Reginald Harris v. the State of Texas ( 2022 )

IN THE
TENTH COURT OF APPEALS
No. 10-22-00103-CR
REGINALD HARRIS,
Appellant
v.
THE STATE OF TEXAS,
Appellee
From the 66th District Court
Hill County, Texas
Trial Court No. F-141-21
MEMORANDUM OPINION
In two issues, appellant, Reginald Harris, contends that the trial court: (1) failed
to properly define the applicable culpable mental states in the jury charge or tailor the
definitions of the culpable mental states to the relevant conduct elements; and (2)
assessed unauthorized fees. We affirm as modified.
Background
Harris was charged by indictment with aggravated assault against a public
servant. Specifically, the indictment alleged that Harris,
intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly cause[d] serious bodily injury to
Chris Gonzales by striking him on the head with a wooden table leg, and
the defendant did then and there know that the said Chris Gonzales was a
public servant, to-wit: a Hill County Corrections Officer, in the lawful
discharge of an official duty, to-wit: to begin the book-in progress [sic].
See TEX. PENAL CODE ANN. § 22.02(a)(1), (b)(2)(B). A jury convicted Harris of the charged
offense and made a deadly-weapon finding. The jury assessed punishment at thirty years
in prison. The trial court sentenced Harris in accordance with the jury’s verdict and
signed a judgment reflecting as such. Additionally, the trial court assessed $290 in court
costs and $67 in reimbursement fees. The trial court certified Harris’s right of appeal, and
this appeal followed.
The Jury Charge
In his first issue, Harris argues that the trial court failed to properly define the
applicable culpable mental states in the jury charge or tailor the definitions of the culpable
mental states to the relevant conduct elements. Assuming, without deciding, the jury
charge contains error, we cannot conclude that Harris was egregiously harmed.
STANDARD OF REVIEW
In reviewing a jury-charge issue, an appellate court’s first duty is to determine
whether the charge contains error. Hutch v. State, 922 S.W.2d 166, 170 (Tex. Crim. App.
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1996). If the jury charge contains error, the appellate court must analyze that error for
harm. Middleton v. State, 125 S.W.3d 450, 453-54 (Tex. Crim. App. 2003). The court will
reverse if an error was properly preserved by objection and is not harmless. Almanza v.
State, 686 S.W.2d 157, 171 (Tex. Crim. App. 1985). Conversely, where a party does not
properly preserve error by proper objection, the court will only reverse for egregious
harm, meaning Harris did not receive a fair and impartial trial. Id. To obtain a reversal
for jury-charge error, Harris must have suffered actual harm and not merely theoretical
harm. Sanchez v. State, 376 S.W.3d 767, 775 (Tex. Crim. App. 2012); Arline v. State, 721
S.W.2d 348, 352 (Tex. Crim. App. 1986).
Harris did not object to the jury charge in the trial court; thus, he must show
egregious harm. See Almanza, 686 S.W.2d at 171. In examining the record for egregious
harm, we consider the jury charge, the state of the evidence, the final arguments of the
parties, and any other relevant information revealed by the record of the trial as a whole.
Olivas v. State, 202 S.W.3d 137, 144 (Tex. Crim. App. 2006). Jury-charge error is
egregiously harmful if it affects the very basis of the case, deprives the defendant of a
valuable right, or vitally affects a defensive theory. Stuhler v. State, 218 S.W.3d 706, 719
(Tex. Crim. App. 2007); Sanchez v. State, 209 S.W.3d 117, 121 (Tex. Crim. App. 2006).
Harris v. State Page 3
DISCUSSION
The Entirety of the Jury Charge
The culpable mental states in the penal code encompass three possible conduct
elements that may be involved in an offense: (1) nature of the conduct; (2) result of the
conduct; and (3) circumstances surrounding the conduct. TEX. PENAL CODE ANN. § 6.03;
see McQueen v. State, 781 S.W.2d 600, 603 (Tex. Crim. App. 1989). When an offense is
delineated explicitly as to the type of conduct, the trial court should limit the statutory
definitions in the jury charge to the culpable mental state required. Price v. State, 457
S.W.3d 437, 441 (Tex. Crim. App. 2015); Cook v. State, 884 S.W.2d 485, 491 (Tex. Crim. App.
1994).
Harris was charged by indictment with aggravated assault on a public servant by
using or exhibiting a deadly weapon. See TEX. PENAL CODE ANN. § 22.02(a)(1). The
elements of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon against a public servant are (1) a
person (2) intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly (3) causes serious bodily injury to
another (4) and uses or exhibits a deadly weapon (5) against a person the actor knows if
a public servant while the public servant is lawfully discharging an official duty. Id. §
22.02(a), (b)(2)(B); see Stanley v. State, 470 S.W.3d 664, 670 (Tex. App.—Dallas 2015, no
pet.).
