ELECIO G. LUNA, Appellant v. THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee

AFFIRM; Opinion issued November 17, 2010
 
 
 
In The
Court of Appeals
Fifth District of Texas at Dallas
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No. 05-09-00618-CR
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ELECIO G. LUNA, Appellant
V.
THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee
.............................................................
On Appeal from the 282nd Judicial District Court
Dallas County, Texas
Trial Court Cause No. F09-00305-MS
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MEMORANDUM OPINION
Before Justices FitzGerald, Murphy, and Fillmore
Opinion By Justice FitzGerald
        A jury found appellant Elecio G. Luna guilty of manslaughter in the death of Alfonso Leyva and assessed Luna's punishment at twenty-one years' confinement. On appeal Luna contends the evidence is insufficient to support the verdict against him because the evidence did not prove his conduct caused Leyva's death. The background of the case and the evidence adduced at trial are well known to the parties, so we limit recitation of the facts. We issue this memorandum opinion pursuant to Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 47.4 because the facts relevant to this appeal are not in dispute and the law governing its resolution is well settled. We affirm the trial court's judgment.
        Police officers patrolling at two o'clock in the morning watched as Luna ran a red light directly in front of their marked car. The officers began to follow Luna's Jeep on Hampton Road; they observed him driving erratically and reaching speeds of more than one hundred miles per hour. When the officers turned on their patrol car's overhead lights, Luna braked suddenly and lost control of the Jeep. Luna had been driving in the center lane. But when he hit his brakes, the Jeep veered to the right, hit the curb on the right side of the road, ricocheted off the curb, and struck another vehicle. This second vehicle (a Honda) was being driven by Rosie Moreno; Leyva was a passenger in the Honda. Moreno was turning right on red into the right-hand lane of Hampton when the Honda was struck by Luna's Jeep. Leyva died as a result of injuries sustained in the accident.
        The investigation of the accident yielded evidence that it took just 2.06 seconds from the time the Jeep hit the curb until it struck the Honda. The Jeep was traveling between seventy-five and seventy-nine miles per hour as it made that two-second trip. The posted speed limit was thirty- five miles per hour. Luna's blood alcohol content was precisely twice the legal limit.
        Luna challenges the legal and factual sufficiency of the evidence establishing that he caused Leyva's death. He argues the accident would never have happened had Moreno not made the right- on-red turn onto Hampton. The Court of Criminal Appeals has recently directed that:
 
the Jackson v. Virginia legal-sufficiency standard is the only standard that a reviewing court should apply in determining whether the evidence is sufficient to support each element of a criminal offense that the State is required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt.
 
Brooks v. State, No. PD-0210-09, 2010 WL 3894613, at *1 (Tex. Crim. App. Oct. 6, 2010) (plurality op.) (referring to Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307 (1979)). This single standard requires the reviewing court to determine whether, considering all of the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict, the jury was rationally justified in finding guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Id. at *5 (citing Jackson, 443 U.S. at 319). We defer to the jury's determinations of the witnesses' credibility and the weight to be given their testimony because the jury is the sole judge of those matters. Id. at *5.         The penal code sets forth the standard for proving causation:
 
A person is criminally responsible if the result would not have occurred but for his conduct, operating either alone or concurrently with another cause, unless the concurrent cause was clearly sufficient to produce the result and the conduct of the actor clearly insufficient.
 
Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 6.04(a) (West 2003).   See Footnote 1  The standard requires the evidence to establish a “but for” causal connection between the defendant's conduct and the resulting harm. Robbins v. State, 717 S.W.2d 348, 351 (Tex. Crim. App. 1986). When concurrent causes of a result are present, the “but for” requirement will be satisfied if the defendant's conduct and the additional cause-taken together-caused the harm. See id. The only exception to this rule is the statutory limitation for cases in which the additional cause would have been sufficient, by itself, to produce the result and the defendant's conduct, by itself, would have been insufficient to produce the result. See id.
        In this case, consistent testimony from the police officers involved in the arrest and investigation established that (1) Luna was driving down Hampton at a dangerously excessive speed, and (2) Moreno failed to yield the right of way when she turned right onto Hampton. But for these two facts, the accident would not have occurred and Leyva would not have died. Thus, Luna's conduct meets the standard for criminal responsibility based on concurrent causes unless the statutory exception applies. See Tex. Penal Code § 6.04(a) (West 2003). We conclude the exception does not apply in this case because Moreno's right turn onto Hampton could not have been sufficient, by itself, to cause the accident. The record before us indicates that if Luna had been able to maintain control of his vehicle in the middle lane-i.e., but for his excessive speed and intoxicated condition-there would have been no accident in the right-hand lane when Moreno turned. Likewise, the record before us indicates that even if Luna had purposefully been driving in the right-hand lane, if he had been driving at the posted speed limit of thirty-five miles per hour, then Moreno could certainly have completed her turn into that right-hand lane before Luna reached the intersection. In no event would Moreno's conduct have been sufficient, by itself, to produce the result and Luna's conduct, by itself, insufficient to produce the result.
        We conclude the jury was rationally justified in finding Luna criminally responsible beyond a reasonable doubt. See Brooks, 2010 WL 3894613, at *5. We overrule Luna's issues and affirm the trial court's judgment.
 
 
                                                          
                                                          KERRY P. FITZGERALD
                                                          JUSTICE
 
Do Not Publish
Tex. R. App. P. 47
090618F.U05
 
Footnote 1 The trial court's instruction mirrored this statute.