Court Opinion

ID: 9674992
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:38:44.576012+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:30.611055
License: Public Domain

ON APPELLANT’S MOTION FOR REHEARING EN BANC
BUTTS, Justice.
Appellant initially asserted six points of error appealing his conviction for indecency with a child. He now invites this court to reexamine its panel opinion for error in three particulars: the extraneous offenses question, the double jeopardy question, and the proof of venue question (sufficiency of the evidence). The earlier unchallenged portions of the panel opinion will continue while this en banc decision replaces the three challenged portions of the original opinion. The motion for rehearing is overruled.
Yenue
We first address the venue point. Appellant maintains the original opinion of the court summarily disposed of the question of sufficiency of the evidence based on failure of the State to prove venue beyond a reasonable doubt. While it is correct that venue must be proved by the State, the burden is by a preponderance of the evidence, not beyond a reasonable doubt. TexCode CRiM. PROcAnn. art. 13.17 (Vernon 1977). “Venue is not a ‘criminative fact’ and thus, not a constituent element of the offense.” Fairfield v. State, 610 S.W.2d 771, 779 (Tex.Crim.App.1981).
Improper venue, not being a jurisdictional flaw, may be waived by the defendant’s failure to raise it as an issue at trial. Fairfield v. State, 610 S.W.2d at 779. The appellate court will presume that venue was established absent appropriate presentation by the defendant of such issue below. Id. Therefore, any appellate error based on lack *890of proof of venue was waived in this case since that issue was not raised at trial below.
However, this is not to suggest that venue was not established at trial. We recognized in the original opinion that venue may be established by either direct or circumstantial evidence. See Black v. State, 645 S.W.2d 789, 790 (Tex.Crim.App.1983). The complainant-child testified that the offense occurred in her home in Floresville, and the Department of Human Services worker further testified that appellant and complainant lived in a trailer located at 501 Goliad Road, Wilson County, Texas. Even if the issue had been raised, the proof of venue would be sufficient. The point was properly overruled.
Double Jeopardy
Appellant’s first trial ended in a mistrial. Before the present trial began, the trial court overruled a motion to dismiss the indictment for prior jeopardy and overruled appellant’s special plea of jeopardy under Tex.Code CRImPROcAnn. art. 27.05 (Vernon 1989).
Appellant contends on rehearing that this court erred by not deciding the double jeopardy question on independent state constitutional grounds. See Tex. Const, art. I, § 14. The double jeopardy protections found in the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution are mirrored in the Texas Constitution.1 Appellant based his double jeopardy claim on both the state and federal provisions:
[Appellant] moves the Court to dismiss with prejudice these Indictments on the basis that the Defendant has formerly been placed in jeopardy for the same offense, arising out of the same transaction, and that the second trial of this cause under the same Indictments violates the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States and Article I, Section 5 (sic) of the Texas Constitution. ...
This court will therefore look to cases which reflect application of both the state and federal constitutional provisions. The record shows the first trial began in June, 1989. During testimony of complainant, who was the State’s first witness, appellant requested a mistrial, and the court granted it.
The 10-year-old complainant testified that she left two notes in the school counselor’s mail box at her Floresville elementary school. She wrote the notes without indicating what she wished to discuss with the counselor. She said that when the counselor met with her, the complainant told the counselor of past and continuing sexual abuse by appellant. There was no objection.
The complainant continued her testimony, stating that the abuse began about four or five years before. Appellant objected then. Defense counsel argued that pretrial discovery materials given to appellant as ordered by the court did not include mention of past and ongoing sexual abuse or the fact that the two notes to the counselor existed. Arguing surprise and prejudice, appellant moved for a mistrial.
The State responded that appellant had been given a doctor’s report, a videotape interview of the child, and a report from the Department of Human Services, all of them indicating more than one alleged sexual abuse had occurred in the past and was ongoing rather than an isolated event. The State also argued that the two notes were mere requests for an appointment with the school counselor but contained no mention of the subject to be discussed. The State further argued that the same information regarding ongoing abuse had been discussed in voir dire and also that the complainant had already testified that the abuses happened in the past and were ongoing, and appellant had not objected. The trial court granted a mistrial but did not declare the reason.
Before the present trial began the court conducted a hearing on appellant’s motion to dismiss and the special plea. Appellant maintained that the State wrongfully withheld the two notes (called “two written statements”) of the complainant. The prosecutor *891stated she never knew about the notes and since finding out she had attempted to obtain them, but the counselor was unable to find them in the school files. She stated if they had been available, the State would have disclosed them to appellant.
Appellant continued to urge he was not aware of the past and ongoing nature of the alleged abusive acts, and the State had failed to disclose that. Assertions of these two discovery omissions by the State (failure to disclose the two notes and the past and ongoing nature of the sexual abuse charges) form the basis of appellant’s double jeopardy claim. Appellant contends mistrial resulted from intentional prosecutorial misconduct or overreaching.
