Court Opinion

ID: 9784457
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 20:45:29.275702+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:35:54.845340
License: Public Domain

LEE ANN DAUPHINOT, Justice,
dissenting.
I write separately because the facts of this case are confusing and make it difficult to understand which evidence must be and has been corroborated, which evidence must be and has not been corroborated, and which evidence does not require corroboration. Another issue is the evidentia-ry value of statements made by a nontesti-fying co-defendant, Kelly Munn, to third persons over objections to denial of confrontation. Appellant Alejandro Orona challenges the sufficiency of the evidence. The State was required to prove each and every element of the offense that it alleged Appellant had committed,4 not merely that something bad happened. It is easy to get swept up in the sheer brutality of what the State believes happened and to forget the mundane, unemotional role this court must serve. For these reasons, I write to perform a pedestrian analysis of the evidence.
The Evidence
Natalie Bazan was arrested while attempting to cash a forged check for Scott Sartain. Bazan and Brian Johns, her husband, searched for and confronted Sartain at Munn’s house and assaulted Sartain by hitting him. Munn joined in the assault as Sartain was trying to leave Munn’s house. Appellant entered the room, saw Munn beating up Sartain, and started kicking and hitting Sartain.
Munn said, “Go to sleep, bitch,” as he was hitting Sartain. Bazan and someone else, perhaps Sanjuana Garcia, “told them to stop it.” Bazan, Johns, Garcia, Melissa Morante, Jose Vasquez, and other people *466in the house except Munn and Appellant left while “the beating was still going on.”
All the above testimony came from Johns. The second count of the indictment alleged, in part, that Appellant intentionally or knowingly caused the death of Sartain by kicking or by punching him. There is no evidence of any other assault. If Sartain was beaten to death, under the law of transferred intent,5 Johns and Ba-zan are accomplices of both Munn and Appellant and subject to the accomplice witness rules.6
Johns also testified that on a later day he returned to the house at Munn’s invitation. He saw Sartain’s head in Munn’s hand, and Appellant was standing next to Munn at the time. Johns testified that on this visit, the house smelled of rotten garbage and spoiled meat — like a dead animal.
Rebecca Brauer testified that she had seen blood on Appellant’s shoe, that Munn and Appellant had mopped the floor one day, and that she thought Appellant had told her something in Spanish that she believed meant to feed and water the dog, although she knew of no dog. But she said that she had seen a pit bull puppy at Munn’s house before. Brauer had seen Sartain inject insulin and said that she found out later from Detective Ford that Sartain needed it twice a day, although he did not take good care of himself and injected street drugs.
Dennis Osborne had no connection to the beating of Sartain. Osborne testified that Munn had told him in Appellant’s presence that they had gotten into a fight with Sartain. According to Osborne’s statement to Detective Ford, Munn told Osborne that he and Appellant fought Sar-tain because Sartain owed Munn money.
Osborne testified that Munn told him that “they both beat on [Sartain].... They just whooped his ass.” According to Osborne’s statement to Detective Ford, Munn also told Osborne that they had tied Sartain up at one time. Osborne testified that Munn told him that Sartain had broken ribs, was dehydrated, and needed food because he was diabetic. In his written statement, Osborne reported that Munn had told him that he thought that he had broken Sartain’s ribs and that Sartain had trouble “getting up and walking around or breathing.” Osborne testified that Munn asked him to go get Sartain a hamburger and to feed and check on him. Osborne testified that he told Munn that he would but then did not. Appellant was not present for this conversation. In his statement to the police, Osborne said that Munn told him a day or so later that Sartain had recovered.
Osborne testified that at some point he returned to Munn’s house and saw Munn and Appellant mopping and taking trash out. The electricity had gone off, and “they left some food out and it stunk pretty bad in there.” Osborne said the house smelled like hot garbage and nasty meat. He had heard that Sartain was in the garage, but he did not see him. Osborne testified that a room behind the garage contained a lot of garbage bags, and the smell was stronger “back in that area of the house.”
While Munn was cutting Osborne’s hair in the bathroom and Appellant was mopping the hallway and the kitchen, Munn *467told Osborne that he could not believe that they had done that to Sartain and that they had not wanted it to happen. Munn told Osborne that “they cut him up.” Osborne testified that he was “not sure” but was “pretty sure” that Appellant overheard the conversation. Munn told Osborne that he had tried to get insulin for Sartain but could not find it. Munn also told Osborne that Sartain had died on Appellant’s watch and that Appellant was supposed to have given Sartain food and water but did not.
Osborne refused to help dispose of the body and never saw it. He saw a car that he later heard was Sartain’s. Osborne helped mutual friend Shannon Marlowe and another man load the car onto a dolly while Munn and Appellant were away from the house. He also helped put a couple of trash bags into the car, and he remembered seeing a bathtub in the bed of the truck pulling the car. He did not see what was in the garbage bags but described it as tree brush. Osborne heard that the car “went somewhere in Waco.”
Osborne testified that he had full access to the house and garage and could enter through the garage. He never saw Sar-tain or any blood in the garage or back room. But in his statement, Osborne said that he did not go to the house for about a week after Munn asked him to get Sartain a hamburger, and when Osborne did return, he saw what could have been blood stains.
Appellant had a running confrontation clause objection with regard to Osborne’s testimony as to all statements made by Munn.
