Court Opinion

ID: 9777963
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 20:29:02.480117+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:33:02.817867
License: Public Domain

OPINION
ROBERTSON, Justice.
The jury rejected appellant’s not guilty plea, found him guilty of voluntary manslaughter and assessed punishment at confinement for ninety-nine years. Issues before us concern the prosecutor’s argument, a failure of the court to grant a change of venue, a failure of the court to quash the jury panel and an objection to the court’s charge. We affirm.
In his first ground of error appellant contends the court erred in failing to grant his requested mistrial during the prosecutors argument to the jury during the guilt phase. Appellant was charged with killing Ernest Gonzales who at the time was in bed asleep with appellant’s ex-wife, Mary Alvarado. Appellant and his ex-wife lived together from time to time following their divorce some nine years previous. In a pretrial motion and hearing, appellant sought to have Mary Alvarado’s testimony suppressed on the ground that she was the wife of the Defendant. After a lengthy hearing the trial court refused to hold as a matter of law that they were married. While Mary Alvarado testified during the first trial, comments made by her before the jury caused the appellant to request and the court to grant a mistrial. At the second trial she did not testify. During the prosecutor’s jury argument, during the guilt phase of the trial, the following occurred:
(Prosecutor) Mary Alvarado did not testify. I think that you heard enough as to their relationship that you can see that probably there was a common law marriage at some point. At some point after the divorce and before this happened they were living together as man and wife and if she is a common law wife as I told you on jury selection, she cannot testify against her husband, but she is the only eyewitness, and they sure as heck didn’t call her to testify for him.
(Defense counsel) Your Honor, we object to that particular remark made by the State that that’s not the law. It’s an *341improper comment. We would respectfully ask the Court to instruct the jury to disregard that comment.
The court overruled the objection and refused to instruct the jury to disregard.
On appeal, appellant now argues that the prosecutor “interjected new un-sworn and untrue testimony, implying to the jury first that Mary Alvarado was the wife of the defendant, contrary to the Court’s prior rulings and secondly that the State cannot call her to testify, when in fact the Court had held otherwise.” The objections appellant now makes were not voiced at trial and therefore present nothing for review. The trial court did not err in overruling the objection made because the comment made by the prosecutor, that “if she is a common law wife ... she cannot testify against her husband,” is a correct statement of case law. Urteago v. State, 169 Tex.Crim. 160, 333 S.W.2d 133 (1960). Appellants first ground" is overruled.
In his second ground of error appellant contends the court erred in failing to grant his motion for change of venue. Appellant filed his motion for change of venue, alleging that there exists in Brazos County “so great a prejudice against him that he cannot obtain a fair and impartial trial....” The motion was supported by the affidavit of three individuals. The state filed a controverting affidavit alleging that “[t]he affiants ... are not credible ... and their means of knowledge are not sufficient to support and justify the statements contained therein.” Thus, in accordance with Article 31.04, Tex.Crim.Proc. Code Ann. (Vernon 1966), the issue was formed to be tried by the judge and the motion granted or refused, as the law and facts warranted.
At the hearing on the motion to change venue, the appellant called the affiant to the state’s controverting affidavit as a witness. He established that she did not know either of the three affiants who swore appellant could not receive a fair trial. The appellant argued that since the state’s affi-ant did not know them, she “had no way of knowing whether or not they were prejudiced in favor of the defendant.” The appellant then moved to strike the affidavit on the basis that it “was not supported by sufficient facts to controvert” the appellant’s motion to change venue. Appellant now argues the court was bound to strike the controverting affidavit and, as a matter of law, grant a change of venue. We disagree. Appellant has not cited any authority nor are we able to find any supporting appellant’s position, that the sufficiency of the controverting affidavit is negated by the fact that the affiant does not know the affiants to the motion for change of venue or personally know they are prejudiced against the accused.
Once the controverting affidavit to the defendant’s motion for change of venue is filed, the burden is then upon the accused to prove he cannot receive a fair and impartial trial. Appellant did not call any witnesses to show that he could not obtain a fair and impartial trial. The only evidence adduced by appellant was that there had been three television newscasts, the longest of which lasted some thirty-six seconds, following the granting of the previous mistrial. Additionally, he introduced two short newspaper articles published shortly after the commission of the offense, one similar article following the grant of the mistrial and two such articles that the new trial was beginning.
The voir dire examination of the jury is not before us and there is nothing to show that any objectionable juror served or that appellant exhausted his challenges. No error is therefore shown. Phillips v. State, 168 Tex.Crim. 463, 328 S.W.2d 873, 876 (1959). The second ground is overruled.
In his third ground appellant contends the court erred in failing to quash the jury panel. As best we can understand from an extremely deficient record, upon the recommendation of the judges of Brazos County and pursuant to the provisions of then Article 2100a, Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat. Ann., the commissioners court of Brazos County adopted a plan for “selecting per*342sons for jury service with the aid of mechanical or electronic means.” Appellant filed a motion to quash the panel, alleging that “said plan does not comply with Sec. 2(b) Art. 2100a of Revised Statutes of Texas as the Source of Names in the Plan (Item 1) does not specify that the sources of names taken for jury purposes include the register of permanently exempt persons maintained by the county tax collector under Article 2137a.” He further alleged that “there is no register of permanently exempt persons maintained by the county tax collector of Brazos County, Texas as required by statute.”
At the hearing on the motion to quash the jury panel defense counsel offered a copy of the jury list, which does not appear in the record, and “Movant’s Exhibit No. 1”, stating that it was “the order for providing the selection of jurors here in Brazos County.” Defense counsel then set forth what he stated was:
the prior stipulation that [was] made on February the 4th, 1985 that there was no — or to this effect that there was no separate list of excused or prospective jurors over 65 that was maintained in the office of the Tax Assessor and Collector of Brazos County, Texas. I think that was the essence of the stipulation.
This was all the evidence produced on this motion. Based on this, the trial court denied the motion as follows:
All right, the basis of my ruling previously as well as today, overruling this motion to quash the jury panel, basically is that while the electronic jury selection order does appear to omit every requirement that the pool of prospective jurors include those names kept on a registered permanently exempt persons to be maintained by the County Tax Collector. I can see no way that the defendant can be harmed in view of the fact that since there is no list of permanently exempt persons maintained in this County evidently, therefore, all registered voters apparently are part of the pool of prospective jurors.
It is the duty of the attorneys to provide the appellate court with a record sufficient to pass upon the issues presented. The above sections of the record do not provide us a sufficient basis to address appellant’s ground of error. The third ground is overruled.
In his fourth ground appellant contends the court erred in failing to give his requested instruction to the jury at the guilt phase of trial that the jury could consider all facts and circumstances surrounding the killing and the previous relationship between the accused and the deceased.
The state challenges our consideration of this ground, contending that while there is a written requested instruction contained in the transcript, there is nothing in the record to show that it was ever presented to the court or that the court ruled upon the request. We agree. Nothing is presented for review. Appellant’s fourth ground is overruled.
The judgment is affirmed.