Eric Baumgart v. State ( 2015 )

Opinion issued September 24, 2015
In The
Court of Appeals
For The
First District of Texas
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NO. 01-14-00320-CR
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ERIC BAUMGART, Appellant
V.
THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee
On Appeal from the 183rd District Court
Harris County, Texas
Trial Court Case No. 1382166
MEMORANDUM OPINION
A jury convicted Eric Baumgart of tampering with a governmental record.1
The trial court assessed Baumgart’s punishment at two years’ incarceration, but
1
See TEX. PENAL CODE ANN. § 37.10(a)(1) (West Supp. 2014).
suspended the sentence and placed him on community supervision for five years.
In his sole issue, Baumgart contends that the evidence is insufficient to support his
conviction and the jury’s implicit rejection of his defense. We affirm.
Background
Baumgart was employed as a reserve deputy constable for Liberty County,
Texas, in 2011. During that time, Baumgart learned that his ex-girlfriend, Ana
Johnson, had been involved with other men while they were dating, and that
Johnson was wanted for outstanding felony warrants in Travis County, Texas.
Baumgart set up a meeting between Johnson and a mutual friend in downtown
Houston on September 27, 2011, and when she arrived, Baumgart arrested her on
the outstanding warrants. Baumgart went to the Harris County jail the next day and
met with Johnson. During that meeting, Baumgart issued Johnson a ticket for
driving with an invalid license on August 18, 2011. 2 Baumgart noted the color,
make, model, and type of Johnson’s vehicle on the ticket (tan 1999 Lexus ES 300),
along with the vehicle identification number (VIN). Although Baumgart submitted
the ticket to the Liberty County Justice of the Peace Court’s clerk for processing,
the ticket was never processed or entered into the court’s system. 3
2
The citation also included a warning for littering.
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After Harris County officials inquired about the ticket and the purpose of
Baumgart’s visit to Johnson at the jail, the clerk was instructed to disregard the
ticket.
2
Baumgart subsequently testified before a grand jury about the incident and a
portion of his testimony was admitted into evidence during his trial. In his grand
jury testimony, Baumgart admitted to “checking in as law enforcement” when he
met with Johnson at the jail on September 28th and writing her a ticket “from [the]
Liberty County Precinct 4 Constable’s Office” during that meeting for driving with
an invalid license on August 18th. Although the traffic violation occurred over
forty days before he wrote the ticket, Baumgart claimed that he had personal
knowledge of the offense because he was riding with Johnson in the Lexus when
the violation occurred.
Officials from the Liberty County Constable’s Office Precinct 4 testified at
trial that the office routinely provided ticket books for deputy constables to use
during the course of their official duties and the Precinct 4 Constable identified the
ticket Baumgart issued to Johnson as a “Liberty County Constable’s Office
Precinct 4 citation ticket.” Officers issue these tickets in order to inform the driver
of the alleged offense and to notify the driver when to appear in court. The
pre-printed tickets also contain designated places where the officer can list other
information, such as a description of the vehicle, in order to refresh the officer’s
memory in the event the officer needs to testify in court.
Johnson testified that the Lexus had been purchased for her on September 3,
2011, and that before that time she had been driving “an old, unreliable Ford
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Contour.” The 1999 Lexus purchased on September 3rd matches the vehicle
description Baumgart noted on the ticket, including the VIN.
Discussion
Baumgart contends that the evidence is insufficient to prove beyond a
reasonable doubt that he tampered with a governmental record because the State
failed to prove that: (1) the ticket was a governmental record, (2) Baumgart knew
the VIN was false, and (3) Johnson suffered expense or delay as a result of the
falsified ticket. Baumgart further contends that the evidence is insufficient to
support the jury’s implicit rejection of his defense that the VIN had no effect on the
government’s purpose for requiring tickets.
A. Applicable Law and Standard of Review
A person commits the offense of tampering with a governmental record if he
“knowingly makes a false entry in, or false alteration of, a governmental record.”
