at the time, the demeanor of Shockley when apprehended, and the lack of any plausible motive for entry under such circumstances except to unlawfully appropriate the property of another. Since the sufficiency of evidence to establish appellant’s complicity is not challenged, his culpability is entirely dependent upon that of Shockley. In other words, if Shockley intended to commit theft from the pharmacy, appellant is responsible for such intent so long as he assisted Shockley in the manner prescribed by Penal Code § 7.02(a)(2).
Moreover, the prosecutor made very little of the nighttime entry during his summation to the jury. Naturally, he called attention to the circumstance, just as he would have been entitled to do even without benefit of an instruction from the trial judge. But of greatest importance, he made no attempt to exploit the instruction unfairly by arguing, for example, that the circumstance of nighttime entry should be given special significance under the law or that it had the judge’s personal imprimatur. Rather, it formed the least of his argument that Shockley intended by his unlawful entry to commit the offense of theft. Thus, to the extent that the prosecutor’s argument might have been persuasive to the jury upon this element of the crime, we are unable to conclude that it would have been any less so absent the erroneous instruction.
Having carefully examined the entire record of trial, we find that the appellant suffered no actual harm, as a consequence of the erroneous jury instruction “presuming” intent to commit theft from unlawful entry at night. Under the standard of review mandated by Art. 36.19, V.A.C.C.P. and Almanza v. State, supra, appellant’s conviction should not be reversed on appeal. Accordingly, the State’s motion for rehearing in this cause is granted, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and this cause is remanded to the Court of Appeals for consideration of appellant’s points of error not yet considered by the Court.
ONION, P.J., and CLINTON and DUNCAN, JJ., dissent.

. Appellant was convicted of burglary under the provisions of Penal Code, § 7.02(a)(2), which reads:
"(a) A person is criminally responsible for an offense committed by the conduct of another if:
“(2) acting with intent to promote or assist the commission of the offense, he solicits, encourages, directs, aids, or attempts to aid the other person to commit the offense;"

. This statute provides:
"When this code or another penal law establishes a presumption with respect to any fact, it has the following consequences:
"(1) if there is sufficient evidence of the facts that give rise to the presumption, the issue of the existence of the presumed fact must be submitted to the jury, unless the court is satisfied that the evidence as a whole clearly precules a finding beyond a reasonable doubt of the presumed fact; and
"(2) if the existence of the presumed fact is submitted to the jury, the court shall charge the jury, in terms of the presumption and the specific element to which it applies, as follows:
"(A) that the facts giving rise to the presumption must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt;
"(B) that if such facts are proven beyond a reasonable doubt the jury may find that the *191element of the offense sought to be presumed exists, but it is not bound to so find;
"(C) that even though the jury may find the existence of such element, the state must prove beyond a reasonable doubt each of the other elements of the offense charged; and
"(D) if the jury has a reasonable doubt as to the existence of a fact or facts giving rise to the presumption, the presumption fails and the jury may not consider the presumption for any purpose.”

. This statute provides:
"Whenever it appears by the record in any criminal action upon appeal that any requirement of Articles 36.14, 36.15, 36.16, 36.17 and 36.18 [V.A.C.C.P., relating to the trial court’s charge to the jury] has been disregarded, the judgment shall not be reversed unless the error appearing from the record was calculated to injure the rights of defendant, or unless it appears from the record that the defendant has not had a fair and impartial trial. All objections to the charge and to the refusal of special charges shall be made at the time of the trial.”

. Strictly speaking, “some" indicates "an unknown, undetermined, or unspecified unit or thing." Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary 1107 (5th ed. 1977).