Court Opinion

ID: 9382243
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-03-25 18:11:45.400437+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:17:37.954348
License: Public Domain

NUMBER 13-22-00157-CR

                                 COURT OF APPEALS

                      THIRTEENTH DISTRICT OF TEXAS

                         CORPUS CHRISTI – EDINBURG

SULLIVAN O’NEAL ARNOLD III,                                                             Appellant,

                                                      v.

THE STATE OF TEXAS,                                                                     Appellee.

                       On appeal from the 52nd District Court
                             of Coryell County, Texas.

                             MEMORANDUM OPINION 1

       Before Chief Justice Contreras and Justices Silva and Peña
           Memorandum Opinion by Chief Justice Contreras

       A jury convicted Appellant Sullivan O’Neal Arnold III of driving while intoxicated

(DWI), third or more offense, a third-degree felony. See TEX. PENAL CODE ANN. §§ 49.04;

        1 This case was transferred from the Tenth Court of Appeals in Waco to this Court pursuant to a

docket equalization order issued by the Supreme Court of Texas. See TEX. GOV’T CODE ANN. § 73.001.
49.09(b)(2). Appellant pleaded “true” to an enhancement paragraph in the indictment,

increasing his punishment range to a second-degree felony, and the jury assessed

punishment at fifteen years’ incarceration in the Correctional Institutions Division of the

Texas Department of Criminal Justice. See id. §§ 12.33(a), 12.42(a). By two issues,

appellant contends that (1) there was legally insufficient evidence to prove his prior DWI

convictions, and (2) the “trial court erred in instructing the jury to find [him] guilty on an

element of the offense.” We affirm the trial court’s judgment.

                                    I.     BACKGROUND

       A grand jury indicted appellant on September 16, 2021. The indictment alleged

that on or about May 4, 2021, in Coryell County, appellant “did then and there operate a

motor vehicle in a public place while [he] was intoxicated.” See id. § 49.04. The indictment

also alleged that appellant had two prior DWI convictions in Mississippi. Trial commenced

on March 22, 2022.

       Officer Roger Snow of the City of Copperas Cove Police Department testified that

he was working the night shift on May 4, 2021. Officer Snow parked his cruiser in a

parking lot to “do[] traffic control.” Around 11:00 p.m., he saw a car pass him at a high

speed. Because his handheld speed radar was not with him, Officer Snow pulled out into

traffic to pace the vehicle, a process by which an officer “get[s] up to a speed until the

vehicle is no longer getting closer or further away so [the officer] can determine [the

vehicle’s] speed.” Officer Snow determined the driver was speeding, so he approached

the vehicle and activated his emergency lights, but the driver raced off. Officer Snow gave

chase. At some point, the fleeing car skidded over potholes and a curb, rupturing its tires

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and radiator, and ultimately came to a stop. Appellant immediately exited the car with his

hands raised, and Officer Snow and his partner secured appellant in handcuffs. Appellant

refused to provide a breath sample to measure his blood alcohol content (BAC), so the

officers obtained a signed warrant to draw appellant’s blood. McCayla Lopez, a Texas

Department of Public Safety forensic scientist, testified that the blood drawn from

appellant showed a BAC of 0.137. Appellant was charged with evading arrest with a

vehicle and DWI. 2

        Following Officer Snow’s testimony, the State moved, without objection, to

introduce appellant’s stipulation as to his two prior DWI convictions alleged in the

indictment. The stipulation provided:

        1. [Appellant] is aware that he has a right to remain silent and not give any
           statement at all and that any statement he makes may be used against
           him at trial.

        2. Any statement [appellant] makes may be used against him at trial.

        3. Knowing the foregoing rights, [appellant], upon consultation with his
           attorney of record, waives his right to remain silent only to the extent of
           any stipulation contained in this document.