TEX. PENAL CODE ANN. § 37.10(a)(1) (West Supp. 2014). A governmental record
is “anything belonging to, received by, or kept by government for
information. . . .” Id. § 37.01(2)(A). It is a defense to prosecution that the false
entry or false information could have no effect on the government’s purpose for
requiring the governmental record. Id. § 37.10(f).
When reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence to support a conviction, we
view the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict to determine if any
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rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the offense beyond
a reasonable doubt. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319, 99 S. Ct. 2781, 2789
(1979); Williams v. State, 235 S.W.3d 742, 750 (Tex. Crim. App. 2007). Because
the State bears the burden to disprove a defense to prosecution by establishing its
case beyond a reasonable doubt, we also review sufficiency challenges to a fact
finder’s rejection of such a defense under the Jackson standard. Smith v. State, 355
S.W.3d 138, 145 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2011, pet. ref’d); see also TEX.
PENAL CODE ANN. § 2.03 (governing defenses to prosecution set forth in Penal
Code). In doing so, we examine the record for evidence that supports the negative
finding. See Smith, 355 S.W.3d at 148. If no evidence supports the negative
finding, then we examine the entire record to determine whether it establishes the
contrary proposition as a matter of law. Id.
Under the Jackson standard, the fact finder is the exclusive judge of the
facts, the credibility of the witnesses, and the weight to be given to the testimony.
Brooks v. State, 323 S.W.3d 893, 899 (Tex. Crim. App. 2010); see also Jackson,
443 U.S. at 326, 99 S. Ct. at 2793 (stating that it is fact finder’s responsibility “to
resolve conflicts in the testimony, to weigh the evidence, and to draw reasonable
inferences from basic facts to ultimate facts”). We may not re-evaluate the weight
and credibility of the evidence or substitute our judgment for that of the fact finder.
Williams, 235 S.W.3d at 750. We resolve any inconsistencies in the evidence in
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favor of the verdict. Curry v. State, 30 S.W.3d 394, 406 (Tex. Crim. App. 2000);
see also Clayton v. State, 235 S.W.3d 772, 778 (Tex. Crim. App. 2007) (“When
the record supports conflicting inferences, we presume that the fact finder resolved
the conflicts in favor of the prosecution and therefore defer to that
determination.”). The sufficiency of the evidence is measured against a
hypothetically correct jury charge. Cada v. State, 334 S.W.3d 766, 773 (Tex. Crim.
App. 2011) (citing Malik v. State, 953 S.W.2d 234, 240 (Tex. Crim. App. 1997)).
B. Analysis
Baumgart argues that the State failed to prove that the ticket was a
governmental record because there is no evidence that the ticket was ever received
by a government agency or entered into a government record-keeping system.
The evidence at trial established that the Constable’s Office purchased and
provided ticket books for its deputy constables to use and the Constable identified
the ticket Baumgart issued to Johnson as a “Liberty County Constable’s Office
Precinct 4 citation ticket.” Baumgart also admitted that he “checked in as law
enforcement” when he met with Johnson at the jail and that the ticket he wrote her
during that meeting was “from Liberty County Precinct 4 Constable’s Office.” The
jury could reasonably infer from this evidence that Baumgart was acting in his
official capacity as a reserve deputy constable for Liberty County when he issued
the ticket to Johnson with the false vehicle description and VIN and that the ticket
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was written from a ticket book provided to him by the Liberty County Constable’s
Office. See Lewis v. State, 773 S.W.2d 689, 692 (Tex. App.—Corpus Christi 1989,
pet. ref’d) (holding arrest warrant was governmental record, in part, because justice
of peace was acting in his official capacity when he made false entry on warrant).
The jury could also reasonably infer that the ticket, and the ticket book it came
from, belonged to the Constable’s office. Jackson, 443 U.S. at 319, 326, 99 S. Ct.
at 2793 (stating fact finders may “draw reasonable inferences from basic facts to
ultimate facts”); see also TEX. PENAL CODE ANN. § 37.01(2)(A) (stating
governmental record is “anything belonging to, received by, or kept by government
for information”) (emphasis added).