The general rale is that when the defendant moves for mistrial, a double jeopardy claim will not bar retrial. In Oregon v. Kennedy, 456 U.S. 667, 102 S.Ct. 2083, 72 L.Ed.2d 416 (1982), the Supreme Court determined that “[ojnly where the governmental conduct in question is intended to ‘goad’ the defendant into moving for a mistrial may a defendant raise the bar of double jeopardy to a second trial after having succeeded in aborting the first on his own motion.” 456 U.S. at 676, 102 S.Ct. at 2089. The court referred to this as a “narrow exception” to the general rule. The narrow exception of Oregon v. Kennedy applies where prosecuto-rial overreaching or misconduct results in the granting of a mistrial on the defendant’s own motion. Without demonstration of that element, a double jeopardy plea will not bar a second trial. Texas cases interpreting article I, section 14 of the Texas Constitution are consistent with Oregon v. Kennedy. See Demouchete v. State, 784 S.W.2d 144, 146 (Tex.App. — Houston [1st Dist.] 1987, no pet.).
Thus, even if a defendant succeeds in aborting a trial by his motion for mistrial, he must still meet his burden of bringing forth evidence at the hearing on his special plea to demonstrate that the intentional misconduct of the prosecutor provoked him into moving for mistrial. In other words, the motive for the “goading” is the prosecution’s desire for a more favorable climate and opportunity to convict, and the defendant would not move for a mistrial and lose the present jury unless the prosecution forced his action.
The controlling question is whether the prosecutor in the present case intentionally acted to force a mistrial — to “goad” appellant into moving for a mistrial. The trial court conducted a hearing before the second trial and pointedly asked appellant to present evidence to support his contention that the mistrial was provoked by the intentional misconduct of the prosecutor. The record reflects appellant did not present that evidence. On the other hand, the State showed that it had provided appellant with a letter from the same school counselor indicating the reported proscribed conduct, and also that it had given him a doctor’s report and the child abuse/neglect investigation report of the Texas Department of Human Services in which the worker Norma Reyes wrote, “This has been happening for approximately one to two years, possibly longer ... [complainant] approximates she was about 6 years of age.... ” The documents also contained statements of explicit sexual conduct occurring “at times,” negating the theory of a onetime occurrence. At the conclusion of the hearing the trial court overruled the motion to dismiss and the special plea of double jeopardy. The issue was not submitted to the jury.
In Chvojka v. State, 582 S.W.2d 828 (Tex.Crim.App.1979), the court of criminal appeals stated:
Different considerations obtain, however, when the mistrial has been declared at the defendant’s request. Where the circumstances which occasion a mistrial are not attributable to prosecutorial or judicial overreaching, a motion by the defendant for mistrial ordinarily is assumed to remove any barrier to reprosecution, even if the defendant’s motion is necessitated by prosecutorial or judicial error. [Citations omitted.] Prosecutorial overreaching will be found where the government, through “gross negligence or intentional misconduct,” caused aggravated circumstances to develop which “seriously prejudice^] a defendant,” causing him to “reasonably conclude that a continuation of the tainted proceedings would result in a conviction.” *892United States v. Dinitz, [424 U.S. 600, 608, 96 S.Ct. 1075, 1080, 47 L.Ed.2d 267 (1976) ].
Chvojka v. State, 582 S.W.2d at 880-31. Since a plea of former jeopardy constitutes nothing more than a pleading and does not establish the truth of the issues of fact alleged therein, the burden is on the defendant to go forth at his second trial with evidence in support of his allegation of former jeopardy. Anderson v. State, 635 S.W.2d 722, 725 (Tex.Crim.App.1982).
In Anderson the court of criminal appeals held that while the mistrial did result from prosecutorial error, evidence at the double jeopardy hearing negated allegations of pros-ecutorial overreaching by means of intentional misconduct. Id. at 726. The evidence in Anderson failed to show that the prosecutor goaded the accused into moving for mistrial because of a fear that the jury might acquit the accused or the State might gain some advantage in a new trial.
In the present case the record is devoid of evidence that the prosecutor was guilty of any conduct which could be characterized as prosecutorial overreaching or intentional misconduct. In fact, in light of the evidence at the hearing, we cannot say that even ordinary prosecutorial error in the discovery process was shown. The allegations of prosecu-torial overreaching or intentional misconduct were rejected by the trial court after it heard the evidence, which, we agree, clearly negated those allegations.
The trial court answered the ultimate issue, whether the prosecutor intended to "provoke the accused into requesting the mistrial by not giving appellant the two notes, then unknown to the prosecutor, which contained only the child’s name, class, and free period for the counselor’s interview, and by not informing appellant there would be testimony that the alleged sexual acts had been occurring in past years as well as presently, where it was undisputed that appellant had received the noted reports referring to ongoing sexual activities as well as the videotape. The court did not err in overruling the motion to dismiss the indictment and the plea in bar of prosecution asserting violation of the federal and state double jeopardy clauses. The second point was properly overruled.