        4. I, [appellant], am the identical person named in the indictment in the
           above styled and numbered cause; and I have read the same and
           hereby agree and confess that:

                    On the 14th day of June 2011, in cause number 11-010879
                in Biloxi Municipal Court of Harrison County, Mississippi, I was
                convicted of an offense relating to the operating of a motor
                vehicle while intoxicated; and

        2Each charge was assigned a separate trial cause number. The two trial causes were tried together
on March 22, 2022, and resulted in two separate judgments. The appeals from the two judgments maintain
separate appellate cause numbers. This appeal concerns appellant’s DWI third or more conviction only.
Appellant’s counsel filed an Anders brief in appellant’s related appeal, No. 13-22-00156-CR, concerning
his evading arrest with a vehicle conviction.
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                 On the 7th day of November 2012, in cause number
              2001209310 in the Pascagoula Municipal Court of Jackson
              County, Mississippi, I was convicted of an offense relating to
              the operating of a motor vehicle while intoxicated and both of
              these convictions became final before the 4th of May 2021.

The trial court admitted the stipulation into evidence as State’s Exhibit 7.

       Following the close of appellant’s case, the court proceeded to the jury charge

conference. Neither party objected to the charge, which provided in part that:

       A person commits the offense of [DWI] 3rd or More, if the person commits
       the offense of [DWI] and the person has previously been convicted two or
       more times of an offense relating to operating a motor vehicle while
       intoxicated.

              A person commits the offense of [DWI] if the person is intoxicated
       while operating a motor vehicle in a public place.

               The Defendant has stipulated to two prior [DWI] offense convictions.
       You are instructed to find those elements have been established and that
       the jurisdiction of this District Court has been established. With respect to
       the evidence concerning the defendant having been two times previously
       convicted of being intoxicated while operating a motor vehicle in a public
       place, you are instructed that you cannot consider such evidence as in any
       manner proving or tending to prove that the defendant was intoxicated or
       operated a motor vehicle in a public place on the 4th day of May 2021.

       The jury deliberated, found appellant guilty of DWI third or more, and assessed

punishment at fifteen years’ incarceration. This appeal followed.

                           II.    SUFFICIENCY OF THE EVIDENCE

       Appellant does not dispute the sufficiency of the evidence to convict him of DWI

stemming from the incident on May 4, 2021. He does allege by his first issue that the

evidence of his two prior convictions was legally insufficient. We disagree.

A.     Standard of Review

       “In reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence to support a conviction, we consider

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the evidence ‘in the light most favorable to the verdict’ to determine whether any rational

trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable

doubt.” Delagarza v. State, 635 S.W.3d 716, 723 (Tex. App.—Corpus Christi–Edinburg

2021, pet. ref’d) (quoting Stahmann v. State, 602 S.W.3d 573, 577 (Tex. Crim. App.

2020)); see Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319 (1979).

       “The sufficiency of the evidence is measured by comparing the evidence produced

at trial to ‘the essential elements of the offense as defined by the hypothetically correct

jury charge.’” Curlee v. State, 620 S.W.3d 767, 778 (Tex. Crim. App. 2021) (quoting Malik

v. State, 953 S.W.2d 234, 240 (Tex. Crim. App. 1997)). “A hypothetically correct jury

charge ‘accurately sets out the law, is authorized by the indictment, does not

unnecessarily increase the State’s burden of proof or unnecessarily restrict the State’s

theories of liability, and adequately describes the particular offense for which the

defendant was tried.’” Id. (quoting Malik, 953 S.W.2d at 240).

       A hypothetically correct charge would instruct the jury that a person commits the

offense of DWI, third or more, as alleged in the indictment, if he “is intoxicated while

operating a motor vehicle in a public place,” see TEX. PENAL CODE ANN. § 49.04, and it is

shown that he “has previously been convicted . . . two times of any other offense relating

to the operating of a motor vehicle while intoxicated,” see id. § 49.09(b)(2). Any other

“[o]ffense relating to the operating of a motor vehicle while intoxicated” includes, among

other things, “an offense under the laws of another state that prohibit the operation of a

motor vehicle while intoxicated.” Id. § 49.09(c)(1)(F). As here, “when prior convictions are

used to elevate what would otherwise be a misdemeanor offense to the level of a felony,

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they must be pled in the indictment for the trial court to gain jurisdiction.” Tamez v. State,

11 S.W.3d 198, 201 (Tex. Crim. App. 2000).

B.     Stipulating to Prior Convictions

       “To establish that a defendant has been convicted of a prior offense, the State

must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that (1) a prior conviction exists, and (2) the

defendant is linked to that conviction.” Flowers v. State, 220 S.W.3d 919, 921 (Tex. Crim.

