Leroy Calhoun, Jr. v. State ( 2015 )

IN THE
TENTH COURT OF APPEALS
No. 10-14-00058-CR
LEROY CALHOUN, JR.,
Appellant
v.
THE STATE OF TEXAS,
Appellee
From the 272nd District Court
Brazos County, Texas
Trial Court No. 12-03318-CRF-272
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Asserting one issue, Leroy Calhoun challenges the sufficiency of the evidence
supporting his conviction for second-degree felony evading arrest or detention with a
vehicle. Calhoun moved for a directed verdict based on the State’s alleged failure to
show the officer’s authority to detain Calhoun. The trial court denied the motion, the
jury found Calhoun guilty, and the trial court assessed a six-year sentence. We will
affirm.
Specifically, Calhoun contends that the trial court erred in denying his motion for
directed verdict, which is a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence to support the
conviction. See Williams v. State, 937 S.W.2d 479, 482 (Tex. Crim. App. 1996). The Court
of Criminal Appeals has expressed our standard of review of a sufficiency issue as
follows:
In determining whether the evidence is legally sufficient to support
a conviction, a reviewing court must consider all of the evidence in the
light most favorable to the verdict and determine whether, based on that
evidence and reasonable inferences therefrom, a rational fact finder could
have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.
Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 318-19 (1979); Hooper v. State, 214 S.W.3d 9,
13 (Tex. Crim. App. 2007). This “familiar standard gives full play to the
responsibility of the trier of fact fairly to resolve conflicts in the testimony,
to weigh the evidence, and to draw reasonable inferences from basic facts
to ultimate facts.” Jackson, 443 U.S. at 319. “Each fact need not point
directly and independently to the guilt of the appellant, as long as the
cumulative force of all the incriminating circumstances is sufficient to
support the conviction.” Hooper, 214 S.W.3d at 13.
Lucio v. State, 351 S.W.3d 878, 894 (Tex. Crim. App. 2011).
The offense of evading arrest requires the State to prove that the defendant
intentionally fled from a person he knew was a peace officer attempting to lawfully
arrest or detain him. TEX. PENAL CODE ANN. § 38.04(a) (West Supp. 2014). Calhoun’s
sufficiency argument is that the evidence was insufficient to show the officer’s authority
to detain Calhoun before Calhoun fled.
Officer Tim Davis, who was a deputy with the Burleson County Sheriff’s
Department on May 17, 2012, testified that he was on patrol in a marked sheriff’s patrol
vehicle when dispatch advised to be on the lookout for a tan-colored Buick. Soon after
the dispatch, Davis spotted the vehicle, but he waited for backup to arrive before he
attempted to pull over the vehicle. When DPS Trooper John Anderson arrived, Davis
Calhoun v. State Page 2
activated his overhead lights to attempt to stop the suspect vehicle, which then sped
away at a very high rate of speed. While attempting to get away, the suspect vehicle
ran a four-way stop intersection, went into a left turn lane, ran several more stop signs,
drove into oncoming traffic, and drove in a manner dangerous to surrounding vehicles.
Davis said that the suspect vehicle then turned into an apartment complex and
continued to drive at a high rate of speed and in a dangerous manner. The suspect
vehicle left the apartment complex and continued to drive in a dangerous manner,
including driving in the wrong lane and at a high rate of speed. The suspect vehicle
wrecked while trying to turn, and Calhoun, the driver, fled on foot, but Anderson
caught him.
Anderson testified that he was called to provide backup to Davis to help him
stop a suspect vehicle. He confirmed that the suspect vehicle refused to stop for law
enforcement and that Calhoun fled on foot after wrecking. Anderson chased him and
yelled for him to stop, but Calhoun continued to run until Anderson threatened to use
his Taser.
Calhoun’s sufficiency complaint is that, other than Davis’s “be on the lookout”
testimony, the State did not adduce evidence of the basis for stopping Calhoun—that
Davis was attempting lawfully to arrest or detain him. Calhoun argues that the case
law presented to the trial court during argument on his motion for directed verdict—
case law that we and other courts have cited—was wrongly decided and misapplied the
authority that it relied on.
Calhoun v. State Page 3
The State first responds that, at trial on the morning of jury selection, Calhoun
filed a motion for continuance; his trial counsel alleged that he was unprepared to try
the case and that “it would set [him] up for ineffective assistance of counsel to proceed.”
After a break and discussion with the prosecutors, Calhoun’s trial counsel then stated
on the record:
Based on the State’s promise to me that as to the initial reason why
the officers are looking for a vehicle that my client allegedly was driving,
which merely would be that they were dispatched there to look at the
described vehicle and not the reason why; then, I can proceed because I do
not have to get the information from the complaining witness in that other
case that was dropped. So, I guess we’ll be fine to proceed.
The State thus notes that, in accordance with its agreement, no facts of the underlying
offense that justified the initial reason to stop and detain Calhoun were presented to the
jury.