Morante testified that she saw Appellant, Munn, Johns, and Johns’s girlfriend beating up Sartain. Johns was holding Sartain while the girlfriend beat Sartain. Then Munn, Appellant, and Johns joined in the beating and kicking. Morante said that she, Garcia, and Vasquez told them to stop, and Munn told her to shut up and stay out of it. When Morante left, she saw Johns dragging Sartain back toward Munn’s room. Morante and Vasquez went back the next day and heard loud music and moaning in the garage. She testified that both Munn and Appellant told her that Sartain was making the noise, and she noticed that both men had blood on the tips of their shoes. Morante also testified that Johns told her that he went in the garage and saw “that they were cutting him [Sartain] in pieces.”
Chris Craven testified in exchange for promises of leniency that Munn told him that “they” had cut Sartain up and put him in the trunk of a car and disposed of the body in the lake. Craven stated that Munn had explained that they had killed Sartain because he owed Munn money and that Munn had also told him that it was hard to get the smell out of the house and that they had used a lot of chemicals to get the smell out.
Munn showed Craven photos of Sartain on his cell phone. Sartain’s head was “like a melon.” Munn told Craven that he did not want to end up like that, and he should pay Munn quickly.
Analysis
There is testimony that Johns and Ba-zan participated in the beating. If section 7.02(a) of the penal -code alone is the law of parties, then the analysis is different than if section 7.02(b) is also the law of parties and not of co-conspiracy.7 The legislature may have intended section 7.02(b) to be the law of transferred intent, which origi*468nally applied to homicide cases8 and was later expanded to felony murder.9 The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in Montoya v. State,10 however, announced that both section 7.02(a) and section 7.02(b) of the penal code describe the law of parties.11 I have voiced my disagreement with this position.12 But if we are required to follow the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals’s analysis of section 7.02, then all co-conspirators are parties to murder, not to the offense of conspiracy to commit murder, and Johns and Bazan are parties to murder, not under the theory of transferred intent, but because they are co-conspirators, even though they may not have intended Sartain’s death. That is, the result may not have been the result they had intended, but they are still criminally responsible for the acts of Munn and Appellant.13 If Bazan and Johns are parties, their testimony must be corroborated by someone or something other than testimony of another party or the hearsay statement of another party.14
The State offered oral confessions of Munn, but Munn was not made available for confrontation and cross-examination, and there was proper objection.
Additionally, evidence of a beating is not necessarily evidence of murder. Blood on the toes of shoes corroborates testimony of assault by beating and kicking, but not necessarily of murder. ■ Evidence of the odor of garbage is evidence of a bad smell, but do we know that Sartain lay dead in Munn’s house long enough for the odor to be that of Sartain’s decaying body? There was testimony of food, including chicken and dumplings, left to rot on the stove when the electricity went out in the summer.
An alternative theory of prosecution was that Appellant intentionally or knowingly caused Sartain’s death by preventing him from obtaining insulin when Appellant knew that Sartain was an insulin-dependent diabetic. There is evidence that Munn knew Sartain needed insulin and that Munn told Osborne that Sartain needed insulin. Indeed, knowing Sartain needed insulin, and knowing Sartain was being held prisoner, Osborne told Munn that he would bring Sartain food but did not. Morante also knew that Sartain injected insulin. But what is the evidence that Appellant knew that Sartain would die without insulin?
The third theory of prosecution was that Appellant intentionally or knowingly caused Sartain’s death by a manner and means unknown to the grand jury. What is the evidence that Appellant, either as a principal or as a party, intended to cause Sartain’s death or knew that his actions *469would cause Sartain’s death? What is the evidence of murder rather than manslaughter?
The testimony against Appellant regarding his conduct after the original fight, other than testimony of his presence and his cleaning the house and garage, was primarily a recitation of statements by Munn. Munn said that he and Appellant cut up Sartairis body. Munn told Osborne that Sartain owed him and Appellant money and that they both had beaten Sartain and put him in the garage. But Munn also told Osborne that Munn was trying to find insulin for Sartain and that Sartain had died while Appellant was responsible for him.
The fact that the evidence may be admissible as an exception to the hearsay rule does not mean that it necessarily satisfies the burden of corroboration. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has discussed the application of evidentiary rule 803(24) in Guidry v. State,
We have recognized that Rule 803(24) “provides for an exception to the hearsay rule for a statement against the declarant’s interest (, but) ... does not provide a hearsay rule exception for a declarant’s statement which is against someone else’s interest, e.g. a third-party, a co-actor, or a co-defendant.” That is, unless the statement against the third party’s interest is also sufficiently against the declarant’s interest as to be reliable. For example, in Dewberry v. State, statements in which the declarant (“Chris”) incriminated both himself and the defendant, jointly, were held sufficiently reliable ... 15
The Guidry court explained that while a statement against the declarant’s penal interest may be reliable, it is doubtful that a statement against someone else’s penal interest possesses “particularized guarantees of trustworthiness” sufficient to overcome the presumption of hearsay unreliability.16 Additionally, rule 803(24) requires evidence that “corroborating circumstances clearly indicate the trustworthiness of the statement.”17 An accomplice cannot corroborate another accomplice’s testimony.18 What is the evidence that corroborates the statements of Munn and of the other accomplices? Indeed, what is the evidence, other than Munn’s statement that he tried unsuccessfully to find insulin for Sartain, that Sartain was deprived of insulin?
Lest I be misunderstood, I am not saying that the evidence is insufficient because there is an alternative reasonable hypothesis not consistent with Appellant’s guilt. I am asking what evidence corroborates accomplice testimony of intentional and knowing murder and whether the State can lawfully prove murder by accomplice statements that were not subjected to confrontation and cross-examination.19 Because the majority does not answer these questions, I must respectfully dissent.

