Court Opinion

ID: 9678038
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 06:09:27.653264+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:01.515544
License: Public Domain

ON STATE’S MOTION FOR REHEARING
CADENA, Chief Justice.
The evidence is sufficient to sustain the conviction of aggravated kidnapping. The relevant evidence is set forth both in the original opinion by Justice Butts and the dissenting opinion by Justice Dial.
While it is true that the kidnapping statutes do not define the term “terrorize,” however, TEX. PENAL CODE ANN. § 22.-07(a)(2) (Vernon 1974), which deals with “terroristic threats,”1 includes in the category of terroristic threats a threat to commit any offense involving violence with the intent to place any person “in fear of imminent serious bodily injury.” This statute affords ample support for the conclusion that appellant’s threat to kill Beckwith if she attempted to escape constituted a threat to use deadly force which would reasonably create a feeling of terror in the mind of the threatened person. See Rodriguez v. State, 646 S.W.2d 524, 525-527 (Tex.App. — Houston [1st Dist.] 1982, no pet.).
The only disagreement on the Court concerning the proper disposition of this appeal concerns the failure of the trial court to grant appellant’s charge on the lesser *459included offense of kidnapping. As pointed out in the opinion by Justice Butts, which is not withdrawn by this opinion, the evidence produced by the State is sufficient to raise the issue of whether appellant abducted Beckwith with the intent to terrorize her. Beckwith testified that no threats were made after the first afternoon of her ordeal, immediately following her abduction. After the first night, neither her hands nor feet were bound. She remained unfettered while appellant “fixed” the rupture of the vehicle’s water hose. She sat on the tailgate of the vehicle, unfettered, while appellant helped another motorist make repairs to such other person’s vehicle. She was allowed to go to the rest room unbound, and change her clothes. Appellant introduced her to others as his daughter, and there is no evidence that at such time appellant had any weapon on his person or nearby. At the roadside park where appellant was arrested, Beckwith, unfettered, climbed a fence for the purpose of “going to the rest room.” Appellant did not accompany her. Other people were at the roadside park, and the evidence establishes that all weapons which might have been available to appellant were in the vehicle with Beckwith, not on his person.
Although appellant and Beckwith slept side by side two nights, he made no effort to molest her or touch her in any way, and there is no evidence that appellant had a weapon on his person while he was asleep. Appellant’s statements concerning his intention to “show her off” to his friends and to buy her a house and a car constitute, together with all the evidence outlined in the preceding paragraph, a lack of intent to terrorize. The police who arrested appellant testified that Beckwith was quiet and subdued, although she was relieved by the fact that she had been rescued. There is no evidence of undue fright on Beckwith’s part.
The motion for rehearing is overruled. The original opinion by Justice Butts stands as written, except that the second sentence in the second paragraph on page five of her opinion is deleted.

. The caption to the 1979 amendment of Article 22.07 states that it is an act relating to “the offense of terroristic threats ...". Acts 1979, 66th Leg., ch. 530, p. 1113.