Roy Chester Williams v. The State of Texas--Appeal from Criminal District Court of Jefferson County

MEMORANDUM OPINION
No. 04-02-00300-CR
Roy Chester WILLIAMS,
Appellant
v.
STATE of Texas,
Appellee
From the Criminal District Court, Jefferson County, Texas
Trial Court No. 83401
Honorable Charles D. Carver, Judge Presiding

Opinion by: Sarah B. Duncan, Justice

Sitting: Catherine Stone, Justice

Sarah B. Duncan, Justice

Sandee Bryan Marion, Justice

Delivered and Filed: August 29, 2003

AFFIRMED

Roy Chester Williams appeals the judgment convicting him upon a jury's verdict of aggravated assault and sentencing him to fifty years imprisonment. In his sole point of error, Williams contends the trial court erred in overruling his objection to the State's jury argument because it improperly appealed "to the expectations and demands of the community for a particular result[.]" We disagree and affirm the trial court's judgment.

During his closing argument, Williams argued that the State failed to meet its burden of proof because the police department did not perform "a $10 ... scientific test that could have told us a myriad of things we need to know in this case." The State responded, in pertinent part:

Okay. Now we're either going to blame the Beaumont Police Department for not having the resources necessary to - to bring all these great experts in here to tell you what a police officer can do just by looking around. I asked the expert about that. I said, "Well, isn't Pasadena and Harris County like 10 times bigger or" - I didn't say 10 times. I said, - "a lot bigger than Beaumont, Texas?" "Yes." Well, they're going to have everything. They're going to have everything. They can probably fill this room with experts. So this county gets blamed for not having the same expertise as that county. Great.

So, you find this guy not guilty, everybody needs to go down to the city council and tell the mayor, look, you need to get these people together and get this thing done because we knew this guy was guilty[.]

The court overruled Williams' objection to this argument.

"Proper jury argument falls into four general areas: (1) summation of the evidence, (2) reasonable deduction from the evidence, (3) answer to argument of opposing counsel, and (4) plea for law enforcement." Rivera v. State, 82 S.W.3d 64, 68 (Tex. App. -San Antonio 2002, pet. ref'd) (citing Wesbrook v. State, 29 S.W.3d 103, 115 (Tex. Crim. App. 2000), cert. denied, 532 U.S. 944 (2001)). A jury argument is improper if it appeals to community expectations by "refer[ing] directly to the demands or expectations of the community for a particular verdict." Rivera, 82 S.W.3d at 69 (citation omitted). The State's answer to Williams' prior jury argument was not an improper appeal to community expectations. Hence, the trial court did not err in overruling Williams' objection. Id.

The judgment of the trial court is affirmed.

Sarah B. Duncan, Justice

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