Joel Ronell McCoy v. The State of Texas--Appeal from 18th District Court of Johnson County

IN THE

TENTH COURT OF APPEALS

No. 10-93-093-CR

JOEL RONELL McCOY,

Appellant

v.

THE STATE OF TEXAS,

Appellee

From the 18th District Court

Johnson County, Texas

Trial Court # 29207

O P I N I O N

Joel McCoy appeals his conviction for murder. A jury found McCoy guilty and assessed punishment at thirty-seven and a half years in prison. In two points of error, he complains that the trial court improperly excluded evidence relevant to his self-defense theory.

McCoy testified that he went to the East Side Cafe in Cleburne on February 13, 1993. According to McCoy, he observed a man who was later identified as Darion Scott smoking crack cocaine and "acting like he didn't care about nothing." McCoy was engaged in conversation with a girl, when Scott "came and threw her out of the way." McCoy testified that he did not know she was Scott's sister. McCoy and Scott "exchanged some words," and, according to McCoy, Scott "pulled his coat like he was going to pull something out." McCoy testified that he "walked off right there."

After the confrontation, McCoy took a jacket and a M-11 pistol from a friend's car. According to McCoy, when Scott noticed that he had on the jacket and could see the bulge under the jacket, Scott said, "I'm going to kill you, mother fucker . . . I'm going to get my gun." McCoy testified that Scott, who was holding a can of malt liquor in his hand, then went to the car he had arrived in. According to McCoy, he was in fear for his life. McCoy also testified that Scott was very violent and angry, that his eyes were "wide open and glassy looking," and that he was "real paranoid, jumping at everything." According to McCoy, Scott placed the beer can on top of the car, opened the front door, and reached in "like he was reaching for a weapon." When Scott shut the door and looked up, McCoy pulled the gun out of his jacket and began firing at Scott.

On cross-examination, McCoy admitted that, with each shot, he intended to kill Scott. When asked whether he knew that what Scott was smoking was crack cocaine, McCoy testified, "Yes, I do, sir. I saw the lab reports." Although the trial court excused the jury and held McCoy in contempt for violating a pretrial motion in limine, the jury was never instructed to disregard McCoy's testimony concerning the lab results. After the jury returned, McCoy also acknowledged that he could have retreated on several occasions before he shot Scott, but he chose not to walk away because he saw he "wasn't going to make it." He also admitted to shooting Scott after he fell to the ground. Because McCoy was not sure if the first shot hit Scott, he was still "a little bit" afraid enough to "put four more bullets in him."

Dr. Arthur Raines, the medical examiner who performed the autopsy on the victim, testified in the presence of the jury that he instructed Joe Rigsby, the medical investigator who assisted him in the autopsy, to draw blood and urine samples from the victim. However, the trial court excluded Dr. Raines' testimony that the lab report from the urinalysis indicated alcohol, cocaine, and cannabinoids were present in Scott's urine.

By bill of exception McCoy also offered the testimony of Joe Rigsby, the medical investigator who drew a sample of urine from the victim; Crystal Underwood, the histology lab technician who prepared the sample for transport to the testing lab; and Nga Hoang, the medical technologist who performed the chemical analysis on the sample. Hoang testified, out of the presence of the jury, that he found .20 percent alcohol, as well as pure cocaine and ethylcocaine, in the urine sample. According to Hoang, the presence of pure cocaine in the bladder indicated that Scott consumed the cocaine within the last seven or eight hours of his life.

John Castle, a forensic toxicologist, also testified outside the presence of the jury that a person with the amount of alcohol, pure cocaine, and ethylcocaine indicated by the lab results would be a violent, aggressive person expressing paranoia, extreme paranoia, fright, belligerence, and experiencing increased respiration and heart rate, as well as delusions and possibly hallucinations. According to Castle, the level of cocaine present in the sample would indicate that the person would have no logical ability and would not be able to distinguish between reality and fantasy.

Although the trial court excluded any testimony based on the results of the urinalysis, Castle was allowed to testify, in the presence of the jury, about the effects of alcohol and cocaine on the behavior of individuals generally. Castle testified that a person on crack cocaine and alcohol at the same time would experience very abnormal paranoia. In response to a hypothetical question posed by the defense attorney, Castle also testified that, assuming a person is observed smoking crack cocaine and consuming alcohol, if that person came up and said, "I'm going to kill you," he would believe that person. According to Castle, if a person consumes crack cocaine and alcohol, he almost always loses his logical ability. Furthermore, almost everybody would perceive the abnormal effects of the combined consumption of crack cocaine and alcohol on that person. On cross-examination Castle acknowledged that a number of variables would affect the reaction of a particular individual to the combined consumption of crack cocaine and alcohol. Finally, he admitted that he could not tell the jury how Scott may have acted prior to his death.