App. 2007). “No specific document or mode of proof is required to prove these two

elements. There is no ‘best evidence’ rule in Texas that requires that the fact of a prior

conviction be proven with any document, much less any specific document.” Id. “While

evidence of a certified copy of a final judgment and sentence may be a preferred and

convenient means, the State may prove both of these elements in a number of different

ways, including . . . the defendant’s admission or stipulation.” Id. at 921–22 (footnotes

omitted); see Tamez, 11 S.W.3d at 202 (concluding in part that a defendant’s stipulation

to previous DWI convictions should suffice to prove the prior convictions).

       A stipulation “conced[es] for the purposes of the trial the truth of some alleged fact”

such that “the fact is thereafter to be taken for granted; so that the one party need offer

no evidence to prove it, and the other is not allowed to disprove it.” Bryant v. State, 187

S.W.3d 397, 400 (Tex. Crim. App. 2005). Stipulating to prior convictions serves as “a

judicial admission which remove[s] the need for proof of those convictions.” Id. at 402.

Thus, by entering a stipulation in a criminal case on a particular element, a defendant

“waive[s] ‘his right to put the government to its proof of that element.’” Id. (quoting United

States v. Harrison, 204 F.3d 236, 240 (D.C. Cir. 2000)). The defendant “cannot complain

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on appeal that the State failed to prove ‘an element to which he confessed.’” Id. (quoting

United States v. Branch, 46 F.3d 440, 442 (5th Cir. 1995) (per curiam)); see also Sanchez

v. State, No. 13-15-00223-CR, 2016 WL 872535, at *3 (Tex. App.—Corpus Christi–

Edinburg Feb. 18, 2016, no pet.) (mem. op., not designated for publication) (“Based on

Bryant, we conclude that . . . [appellant] may not challenge whether the State proved the

element to which he stipulated beyond a reasonable doubt.”).

C.     Analysis

       Because appellant admits that he stipulated to his prior DWI convictions from

Mississippi, he cannot now claim on appeal that the stipulation failed to prove his two

prior DWI convictions. See Bryant, 187 S.W.3d at 400; Woods v. State, 398 S.W.3d 396,

400 (Tex. App.—Texarkana 2013, pet. ref’d) (concluding that appellant “was barred from

challenging the sufficiency of his [prior] DWI conviction [on appeal] because he had

stipulated to that conviction”); see also Sanchez, 2016 WL 872535, at *3; cf. Hartman v.

State, 198 S.W.3d 829, 843 (Tex. App.—Corpus Christi–Edinburg 2006, pet. struck)

(concluding that stipulating to prior convictions “arguably rises to the level of estoppel

when it comes to challenging the legitimacy of using those priors,” and such challenges

may also be barred by the law of invited error). We overrule appellant’s first issue.

                               III.   JURY CHARGE ERROR

       By his second issue, appellant contends that the trial court erred when it “partially

instructed the jury to find an element of the offense—namely that the [two prior DWI]

jurisdictional convictions were ‘established.’” Appellant contends that the instruction

“impermissibly granted the State a partial directed verdict on an element of the offense.”