. See Butler v. State, 769 S.W.2d 234, 239 (Tex.Crim.App.1989), overruled on other grounds by Geesa v. State, 820 S.W.2d 154, 161 (Tex.Crim.App.1991), ovemded on other grounds by Paulson v. State, 28 S.W.3d 570, 571 (Tex.Crim.App.2000).

. See Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 6.04(b) (Vernon 2003).

. See Kutzner v. State, 994 S.W.2d 180, 187 (Tex.Crim.App.1999); McFarland v. State, 928 S.W.2d 482, 514 (Tex.Crim.App. 1996), cert. denied, 519 U.S. 1119, 117 S.Ct. 966, 136 L.Ed.2d 851 (1997).

. See Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 7.02 (Vernon 2003).

. See generally Washburn v. State, 167 Tex. Crim. 125, 318 S.W.2d 627 (1958), cen. denied, 359 U.S. 965, 79 S.Ct. 876, 3 L.Ed.2d 834(1959).

. See generally Kuykendall v. State, 609 S.W.2d 791 (Tex.Crim.App.1980), disavowed on on other grounds by Cook v. State, 858 S.W.2d 467, 470 (Tex.Crim.App. 1993) (citing Madden v. State, 799 S.W.2d 683, 686 n. 3 (Tex.Crim. App.1990), cert. denied, 499 U.S. 954, 111 S.Ct. 1432, 113 L.Ed.2d 483 (1991)).

. 810 S.W.2d 160, 165 (Tex.Crim.App.1989), cert. denied, 502 U.S. 961, 112 S.Ct. 426, 116 L.Ed.2d 446 (1991).

. See Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 7.02.

. See, e.g., Barnes v. State, 56 S.W.3d 221, 240-41 (Tex.App.-Fort Worth 2001, pet. ref'd) (Dauphinot, J., concurring) (majority opinion overruled, by Bell v. State, 169 S.W.3d 384, 398-99 (Tex.App.-Fort Worth 2005, pet. ref’d)).

. See Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 7.02(b); Montoya, 810 S.W.2d at 165.

. See Tex.Code Crim. Proc. Ann. art. 38.14 (Vernon 2005).

. Guidry v. State, 9 S.W.3d 133, 149 (Tex. Crim.App.1999) (citations omitted), cert. denied, 531 U.S. 837, 121 S.Ct. 98, 148 L.Ed.2d 57 (2000).

. Id. at 151.

. Tex.R. Evid. 803(24).

. Tex.Code Crim. Proc. Ann. art. 38.14.

. See U.S. Const, amends. V, VI; Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 51, 124 S.Ct. 1354, 1364, 158 L.Ed.2d 177 (2004).