Extraneous Offenses
Appellant complains about the admission of testimony of his earlier sexual assaults against other children, clearly extraneous offenses. The three witnesses who testified to the extraneous offenses allegedly committed against them by appellant when they were children were appellant’s daughter and two nieces. We hold the trial court did not err in admitting the rebuttal impeaching evidence.
Since long before the passage of the Texas rules of criminal evidence in 1986, see Tex. R.CRIM.Evid. 402, 403, and 608, which sometime work to preclude admission of evidence of extraneous offenses, trial courts have allowed otherwise inadmissible evidence when “the door is opened” by direct defense testimony or when the evidence is admissible to rebut a defensive theory. This is still viable law.
Appellant testified and specifically denied committing the charged offense or that he would sexually abuse a child. Both his parents testified and denied that he would ever sexually abuse children. The direct defense evidence purports to show that he never had engaged in, nor would he ever engage in this kind of proscribed act (sexual abuse of children). These broad assertions exposed appellant to rebuttal proof of similar acts against other children. See Mares v. State, 758 S.W.2d 932, 936 (Tex.App. — El Paso 1988, pet. refd). Where a false picture is presented by the defense, the prosecution may impeach the defense witnesses’ testimony by introduction of extraneous offenses. See McIlveen v. State, 559 S.W.2d 815, 822 (Tex.Crim.App.1977). ■ Further, when the door is opened on direct examination by the defense, the prosecution has the right to inquire, under the exception to the general rule excluding extraneous offense evidence, about relevant extraneous offenses. See Bell v. State, 620 S.W.2d 116, 126 (Tex.Crim.App.1981) (opinion on motion for rehearing).
A psychologist testified for the defense, detailing her interview with appellant. She *893stated the interview revealed that he was emotionally mature and had a satisfying adult sex life. She confirmed that she believed what he told her in her discussion with him and that her psychological testing of him reflected that he did not display the lifestyle patterns usually present in child abusers. On cross-examination the prosecutor questioned the doctor about the interview. The psychologist then quoted appellant’s absolute denial to her that he was a pedophile: “He says he is not. He says he has never sexually molested anyone.” She indicated that he did not fit the profile of an accused sexual abuser because he did not have the characteristics. Further, the doctor testified on direct examination there was “the dynamic possibility of false allegations” by the child. It was her conclusion that the child was not telling the truth about the allegations and was engaging in retaliation against appellant.
Rebuttal testimony of extraneous sexual offenses was held admissible in Patton v. State, 717 S.W.2d 772 (Tex.App. — Fort Worth 1986), vacated on other grounds, 761 S.W.2d 1 (Tex.Crim.App.1988). The court stated the purpose for allowing the rebuttal impeachment was to correct the false impression given the jury by the defendant that this was an isolated incident, and that he was such a close friend of the sexual abuse victim and his family he would never intentionally do anything to harm them or cause them trauma. Admission of other sex offenses impeaching the defendant’s testimony was permitted. Patton v. State, 717 S.W.2d at 777. Accord, Wilson v. State, 730 S.W.2d 438, 440-41 (Tex.App. — Fort Worth 1987, pet. ref'd). See Ballard v. State, 464 S.W.2d 861 (Tex.Crim.App.1971) (extraneous sex offenses admissible to rebut defendant’s assertion that he did not “mess around with little children.”)
In the present case appellant also vigorously maintained he was the victim of a conspiracy engineered by the complainant and her mother, who were pictured as degenerates. Appellant presented evidence that the prosecution instigated by complainant and her mother, who had divorced him, was a “frame-up.” An accused’s claim that he was framed is a recognized defensive theory which may be rebutted by evidence of similar extraneous acts. Boutwell v. State, 719 S.W.2d 164, 179 (Tex.Crim.App.1986) (opinion on motion for rehearing). Under the circumstances in this case similar extraneous acts were admissible as tending to rebut appellant’s defensive theory and claim of a frame up. See Vandefifer v. State, 682 S.W.2d 605, 607 (Tex.App. — Texarkana 1984, no pet.).
Other defense theories were presented that complainant was jealous of her baby sister and her mother and this was the means to get rid of appellant, that she was an habitual liar, that a lesbian relationship existed between her and her mother which was witnessed by appellant, that complainant had an unnatural and overtly displayed interest in sex, and that complainant was striking back at appellant because he was a strict disciplinarian.
We hold the court did not err in admitting evidence of the strikingly similar extraneous sexual offenses.
No error is shown. The motion for rehearing is overruled.

. This court dismissed appellant’s habeas corpus action filed in 1989 with the ruling that this court did not have jurisdiction. That action is separate and unrelated to the special plea of double jeopardy in this appeal.