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       In reviewing a challenge to a jury charge, we undertake a two-step analysis. Price

v. State, 457 S.W.3d 437, 440 (Tex. Crim. App. 2015). We first determine whether the

jury charge contained error. Id. If error is found, we then “analyze the harm resulting from

the error.” Id. “A jury charge must distinctly set forth the law applicable to the case and

set out all of the essential elements of the offense.” Martin v. State, 200 S.W.3d 635, 639

(Tex. Crim. App. 2006); see TEX. CODE CRIM. PROC. ANN. art. 36.14. Jurisdictional

elements are essential. Martin, 200 S.W.3d at 639. Thus, when the State charges a

defendant with a DWI third or more, the jury charge should instruct the jury “about the

existence and effect of a defendant’s stipulation to the two jurisdictional prior DWI

convictions.” Id. at 637; see Tamez, 11 S.W.3d at 201. There are several ways by which

the trial court can instruct the jury about the stipulated prior convictions. Martin, 200

S.W.3d at 639. One “way is to simply charge the elements of the underlying DWI offense

and include a paragraph stating that the defendant has stipulated to the existence of two

(specified or unspecified) prior DWI convictions, and thus the jury is directed to find that

those elements of felony DWI are established.” Id.

       Here, the charge informed the jury that defendant stipulated to two prior DWI

convictions, and instructed the jury to find that the two jurisdictional DWI offenses were

established. These instructions are acceptable under Martin; indeed, they track one of

the examples provided in the opinion. See 200 S.W.3d at 639; see also Brown v. State,

No. 10-17-00343-CR, 2018 WL 4926209, at *3 (Tex. App.—Waco Oct. 10, 2018, pet.

ref’d) (mem. op., not designated for publication) (concluding that a virtually identical jury

charge in a DWI third or more case was proper under Martin); Moore v. State, No. 06-14-

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00056-CR, 2015 WL 832266, at *6 (Tex. App.—Texarkana Feb. 25, 2015, no pet.) (mem.

op., not designated for publication) (overruling appellant’s argument that the trial court

improperly instructed the jury on his prior conviction because “[t]he trial court’s instruction

fell squarely within the parameters of Martin”).

        Appellant argues that the court of criminal appeals wrongly decided Martin, that

the Waco court in Brown improperly relied on Martin in a case with similar facts, 3 and that

we should ignore both cases and instead follow the United States Supreme Court’s

holding in United Brotherhood of Carpenters & Joiners of America v. United States, 330

U.S. 395, 398 (1947). Appellant contends that “[i]t is the United States Constitution, as

interpreted by the United States Supreme Court, that is the supreme law of the land,” and

when Texas case law conflicts with Supreme Court case law, Texas courts must follow

the latter.

        But, as an intermediate appellate court in Texas, we are required to follow the

decisions of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. See TEX. CONST. art. V, § 5(a) (“The

Court of Criminal Appeals shall have final appellate jurisdiction . . . , and its

determinations shall be final, in all criminal cases of whatever grade . . . .”); Wiley v. State,

112 S.W.3d 173, 175 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth 2003) (“It is axiomatic that a Court of

Appeals has no power to ‘overrule or circumvent [the] decisions, or disobey [the]

         3 In transfer cases, “the court of appeals to which the case is transferred must decide the case in

accordance with the precedent of the transferor court under principles of stare decisis if the transferee
court’s decision otherwise would have been inconsistent with the precedent of the transferor court.” TEX. R.
APP. P. 41.3. While unpublished memoranda opinions in criminal cases have no precedential value, see id.
R. 47.7(a), “we may take guidance from them ‘as an aid in developing reasoning that may be employed.’”
Rhymes v. State, 536 S.W.3d 85, 99 n.9 (Tex. App.—Texarkana 2017, pet. ref’d) (quoting Carrillo v. State,
98 S.W.3d 789, 794 (Tex. App.—Amarillo 2003, pet. ref’d)). And Rule 47.7 should not be read to “justify[]
unreasoned inconsistency on the part of an appellate court.” Carrillo, 98 S.W.3d at 794.
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mandates,’ of the Court of Criminal Appeals.” (quoting State ex rel. Vance v. Clawson,

465 S.W.2d 164, 168 (Tex. Crim. App. 1971)). And like our sister court in Waco noted in

Brown, to our knowledge, Martin is still the controlling precedent in Texas. See Martin,

200 S.W.3d at 639; see also Brown, 2018 WL 4926209, at *3. In any event, even if this

Court could circumvent a decision of the court of criminal appeals, we would have no

basis to do so here under appellant’s stated theory.

