Court Opinion

ID: 9755387
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 20:36:49.231621+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:06.759033
License: Public Domain

KEM THOMPSON FROST,
Justice, concurring.
I agree with the majority’s analysis and disposition of appellant’s first three points. I also agree with the majority’s harm analysis under appellant’s fourth point. However, I respectfully disagree with the majority’s conclusion that the trial court did not abuse its discretion or violate appellant’s constitutional rights when it removed appellant from the courtroom during his capital murder trial.
Appellant asserts he was denied his right under the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution to be present at trial when the court ordered him removed. In Illinois v. Allen, the United States Supreme Court held that a criminal defendant may lose his constitutional right to be present at trial if, after he has been warned by the judge that he will be removed if he continues his disruptive behavior, he nevertheless “insists on conducting himself in a manner so disorderly, disruptive, and disrespectful of the court that his trial cannot be carried on with him in the courtroom.” 397 U.S. 337, 342-43, 90 S.Ct. 1057, 1060-61, 25 L.Ed.2d 353 (1970). In Allen, the Court held that the trial court acted within its discretion and did not violate the defen*131dant’s constitutional right to be present at trial, where the defendant’s behavior “was clearly of such an extreme and aggravated nature as to justify either his removal from the courtroom or his total physical restraint.” Id., 397 U.S. at 346, 90 S.Ct. at 1062. In Allen, the trial court had repeatedly warned the defendant, prior to his removal, that he would be removed from the courtroom if he persisted in his unruly conduct. Id.
Appellant’s behavior, as reflected in the record before us, was not of “such an extreme and aggravated nature” to warrant his expulsion from the courtroom. Nothing in the record approaches the level of disruptive, contumacious, defiant conduct necessary to justify the extraordinary action of removing a defendant from the courtroom during a capital murder trial. The majority’s opinion sets forth in its entirety the exchange that served as the basis for the trial court’s expulsion of appellant from the courtroom. That exchange does not justify the trial court’s actions under the applicable standard. Examples of conduct found to be of an “extreme and aggravated nature” include: (1) repeatedly arguing with the trial court in an abusive manner and threatening to Mil the trial judge, Allen, 397 U.S. at 339-40, 90 S.Ct. at 1059; (2) repeated, nonre-sponsive, profane, vulgar, and disruptive statements and behavior, Burks v. State, 792 S.W.2d 835, 836-37 (Tex.App.-Houston [1st Dist.] 1990, pet. refd); and (3) ignoring the trial court’s warnings not to disrupt the proceedings and engaging in a violent scuffle with the bailiff. Dotson v. State, 785 S.W.2d 848, 853-54 (Tex.App.Houston [14th Dist.] 1990, pet. refd). In each of these cases, there were multiple incidents of misconduct, followed by at least one warning, and then a clear failure of the defendant to heed the admonition. See Allen, 397 U.S. at 339-46, 90 S.Ct. at 1059-62; Burks, 792 S.W.2d at 836-37; Dotson, 785 S.W.2d at 853-54. Research reveals no case in which a single outburst or act of misconduct warranted a defendant’s expulsion from trial.
Here, appellant made one inappropriate outburst in front of the jury. Then, after the jury was removed, the trial court warned him that he “could only answer the questions you’re allowed to answer.” The court followed that admonishment with the inquiry, “Do you understand me?” Without waiting for a response, the trial court told appellant he could finish the trial “sitting in holdover” and then asked appellant if he could behave himself or if it would be necessary to “set [him] up in the holdover” where he could listen to the trial and not be present in the courtroom and “be disruptive.” When appellant challenged the court’s characterization, saying he “was not being disruptive” and attempted to offer an explanation, the trial court expelled appellant from the courtroom for the remainder of his capital murder trial. Curiously, the trial court and appellant’s counsel then agreed on the record that appellant had “voluntarily absented himself’ from the courtroom.
It almost seems as if we are missing a few pages from the trial transcript — pages containing other outbursts or a prior warning to cease disruptive behavior — but none exist, at least not in the record before us. The trial court acted as if the exchange that culminated in appellant’s removal from the courtroom was the “straw that broke the camel’s back;” yet, there is no other straw in sight — not even a hint of one. The majority, in tacit recognition that this case does not fit the pattern for constitutionally permissible expulsion, suggests various explanations, e.g. “a court reporter cannot accurately record simultaneous statements made by several persons” and the reviewing court “cannot discern the tone of appellant’s remarks or his *132demeanor in the courtroom.” These statements are true, and they are part of the reason trial courts have discretion to deal with stubbornly disruptive defendants. However, in determining whether the trial court abused its discretion, these considerations do not create evidence in the record to justify appellant’s swift and sudden expulsion from the courtroom during his capital murder trial.
The majority speculates that “appellant’s tone, volume, or demeanor must have been highly disruptive” based on the fact that “both the trial judge and appellant’s counsel agree[d] that appellant should be removed from the courtroom.” When, as here, the record is silent, we may not supplement it with conjecture about what else might have transpired off the record that would have warranted the trial court’s action, for example, appellant engaging in conduct that was disruptive or contumacious and receiving warnings to stop. Doing so would leave to the imagination of the reviewing court whatever “facts” may be needed to support the trial court’s action. Although a reviewing court may make logical deductions from matters in the record, it may not make logical deductions from matters not in the record. It is a simple and unforgiving rule of appellate review that we may not decide cases based on speculation or conjecture about matters not shown in the record. See Green v. State, 912 S.W.2d 189, 192 (Tex.Crim.App.1995).
The record in this case does not contain evidence of any other misconduct or statements that might have justified the trial court’s action. The record before this court shows only the following: (1) appellant made one improper statement in front of the jury; (2) outside the presence of the jury, the trial court asked multiple questions of the appellant; and (3) after appellant spoke nine words in an attempt to respond to the trial court’s questions, the trial court interrupted appellant and summarily ordered him removed from the courtroom without prior admonition or an opportunity to comply. On this record, the trial court abused its discretion and violated appellant’s constitutional rights when it ordered appellant removed from the courtroom during his capital murder trial. See Shaw v. State, 846 S.W.2d 482, 485-87 (Tex.App.-Houston [14th Dist.] 1993, pet. ref'd) (holding that trial court abused its discretion and violated appellant’s constitutional rights when it prematurely physically restrained appellant, even though appellant had not engaged in extreme misconduct).
In this country all citizens put on trial have the right to be present for trial. See Allen, 397 U.S. at 339-46, 90 S.Ct. at 1058-62. This right extends even to those accused of the unthinkable, such as the brutal murder of a toddler. Though the trial court has considerable discretion to deal with disruptive, contumacious, and stubbornly defiant defendants, the record in this case shows an abuse of that discretion when the trial court deprived appellant of his constitutional right to be present at trial with no previous warning and without conduct by appellant that was so disorderly, disruptive, and disrespectful of the court that the trial could not be carried on with him in the courtroom. See Allen, 397 U.S. at 342-43, 90 S.Ct. at 1060-61; Shaw, 846 S.W.2d at 485-87.
Although it was constitutional error to remove appellant from the courtroom during part of the trial, this error was harmless. See Jasper v. State, 61 S.W.3d 413, 422-24 (Tex.Crim.App.2001) (holding that trial court committed constitutional error by conducting part of trial without appellant in courtroom but that error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt). For reasons stated in the majority’s harm *133analysis, the trial court’s expulsion of appellant from the courtroom did not contribute to appellant’s conviction or punishment. Consequently, this error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt, and provides no grounds for reversal.