Texas
Olivas v. State, 2004 Tex. App
LEXIS 10131
Defendant
appealed his convictions for aggravated assault by threat and stalking. Defendant was sentenced to
35 years in prison and a $5,000 fine for the assault charge and 6 years in
prison and $1,000 for the stalking charge.
He contested the convictions on several grounds. For the stalking charge, he argued that
the evidence used against him was legally and factually insufficient because the
victim was not placed in fear of bodily injury or death when the defendant left
her a voicemail message telling her to "count her friggin' hours." The appellate court overturned the assault
conviction but sustained the stalking conviction.
Marsh v.
State, 2004 Tex App. LEXIS 3620
Defendant
was convicted of stalking and appealed.
Defendant argued that the evidence used against him was legally and
factually insufficient to support the conviction. The appellate court affirmed the conviction,
concluding that there was sufficient evidence against the defendant.
Criswell v. State, 2004 Tex.
App. LEXIS 1502
Defendant
was convicted of stalking and appealed, arguing that the evidence was factually
insufficient to sustain his conviction. The appellate court disagreed and
affirmed the conviction. The victim
filed for a protective order against her husband after years of abuse. Defendant violated that order by coming
to the wife's residence, attempting to break into her house, and damaging her
vehicle. The couple subsequently
divorced, and thereafter the defendant was convicted of assault and making
terroristic threats against the victim.
The victim moved into a new residence, but the stalking continued. The
defendant made numerous calls to her house, threatened bodily injury, and
repeatedly followed her. She began receiving complaints from a neighbor that the
defendant parked and watched her home on several occasions. The victim reported the incidents to the
sheriff's office but was told that without proof, there was nothing they could
do. She purchased caller ID and an
answering machine to record evidence.
Subsequently, the victim returned home to find numerous calls on the
Caller ID and several messages from the defendant in which he threatened to kill
her and cut off her head before she could leave with the children. She contacted the sheriff's office, and
while a deputy was present in the victim's home, the defendant called and was
told by the deputy not to call again.
Defendant argued that evidence was factually insufficient because the
state failed to establish a time frame during which the calls were made. The appellate court concluded that while the state did not offer evidence
of the specific dates on which the defendant committed the acts, the testimony
given by the deputy, the victim, and the victim's neighbor allowed the jury to
reasonably infer that the stalking occurred on more than one
occasion.
Gil v. State, 2004 Tex. App
LEXIS 9028
Defendant
was convicted of stalking and appealed his conviction on the basis that the
evidence used against him was legally and factually insufficient. The appellate court disagreed and
affirmed the conviction. Defendant
was married to the victim for two and a half years before she decided to leave
him. The day that she told him she
was leaving, he became angry. The next day-when she tried to leave-the defendant
caused the victim and their daughter to fall down some stairs and sustain
injuries. The victim reported the
incident to the police and then moved in with her brother, sister, and sister's
family. Two days later, the defendant called and threatened that if she did not
return, he was capable of killing her.
For the next several days, he called numerous times making threats to
harm her and bomb the house. The
victim reported the incidents to the police. She obtained a protective order because
she feared the defendant. A few
days later, during a visit with his daughter, the defendant shot the victim, her
brother, and her brother's friend.
The appellate court concluded that the
evidence was legally sufficient to support defendant's conviction.
Segura
v.Texas, 100 S.W.3d 652 (Tex. App. 2003)
The court upheld the defendant's
conviction for stalking and found that it was within the state's discretion to
charge the defendant with stalking instead of harassment. While the offenses of stalking and harassment
partially overlap in subject matter, they address different conduct and do not
share a common purpose or objective
.
Sisk v.
Texas, 74 S.W.3d 893 (Tex. App.
2002)
The court affirmed the defendant's
conviction for violating a protection order by stalking. The evidence was sufficient to establish
that, on more than one occasion and pursuant to the same scheme or course of
conduct, the defendant intentionally followed the victim. Considering the pattern of abusive
behavior the defendant exhibited toward the victim during their marriage and his
obsessive behavior for more than a year afterward, together with his awareness
of the victim's actions in securing three protective orders and the fact that
she filed numerous complaints with the police, the court held there was
sufficient evidence that the defendant knew or reasonable believed that the
victim would regard his conduct in following her as threatening her bodily
injury. Finally, the court held the
stalking statute was constitutional and not vague on its face.
Lewis v. Texas, 88 S.W.3d 383 (Tex. App.