Baumgart relies upon cases that are factually distinguishable because those
cases involve privately owned documents created by non-governmental actors, as
opposed to a ticket from a government-owned ticket book used by a law
enforcement officer acting in his official capacity. See generally Pokladnik v.
State, 876 S.W.2d 525, 527 (Tex. App.—Dallas 1994, no pet.) (holding that
wrecker company’s mechanic’s-lien affidavits were not governmental records);
Constructors Unlimited Inc. v. State, 717 S.W.2d 169, 174 (Tex. App.—Houston
[1st Dist.] 1986, pet. ref’d) (holding that company’s bid sheets were not
governmental records).
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Baumgart also contends there was insufficient evidence to show that he
knowingly entered a false VIN on the ticket. In the portions of his grand jury
testimony admitted at trial, Baumgart repeatedly claimed that he had personal
knowledge of the traffic violation because he was in the car when the violation
occurred. Evidence admitted at trial, however, demonstrates that the 1999 Lexus
was not purchased until September 3, 2011—more than two weeks after Johnson
was allegedly driving around with Baumgart. Before that time, Johnson had been
driving “an old, unreliable Ford Contour.” The 1999 Lexus purchased on
September 3rd matches the vehicle description Baumgart noted on the ticket,
including the VIN. Based on this evidence, a jury could reasonably infer that
Baumgart, who insisted that he was with Johnson when the traffic violation
allegedly occurred on August 18th, knew that Johnson was not driving the 1999
Lexus at that time, and that the make, model, and VIN he noted on the ticket was
incorrect when he wrote the ticket on September 28th. See Jackson, 443 U.S. at
319, 326, 99 S. Ct. at 2793 (stating fact finders may “draw reasonable inferences
from basic facts to ultimate facts” and courts defer to fact finder’s judgment on
conflicts of testimony).
Baumgart further contends that the evidence is insufficient because the State
failed to establish that Johnson suffered expense or delay as a result of the ticket,
as required by the jury charge. Our review of the sufficiency of the evidence,
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however, is measured by the elements of the offense as set forth in a hypothetically
correct jury charge, not the charge that was actually submitted. Cada, 334 S.W.3d
at 773 (citing Malik, 953 S.W.2d at 240). Baumgart’s argument is unavailing
because “undue expense and delay” is not an element of the charged offense and
would not have been included in the hypothetically correct jury charge for this
case. See id. (discussing contents of hypothetically correct jury charge); see
generally TEX. PENAL CODE ANN. § 37.10(a)(1). Accordingly, whether the State
provided sufficient evidence that the ticket caused Johnson to incur any undue
expense or delay is immaterial for purposes of our sufficiency review.
Finally, Baumgart contends that the State failed to provide sufficient
evidence for the jury to reject his defense that the vehicle information “could have
no effect on the government’s purpose for requiring the governmental record.”
TEX. PENAL CODE ANN. § 37.10(f). On the contrary, county officials testified that
such tickets are intended not only to inform the driver of the violation and to give
the driver a court date, but to refresh the officer’s memory in the event he testifies
at trial regarding the offense. From this evidence, a jury could reasonably infer that
providing a space on the ticket form for additional information could serve the
government’s purpose by making an officer’s testimony more detailed and
credible. See Jackson, 443 U.S. at 319, 99 S. Ct. at 2789. Moreover, the State only
had to demonstrate that the false information could have an effect on the
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government’s purpose, and, therefore, the fact that the ticket was never processed
and Baumgart would not be required to testify about the ticket is immaterial. See
TEX. PENAL CODE ANN. § 37.10(f).
After reviewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict and
deferring to the fact finder’s responsibility to draw reasonable inferences from the
evidence, we conclude that a rational fact finder could have found the essential
elements of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt and that there is some evidence
to support the jury’s negative finding on Baumgart’s defense. See Jackson, 443
U.S. at 319, 99 S. Ct. at 2789; Smith, 355 S.W.3d at 148.
We overrule Baumgart’s sole issue.
Conclusion
We affirm the trial court’s judgment.
Russell Lloyd
Justice
Panel consists of Justices Keyes, Massengale, and Lloyd.
Do not publish. TEX. R. APP. P. 47.2(b).
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