The State objected to the excluded testimony on the basis that the crack cocaine or alcohol consumption of the victim was not relevant to any fact that was of consequence to the determination of the case and that the probative value of the evidence was substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice. // The trial court excluded the evidence with the following remarks:

The Court thinks there might be a place for that to be offered. As far as what I've heard so far, I don't see that we've got anything to show that the deceased acted in anything other than walking away. The most we've heard, at the very most, is a verbal provocation which is totally inconsistent with what your people have testified to. I don't think he accurately predicted how he could or could not act. If he had been violent and took action against the Defendant, if there was any type of evidence I think to allow the jury to hear evidence, just about the deceased taking cocaine and alcohol, and without him here to give his side of the story, whether it was done a day earlier or when it was, seven or eight hours before, I don't think is fair. And that victim has rights, too, just like the Defendant does. If I'm wrong, the appellate court can tell me. I'm going to exclude it.

The trial court never indicated whether it was excluding the offered evidence based on the State's objection to its relevance or, instead, because the probative value of the offered evidence was substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice. Before the close of the evidence, McCoy reoffered all the excluded testimony regarding the results of the urinalysis, but the trial court overruled his objection to its exclusion.

In point one McCoy contends that the trial court improperly excluded the offered evidence under Rules 401 and 402 of the Texas Rules of Criminal Evidence. Finding a piece of evidence "relevant" is the first step in a trial court's determination of whether the evidence should be admitted before the jury because "[a]ll relevant evidence is admissible . . . . Evidence which is not relevant is not admissible." // "Relevant evidence" means evidence having any tendency to make the existence of any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action more probable or less probable than it would be without the evidence. // In deciding whether a particular piece of evidence is relevant, a trial court should ask, "would a reasonable person, with some experience in the real world believe that the particular piece of evidence is helpful in determining the truth or falsity of any fact that is of consequence to the lawsuit." // McCoy raised the issue of self-defense by his testimony that Scott threatened him, that Scott was acting in a paranoid and violent manner, and that Scott appeared to be reaching for a gun. Nevertheless, the trial court apparently discounted this testimony because it was "totally inconsistent" with the testimony offered by the State's witnesses. It is this factual dispute over Scott's behavior, however, which makes the offered evidence of his combined consumption of crack cocaine and alcohol relevant to McCoy's self-defense theory. //

To be considered relevant to McCoy's self-defense theory, the evidence of Scott's combined consumption of crack cocaine and alcohol need not by itself prove that he was the aggressor; it is sufficient if the evidence provides a small nudge toward proving Scott's aggressive behavior as described by McCoy. // Because the trial court erroneously concluded that the offered evidence was not relevant to the facts of the case, we sustain point of error one.

In point two McCoy contends that the trial court erred in excluding the offered evidence under Rule 403. Under the rules of evidence, once the proponent of an item of evidence shows that the evidence is logically relevant to some issue in the trial under Rule 401, it is admissible under Rule 402 unless the opponent of the evidence demonstrates that is should be excluded because of some other provision, whether constitutional, statutory, or evidentiary. // Because the evidence was relevant to McCoy's self-defense theory, we must now determine "whether the danger of unfair prejudice outweighs the probative value," assuming that the trial court's exclusion of the offered evidence could be affirmed on that basis. // Initially, we note that the Beaumont Court of Appeals relied upon Rule 403, without any discussion of the criteria relevant to its application, to affirm the exclusion of evidence that the deceased was under the influence of marihuana at the time of the offense. // The court in Babineaux, however, noted that the evidence before them was "devoid of any suggestion that the use, smoking or ingestion of marihuana into an individual person's system makes that person violent and aggressive." // In this case, McCoy presented, by bill of exception as well as by testimony in the presence of the jury, evidence that the combined consumption of crack cocaine and alcohol would make a person violent and aggressive.