2002)
The court affirmed the defendant's
stalking conviction. The court held
that there was no double jeopardy violation for prosecuting the defendant for
stalking after he had been convicted of telephone harassment. The elements of telephone harassment
were completely different from the elements of stalking alleged in the
indictment. That some of the same
evidence proved both offenses did not constitute a double jeopardy
violation. The court also held that
in a prosecution for stalking it was not error to admit evidence of incidents
occurring prior to the date alleged in the charging instrument and prior to the
effective date of the statute. The
court held that the evidence was both legally and factually sufficient to
support the jury's verdict. The
stalking statute was not unconstitutionally overbroad. The defendant's conduct was not subject to
first amendment protection when the actor intended to place the recipient in
fear of bodily injury or death
.
Battles v. Texas, 45 S.W.3d 694 (Tex. App. 2001)
The court upheld the defendant's
stalking conviction and found that the evidence was sufficient and the statute
was not unconstitutionally vague. A
rational trier of fact could have found beyond a reasonable doubt that the
defendant, on more than one occasion and pursuant to the same scheme or course
of conduct that was directed specifically at the victim, knowingly engaged in
stalking conduct, including following the victim. The court held that the defendant was
put on notice that her conduct was alarming the victim. Coupling that with the
ominous words of the phone call which followed, a rational trier of fact could
have found beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant knew or reasonably
believed the victim would regard her conduct as threatening bodily injury or
death. The court also found that,
based on the totality of the circumstances and the pattern of behavior exhibited
by the defendant, a rational trier of fact could have found beyond a reasonable
doubt that a reasonable person would also have been placed in fear of bodily
injury or death. Finally, the court
held that the phrase "pursuant to the same scheme or course of conduct" was a
term of common understanding and gave a person of ordinary intelligence a
reasonable opportunity to know what was prohibited and did establish determinate
guidelines for law enforcement.
State v. Newsom,
64 S.W.3d 478 (Tex. App. 2001)
The court held that because the
defendant's prior stalking conviction was not a final conviction but was a
probated sentence which had not been revoked at the time he committed the new
stalking offense, the conviction could not be used to enhance this charge from a
misdemeanor to a felony stalking charge.
A conviction must be a final one for purposes
of enhancement .
Clements v.
Texas, 19 S.W.3d 442 (Tex. App.
2000)
The court affirmed the defendant's
stalking conviction, holding that the evidence was legally sufficient to support
the conviction. By repeatedly
appearing at the victim's apartment when he did not reside there, causing
himself to be where he knew the victim would be, and engaging in conduct that he
knew would cause the victim to be placed in fear, the defendant's conduct fell
within the plain meaning of the term "follow." The stalking statute did not require
that the victim be harmed by the defendant. Considering the pattern of behavior the
defendant exhibited, a reasonable person would have been placed in fear of
bodily injury or death. The court
also held that the stalking statute was constitutional. The defendant was not engaged in
constitutionally protected conduct because his conduct placed the victim in fear
of bodily injury or death. The
court held that admitting evidence regarding events that occurred prior to the
effective date of the stalking statute was proper because they established
whether the victim feared bodily injury or death based on the defendant's
pattern of behavior.
Ex Parte Todd Wesley Reese, 23
S.W.3d 54 (Tex. App. 2000)
The court held that the defendant's
conviction for contempt of a protection order did not bar subsequent prosecution
of the stalking charge on double jeopardy grounds. The contempt order contained an element
not present in the stalking indictment and the stalking indictment contained
many elements not present in the contempt order. The stalking indictment contained a
factual allegation not
present in the contempt order and sought
to punish conduct different from that punished by the contempt order. The
stalking indictment also contained a mental element that the contempt order did
not, as well as a causation element that was not present in the contempt
charge
.
Guerrero v.Memorial Medical Center of East Texas, 938 S.W.2d 789 (Tex. App.
1997)
The court held that the
employer/hospital was entitled to summary judgment. The court found that the defendant's
criminal act (shooting his wife at her workplace) was not foreseeable, and there
was no duty on the part of the Medical Center to control his actions and protect
the victim (their employee). The
victim never reported to the Medical Center that her husband was threatening,
physically abusing, or seeking to harm her. Even when she requested that her
supervisor meet her in the parking lot, she did not voice any fear of physical
violence, only that she did not want to speak with her husband. The proof offered
by the hospital established that although the hospital, through its agent, had
overheard accounts from other co-workers of the defendant's verbal abuse toward
the victim, they had no knowledge of any physical abuse
whatsoever
.