Johnathan S. Watson v. State of Texas--Appeal from 25th Judicial District Court of Guadalupe County

No. 04-00-00575-CR
Johnathan S. WATSON,
Appellant
v.
The STATE of Texas,
Appellee
From the 25th Judicial District Court, Guadalupe County, Texas
Trial Court No. 99-0083-CR
Honorable Dwight E. Peschel, Judge Presiding

Opinion by: Tom Rickhoff, Justice

Sitting: Tom Rickhoff, Justice

Alma L. L pez, Justice

Sarah B. Duncan, Justice

Delivered and Filed: June 13, 2001

AFFIRMED

On appeal, the appellant, Johnathan Watson, asserts the trial court erred in allowing two witnesses to testify regarding their relationship with and knowledge of the decedent. We conclude the trial court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the testimony. We affirm.

BACKGROUND

The appellant was charged with the felony offense of murder. The State called two witnesses, Anne Ferguson and Michael Killan, who were friends of the decedent, to testify about the decedent's mental and emotional state before her death.

Ferguson's testimony was as follows:

Q: Did you notice any change in Leslie's demeanor after - her behavior after she moved in with this defendant as opposed to before?

A: Yes, I did.

Q: What type of changes?

A: She would break into tears. She would be irritable, usually followed by tears. She would be depressed. She started having a cloud over her head.

. . .

Q: When was the last time you talked to her, prior to her death, about her problems?

A: Two days before she died.

Q: Did she tell you what she was feeling mentally?

A: On that occasion?

Q: On any of those occasions, after she moved in with this defendant?

A: Yes.

Q: What did she tell you?

A: She told me Slate was extremely jealous and that she didn't -

Q: My question is: What was she feeling? What was her emotion?

A: Her emotion was that she couldn't deal with it. That's what all the tears were about, and she was going to leave.

Q: Did she have a plan [to leave the defendant]?

. . .

A: She planned to leave right after returning from a vacation.

. . .

Q: And had you counseled her about how to deal with the jealousy?

A: I told her that there isn't any way to deal with jealousy. People that are jealous are going to be jealous of every friend you have. It's a possessive thing.

Killan's testimony was as follows:

Q: Did you detect any change in [the decedent's] behavior or emotional state after she began living with this defendant?

A: Yes.

Q: What did you observe?

A: Well, initially, there was the euphoria of any new relationship. Gradually, that changed, and there was a lot of - she expressed to us a lot of feelings of fear and thoughts of jealousy and a number of things that the relationship just was not going the way that she thought it should be going.

Q: What did - did she tell you what her mental feelings or her emotions were that caused her to have this change in behavior or personality?

A: Yes. I mean she was - she was feeling very uncomfortable about the relationship, and she attributed that to a couple of things. One was there was a fairly large age difference, so there was a maturity issue that was attributed to - but then there was - as I said, Leslie was extremely outgoing, and very friendly person, and everyone loved her, so she continued relationships with ex-boyfriends and so forth, on a friendly basis. And due to some feelings of jealousy, she was, you know, denied meeting and seeing these people again, so she felt very uncomfortable about that. And then she felt fear, and she did express to me one time that she had found a gun in the house, and she was feeling very, very afraid about that.

Q: You said jealousy was a problem. Whose jealousy?

A: Slate's jealousy of their relationship.

. . .

Q: How did this manifest itself in the office? Did she behave differently in the office?

A: Yes. I mean she would come in visibly upset, sometimes crying. As I said, she was an extremely outgoing person, so when something was wrong, you would know it was - it was a complete change of communicating - communicative styles.

. . .

Q: Did she have a plan about how to deal with the problems, the emotional state you testified to that she was in?

A: I don't know if - she did have a plan. Her plan was, after the vacation, that they were going to separate.

. . .

Q: What type of advice did you give her, when you would counsel her about her problems?

A: Well, the advice changed over time. Initially, there was just maturity issues, so we dealt with those. When she told me about the gun, I did say, you know get out of the house. I was actually leaving town. I left her the keys to my apartment and said, just get out. Stay at my place, whatever the case may be. So -

Q: Did she do that?

A: She did not.

ANALYSIS

The State argues that Ferguson's and Killan's testimony falls under the "state of mind" exception found in Texas Rule of Evidence 803, which states as follows:

The following are not excluded by the hearsay rule, even though the declarant is available as a witness:

. . .

(3) Then Existing Mental, Emotional, or Physical Condition. A statement of the declarant's then existing state of mind, emotion, sensation, or physical condition (such as intent, plan, motive, design, mental feeling, pain, or bodily health), but not including a statement of memory or belief to prove the fact remembered or believed unless it relates to the execution, revocation, identification, or terms of declarant's will.

Tex. R. Evid. 803(3).

Under this rule, a witness is allowed to testify that a person was afraid of another person because such testimony would be considered a mental or emotional condition of the victim. Buhl v. State, 960 S.W.2d 927, 932 (Tex. App.--Waco 1998, pet. ref'd). However, it is not permissible to admit hearsay evidence regarding facts that reveal why the person was afraid. Id. at 933 (distinguishing between "mental feeling" and inadmissible statements of fact); see also Pena v. State, 864 S.W.2d 147, 149 (Tex. App.-- Waco 1993, no pet.) (testimony that victim wanted to leave defendant but felt economically trapped was offered to show victim's state of mind and not to prove the truth of the victim's statements); Williams v. State, 927 S.W.2d 752, 764-65 (Tex. App.--El Paso 1996, pet. ref'd) (victim's statements to her mother regarding her fear that her husband would hurt her or her daughter only revealed the victim's state of mind).

The appellant asserts that the obvious intent of the State was to show that he killed the decedent because he was a jealous boyfriend, a person who created constant grief for the decedent, and to counter the appellant's insanity defense. The appellant argues that the testimony went beyond showing the decedent's state of mind and included inadmissible statements about out-of-court events. We disagree. We conclude that Ferguson's testimony was admissible because statements regarding when the decedent would cry and act irritable are evidence that showed her mental state before she died. We conclude that Killan's testimony was admissible because his statements about the decedent's fear of the appellant and her intent to leave the relationship all relate to the decedent's mental state. See McDonald v. State, 911 S.W.2d 798, 806 (Tex. App.--San Antonio 1995, pet. dism'd) (court found that wife's statement to her mother that she had changed the locks at her home to protect herself from husband was admissible as a "mental feeling," namely, fear).

We hold that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the testimony of the two witnesses; therefore, we affirm the trial court's judgment.

Tom Rickhoff, Justice

DO NOT PUBLISH