       In arguing against Martin, appellant cites Carpenters for the proposition that “a

judge may not direct a verdict of guilty no matter how conclusive the evidence.”

Carpenters, 330 U.S. at 408; see Sullivan v. Louisiana, 508 U.S. 275, 277 (1993)

(“[A]lthough a judge may direct a verdict for the defendant if the evidence is legally

insufficient to establish guilt, he may not direct a verdict for the State, no matter how

overwhelming the evidence.”). In Carpenters, the Supreme Court held that the trial court’s

improper exclusion of a requested jury instruction on an element of the relevant offense

may have amounted to a directed verdict on that element, as it was not clear that the jury

considered it. Carpenters, 330 U.S. at 408–09; see United States v. Mentz, 840 F.2d 315,

324 (6th Cir. 1988) (“[W]hen an instruction prevents the jury from considering a material

issue, it is equivalent to a directed verdict on that issue . . . .”). That conclusion satisfies

the Sixth Amendment requirement that “the jury, rather than the judge, [must] reach the

requisite finding of ‘guilty,’” and the Fifth Amendment requirement that, to do so, the jury

must find each element of the charged crime beyond a reasonable doubt. Sullivan, 508

U.S. at 277–78; see U.S. CONST. amends. V, VI. But neither Carpenters nor any of the

cases appellant cites concerns an instance where, as here, the defendant stipulates to

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the facts establishing an element of the charge against him, and that stipulation is

presented to the jury.

        While he cites no authority on point, appellant’s constitutional contention is still

relevant in the stipulation context. “[W]hether the government’s duty to prove each

element of a crime beyond a reasonable doubt is diluted impermissibly if the jury

instructions do not submit the stipulation for the jury’s consideration” has never been

addressed by the Supreme Court and is a “thorny question [that] has divided the [federal]

courts of appeals.” United States v. Meade, 175 F.3d 215, 223 n.2 (1st Cir. 1999). This

includes submitting the stipulation but mandating that the jury find that the stipulated fact

or element has been proven. Compare United States v. Muse, 83 F.3d 672, 680 (4th Cir.

1996) (concluding that the stipulation must be submitted to the jury and suggesting that,

to preserve a defendant’s Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights, the jury should be instructed

that it may, but need not, find that the stipulated element has been proved beyond a

reasonable doubt); with United States v. Mason, 85 F.3d 471, 472 (10th Cir. 1996) (noting

that “by stipulating to elemental facts, a defendant waives his right to a jury trial on that

element,” and concluding that instructing the jury that they should find that a stipulated

element of an offense had been proven did not constitute a directed verdict on that

element because “the judge has not removed the consideration of an issue from the jury;

the parties have”). 4

        4When faced with the same issue, the Second, Third, and Sixth Circuits each sidestepped the
question of whether the trial court’s instructions were erroneous and instead analyzed the issue for plain
error—and ultimately affirmed the convictions in each case. See United States v. Gonzalez, 110 F.3d 936,
948 (2d Cir. 1997); United States v. Cornish, 103 F.3d 302, 306 (3d Cir. 1997); United States v. Jones, 108
F.3d 668, 673 (6th Cir. 1997).
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       We do not undertake further analysis of the issue, however, because the Supreme

Court has not opined on the matter. Thus, even if, as appellant suggests, this Court had

the authority to stray from an on-point decision from the court of criminal appeals that

conflicted with United States Supreme Court precedent, we would have no cause to do

so here.

       We conclude that the jury charge instructing the jury “to find [appellant’s two prior

DWI convictions] have been established” was not erroneous. See Martin, 200 S.W.3d at

640; Price, 457 S.W.3d at 439. We overrule appellant’s second issue.

                                   IV.     CONCLUSION

       We affirm the trial court’s judgment.

                                                               DORI CONTRERAS
                                                               Chief Justice

Do not publish.
TEX. R. APP. P. 47.2 (b).

Delivered and filed on the
23rd day of March, 2023.

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