Rule 403 favors admissibility of relevant evidence, and the presumption is that relevant evidence will be more probative than prejudicial. // As a result, the opponent of the evidence must ask the trial court to exclude the evidence on the ground that its probative value is nevertheless substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice. // We review the trial court's decision to exclude evidence under Rule 403 by an abuse of discretion standard. // Where relevant criteria, viewed as objectively as possible, lead to the conclusion that the danger of unfair prejudice substantially outweighed the probative value of the proffered evidence, the trial court should exclude it. // Relevant criteria include: that the ultimate issue was not seriously contested by the opponent; that the proponent of the evidence had other convincing evidence to establish the ultimate issue to which the evidence was relevant; or that the probative value of the evidence was not, either alone or in combination, particularly compelling. //

The ultimate issue, self-defense, was vigorously contested. Whether Scott appeared paranoid or violent, threatened McCoy, and was the first aggressor, was, by far, the most important topic for jury argument. There was no more contested, and no more important, issue in this case. // The second Montgomery factor suggests the evidence of Scott's actual crack cocaine and alcohol consumption should have been admitted because McCoy did not have a quantity of other convincing evidence to corroborate McCoy's eyewitness testimony and Castle's expert testimony that Scott was indeed aggressive and violent. Finally, the probative value of Castle's offered testimony that a person with the amount of alcohol, pure cocaine, and ethylcocaine indicated by the lab results would be a violent, aggressive person expressing paranoia, extreme paranoia, fright, belligerence, and experiencing increased respiration and heart rate, as well as delusions and possibly hallucinations was more compelling than Castle's admitted testimony about the affects of alcohol and cocaine on the behavior of individuals generally. Because the relevant criteria for the exclusion of evidence under Rule 403 were not present in this case, we hold that the trial court abused its discretion in excluding the offered evidence. // Accordingly we sustain point of error two.

Having concluded that the trial court erred in excluding the offered evidence under either Rules 401 and 402 or Rule 403, we must now determine whether the error in excluding the evidence was harmless under Rule 81(b)(2) of the Texas Rules of Appellate Procedure. //

In Bradford v. State, the Court of Criminal Appeals elaborated on the harmless error analysis:

In Harris v. State, 790 S.W.2d 568 (Tex.Cr.App. 1989), this Court articulated a coherent standard for determining when an error is harmless. We do not determine harmlessness simply by examining whether there exists overwhelming evidence to support the verdict, but rather calculate as much as is possible the probable impact of the error on the jury in light of the existence of the other evidence. Id. at 587. "A procedure for reaching this determination should: first, isolate the error and all its effects, using the considerations set out above and any other considerations suggested by the facts of an individual case; and second, ask whether a rational trier of fact might have reached a different result if the error and its effects had not resulted." Id. at 588. In performing the isolating analysis, we examine the source and nature of the error, whether or to what extent it was emphasized by the State, its probable collateral implications, and consider how much weight a juror would probably place upon the error and determine whether declaring it harmless would encourage the State to repeat it with impunity. Id. at 587. //

The error the trial court's exclusion of the lab results had the effect of depriving the jury of Hoang's testimony concerning the specific levels of alcohol and drugs found in Scott's urine sample and Castle's more specific testimony regarding the expected behavior of a person who had consumed that amount of alcohol and cocaine. As previously discussed, McCoy testified in the presence of the jury that he saw Scott smoking crack cocaine and consuming alcohol. McCoy also testified that Scott was very violent and angry, that his eyes were "wide open and glassy looking," and that he was "real paranoid, jumping at everything." Furthermore, he testified that he knew that what Scott was smoking was crack cocaine because he saw the lab reports. Castle was allowed to testify, in the presence of the jury, about the effects of alcohol and cocaine on the behavior of individuals generally. Finally, Castle's response to defense counsel's hypothetical questions tied McCoy's testimony to the expert testimony concerning the combined consumption of alcohol and cocaine.

Following the Harris analysis, we must now consider whether a rational trier of fact might have reached a different result if the error and its effects had not resulted. The nature of the error the exclusion of relevant evidence was not something that the State could have emphasized before the jury. Although, in determining whether the excluded evidence was relevant, the trial court should not have considered the State's evidence controverting McCoy's testimony that Scott was the aggressor, we must review the entire record when considering how much weight a juror would probably place upon the excluded evidence. The overwhelming weight of the evidence before the jury on McCoy's self-defense theory suggests that Scott was not the aggressor, that McCoy had several opportunities to leave the scene after the initial confrontation, and that McCoy pursued Scott with a semi-automatic weapon while Scott was attempting to leave, firing at him from close range. Finally, holding that the error was harmless will not encourage the State to repeat it with impunity this is not a case of improper prosecutorial conduct before the jury. Therefore, we find that the trial court's error in excluding the evidence was harmless under the Harris analysis. // Because we determine beyond a reasonable doubt that the error made no contribution to the conviction or punishment, we affirm the judgment. //

BOBBY L. CUMMINGS

Justice

Before Chief Justice Thomas,

Justice Cummings, and

Justice Vance

Affirmed

Opinion delivered and filed February 2, 1994

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