Secondly, the State supports the authority that it relied on in the trial court,
including our subsequent citation of it, and distinguishes Calhoun’s authority. In
Pickens v. State, 159 S.W.3d 272 (Tex. App.—Amarillo 2005, no pet.), on a sufficiency
challenge to a conviction for evading detention, the Amarillo court stated:
Moreover, authority holds that even if the initial attempt at detention is
unlawful, the suspect may be stopped or arrested for criminal acts which
he commits while attempting to avoid the officer. Blount v. State, 965
S.W.2d 53, 54-55 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 1998, pet. ref’d). In other
words, the fact that an officer may not have basis to stop a suspect does
not insulate the suspect from arrest for other crimes committed while
attempting to avoid the initial detention.
Pickens, 159 S.W.3d at 274. Calhoun argues that Pickens was wrongly decided and that
the Amarillo court’s reliance on Blount was misplaced because Blount was a suppression
Calhoun v. State Page 4
case, not a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence. Calhoun argues that the
authority from the Houston First court that we should look to is instead Guillory v. State,
99 S.W.3d 735 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2003, pet. ref’d). But the State
distinguishes Guillory, noting that it did not hold that the lawfulness of a defendant’s
detention must be determined at the time the officers directed him to stop. There, the
defendant argued that the evidence was insufficient to find that the officers had a legal
basis to stop him “because there is no way that the police officers could have known
whether or not he was actually violating a traffic law at the time they directed him to
pull over.” Id. at 740. Thus, the issue was not when the officers’ lawful basis for a stop
must occur, but whether the evidence was sufficient to show that the officers could see
from their vantage point that the defendant was driving without a front license plate.
Id. at 741. Also, there was no evidence, unlike this case, that the defendant committed
any other offenses during law enforcement’s pursuit. See id. at 740-41.
The State furthermore notes that the State’s factual concession in Guillory was not
the holding in that case, but was just a one-sentence recitation of that concession and the
only discussion of the issue. In Guillory, the State conceded “that, unless the officers
had formed either probable cause to arrest appellant or had reasonable suspicion
sufficient to detain him at the time they directed appellant to stop, the subsequent arrest
for evading arrest was invalid.” Id. at 740.
Finally, the State asserts that every appellate court that has addressed this issue
has held that the offenses committed while a defendant is attempting to evade an
officer’s detention provides a lawful basis to detain the defendant—even if the officer
Calhoun v. State Page 5
did not have a lawful reason for the detention at the time the officer attempted to detain
the defendant initially. For example, in 2007, we stated:
Moreover, “even if the initial attempt at detention is unlawful, the
suspect may be stopped or arrested for criminal acts which he commits
while attempting to avoid the officer.” Pickens v. State, 159 S.W.3d 272, 274
(Tex. App.—Amarillo 2005, no pet.) (citing Blount v. State, 965 S.W.2d 53,
54-55 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 1998, pet. ref’d)); see Bell v. State, 233
S.W.3d 583, 587-88 (Tex. App.—Waco 2007, no pet. h.). According to
Kelly, Ellis, and Lee, Williams drove through stop signs, blew through
intersections, traveled at a high rate of speed, and ran over a street sign.
Lee even observed Williams aiming the truck at pedestrians. Even if the
officers possessed no lawful reason to detain Williams prior to the car
chase, a lawful reason arose once Williams violated the traffic laws while
attempting to evade the officers. See Pickens, 159 S.W.3d at 274; see also
Bell, 233 S.W.3d at 587-88.
Williams v. State, No. 10-06-00341-CR, 2007 WL 4260479, at *4 (Tex. App.—Waco Dec. 5,
2007, pet. ref’d) (mem. op., not designated for publication); see Almond v. State, No. 08-
05-00369-CR, 2007 WL 2742320, at *3 (Tex. App.—El Paso Sept. 20, 2007, no pet.) (not
designated for publication); see also Bell v. State, 233 S.W.3d 583, 587-88 (Tex. App.—
Waco 2007, pet. ref’d, untimely filed).
In conclusion, based on the above authority, we agree with the State that if a
defendant commits criminal activity during an attempt to evade law enforcement,
evidence of that criminal activity alone can be sufficient to support a finding that the
law enforcement officer’s detention was lawful. And in this case, the officer’s testimony
was that Calhoun committed numerous traffic offenses while attempting to evade
detention. Thus, the evidence is sufficient to support the lawfulness of the officers’
subsequent detention of Calhoun, and the trial court did not err in denying Calhoun’s
motion for directed verdict.
Calhoun v. State Page 6
We overrule Calhoun’s sole issue and affirm the trial court’s judgment.
REX D. DAVIS
Justice
Before Chief Justice Gray,
Justice Davis, and
Justice Scoggins
Affirmed
Opinion delivered and filed February 12, 2015
Do not publish
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