Court Opinion

ID: 9399479
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-06-04 07:11:43.684147+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:19:01.650525
License: Public Domain

Affirmed and Memorandum Opinion filed June 1, 2023.

                                       In The

                     Fourteenth Court of Appeals

                               NO. 14-22-00343-CR

                   ASPEN DAJUAR VANDURAN, Appellant
                                          V.

                       THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee

                    On Appeal from the 179th District Court
                            Harris County, Texas
                        Trial Court Cause No. 1607949

                          MEMORANDUM OPINION

      Appellant challenges his conviction for assault of a family member, arguing
in a single issue that the trial court deprived him of due process by refusing to
consider the entire range of punishment. For the reasons given below, we overrule
this issue and affirm the trial court’s judgment.
                                 BACKGROUND

      The complainant in this case was appellant’s girlfriend, and she testified that
there were two incidents of violence.

      In the first incident, appellant came home intoxicated to the apartment that he
shared with her. Despite his intoxication, appellant wanted to drive somewhere that
night, but the complainant opposed the idea, and a struggle ensued between them
over the car keys. During the struggle, appellant got mad, pushed the complainant,
and threw water at her.

      The second incident occurred a few days later. On the morning of that
incident, the complainant discovered text messages indicating that appellant had
been cheating on her with another woman. The complainant contacted the other
woman, who confirmed appellant’s infidelity. The complainant then told appellant
that she wanted to end their relationship and that she wanted him out of their
apartment.

      Appellant did not leave as requested. He threw mustard at her in an effort to
ruin her clothes. Then he grabbed her, pushed her to the floor, and started punching
her. Appellant eventually stopped and allowed the complainant to get off the floor.
But as she tried to leave, he grabbed her, pinned her against the cabinets, and started
to strangle her.

      Appellant let her go and then he left the apartment. He returned less than an
hour later with his mother, who was holding a handgun. Appellant’s mother yelled
at the complainant when the complainant tried to contact her ex-boyfriend. The
mother also pointed a gun at the complainant and tried to put her in a chokehold
when the complainant tried to contact the police.

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       Appellant and his mother left when a friend came to the complainant’s aid.
But before leaving, appellant picked up the complainant and body-slammed her into
the ground.

       A police officer met with the complainant on the day after the second incident.
He obtained the complainant’s statement and he documented all of her injuries.
Photographs showed that the complainant had extensive bruising on her arms and
chest, scratches on her neck, and petechia in her eyes. The officer testified that the
petechia were red dots left behind from expanding blood vessels, which corroborated
the complainant’s claim that she had been strangled.

       The defense challenged the complainant’s credibility with testimony from
both appellant and his mother. But the jury rejected that defensive strategy and
convicted appellant of assaulting a family member.

       Appellant elected for the trial court to assess his punishment. No new evidence
was presented during the punishment phase, which consisted solely of the parties’
closing statements. The prosecution began first, and after observing that appellant
had complied with the conditions of his bond without incident, the prosecution
proposed that appellant should be placed on community supervision for two years.
The defense proposed a term of community supervision of just one year. However,
the trial court assessed appellant’s punishment at one year of confinement in county
jail, which was the statutory maximum.

       Appellant now challenges the trial court’s judgment, arguing that “the trial
court had already determined what sentence it would impose even before arguments
were heard.”1

       1
          Appellant did not object at trial, but the Court of Criminal Appeals has determined that a
defendant cannot waive, by inaction, the right to be sentenced by a judge who properly considers
the full range of punishment applicable to the conviction. See Grado v. State, 445 S.W.3d 736,
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                                        ANALYSIS

       Due process requires a trial court to be neutral and detached when assessing
punishment. See State v. Hart, 342 S.W.3d 659, 672 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th
Dist.] 2011, pet. ref’d). A trial court improperly denies a defendant due process when
it arbitrarily refuses to consider the entire range of punishment or when it imposes a
predetermined punishment. Id.

       Absent a clear showing to the contrary, we presume that a trial court was
neutral and detached when it assesses a defendant’s punishment. See Brumit v. State,
206 S.W.3d 639, 645 (Tex. Crim. App. 2006). As the party challenging the trial
court’s assessment here, appellant had the burden of rebutting that presumption. Id.

       Appellant did not satisfy that burden because he did not cite to any comments
or conduct demonstrating that the trial court had refused to consider the full range
of punishment. In fact, he did not cite to any record proof at all, other than the trial
court’s ultimate decisions to reject the parties’ joint recommendation of community
supervision, and to impose the maximum statutory punishment instead. But these
decisions came after all of the evidence had been presented and after the parties had
made their closing statements, which is exactly when the assessment of punishment
is supposed to occur. See, e.g., Cabrera v. State, 513 S.W.3d 35, 39 (Tex. App.—
Houston [14th Dist.] 2016, pet. ref’d) (holding that the trial court had deprived the
defendant of due process when, before any evidence was ever presented, the trial
court signaled that the lower range of punishment would not be considered simply
because the defendant had exercised his right to a jury trial).

739, 741 (Tex. Crim. App. 2014) (categorizing such right as a category two right under Marin v.
State, 851 S.W.2d 275 (Tex. Crim. App. 1993), overruled on other grounds by Cain v. State, 947
S.W.2d 262 (Tex. Crim. App. 1997)).

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      The trial court was not required to place appellant on community supervision,
and its rejection of the parties’ joint recommendation does not demonstrate that the
trial court imposed a predetermined punishment. See Tex. Code Crim. Proc. art.
42A.053(a)(1) (providing that a judge “may” place the defendant on community
supervision when in the best interest of justice, the public, and the defendant); Tex.
Gov’t Code § 311.016(1) (providing that the word “may” creates discretionary
authority). Nor does the trial court’s ultimate decision to impose the maximum
punishment, without more, demonstrate a predetermined punishment. See Ex parte
Brown, 158 S.W.3d 449, 453 (Tex. Crim. App. 2005) (“Judge Baraka’s
admonition—that he would impose the maximum sentence if applicant violated his
probation—does not, by itself, show prejudgment of punishment.”).

      Based on the foregoing, we conclude that appellant has failed to overcome the
presumption that the trial court was neutral and detached in its assessment of
appellant’s punishment.

                                  CONCLUSION

      The trial court’s judgment is affirmed.

                                       /s/       Tracy Christopher
                                                 Chief Justice

Panel consists of Chief Justice Christopher and Justices Jewell and Spain.
Do Not Publish — Tex. R. App. P. 47.2(b).

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