As charged in the indictment in this case, assault on a public servant required
proof of two separate conduct elements—result of the conduct and circumstances
Harris v. State Page 4
surrounding the conduct—with different culpable mental states as to the two separate
conduct elements. See TEX. PENAL CODE ANN. § 22.01(a), (b)(1); Cole v. State, 46 S.W.3d
427, 433-34 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth 2001, pet. ref’d). The result-of-conduct element
required proof that Harris “intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly cause[d] serious
bodily injury to Chris Gonzales.” See TEX. PENAL CODE ANN. § 22.01(a)(1); Cole, 46 S.W.3d
at 434; Brooks v. State, 967 S.W.2d 946, 950 (Tex. App.—Austin 1998, no pet.) (describing
assault as a result-oriented offense and explaining that assault requires “causing a certain
result”). The circumstances-surrounding-conduct element required proof that Harris
knew that Gonzales was a public servant. See TEX. PENAL CODE ANN. § 22.01(b)(2)(B)
(making the offense of assault a third-degree felony when the “offense is committed
against . . . person the actor knows if a public servant while the public servant is lawfully
discharging an official duty”).
Regarding the applicable culpable mental states, the abstract portion of the charge
providing the following:
A person acts intentionally, or with intent, with respect to the nature
of his or her conduct or a result of his or her conduct when it is his or her
conscious objective or desire to engage in the conduct or cause the result.
A person acts knowingly, or with knowledge, with respect to the
nature of his or her conduct or to circumstances surrounding his or her
conduct when he or she is aware of the nature of his or her conduct or that
the circumstances exist. A person acts knowingly, or with knowledge, with
respect to the result of his or her conduct when he or she is aware that his
or her conduct is reasonably certain to cause the result.
Harris v. State Page 5
A person acts recklessly, or is reckless, with respect to the results of
his or her conduct when he or she is aware of but consciously disregards a
substantial and unjustifiable risk that the result will occur. The risk must
be of such a nature and degree that its disregard constitutes a gross
deviation from the standard of care that an ordinary person would exercise
under all circumstances, as viewed from the actor’s standpoint.
These instructions defining the culpable mental states included language as to all the
“conduct elements.” See McQueen, 781 S.W.2d at 603; see also TEX. PENAL CODE ANN. §
6.03.
Nevertheless, the application portion of the jury charge stated:
Now, if you find and believe from the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt
that on or about the 7th day of February 2021, in Hill County, Texas, the
defendant, REGINALD HARRIS, did then and there intentionally,
knowingly, or recklessly cause bodily injury to Chris Gonzalez [sic] by
striking him on or about the head with a table leg and the Defendant used
or exhibited a deadly weapon, to-wit: a table leg, and the Defendant did
then and there know that the said Chris Gonzalez [sic] was a public servant,
to-wit: a Hill County Corrections Officer, in the lawful discharge of an
official duty as a Hill County Corrections Office, or on account of an
exercise of official power or performance of an official duty by Chris
Gonzalez [sic] as a public servant, then you will find the Defendant guilty
as charged in the indictment.
The jury was instructed that it could convict Harris of aggravated assault on a public
servant only if it found that he had intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly caused the
result (serious bodily injury), and that he did so under the requisite circumstances of
conduct (with knowledge that Officer Gonzales was a public servant). This instruction is
consistent with the statutorily prohibited conduct. See TEX. PENAL CODE ANN. § 22.01(a),
(b)(2)(B); see also Medina v. State, 7 S.W.3d 633, 640 (Tex. Crim. App. 1999) (“Where the
Harris v. State Page 6
application paragraph correctly instructs the jury, an error in the abstract instruction is
not egregious.”); Patrick v. State, 906 S.W.2d 481, 493 (Tex. Crim. App. 1995) (“We
conclude that because the facts, as applied to the law in the application paragraph,
pointed the jury to the appropriate portion of the definitions, no harm resulted from the
court’s failure to limit the definitions of culpable mental states to proving the conduct
element of the underlying offense.”); Hughes v. State, 897 S.W.2d 285, 296 (Tex. Crim. App.
1994) (noting that in considering the jury charge as a whole, when the purported error
involves the misstatement of the required culpable mental states, we “may consider the
degree, if any, to which the culpable mental states were limited by the application
portions of the jury charge”).
Accordingly, we conclude that consideration of the entire jury charge, as applied
in the factual context of this case, weighs against a finding of egregious harm.
State of the Evidence
The second factor requires us to review the state of the evidence, including the
contested issues and weight of probative evidence. Villarreal v. State, 453 S.W.3d 429, 433
(Tex. Crim. App. 2015). Under this factor, “we look to the state of the evidence to
determine whether the evidence made it more or less likely that the jury charge caused
appellant actual harm.” Arrington v. State, 451 S.W.3d 834, 841 (Tex. Crim. App. 2015).
Here, there is ample evidence of Harris’s guilt, which mitigates any harm that the
jury charge may have caused. Investigator Kyle Nevil of the Hill County Sheriff’s Office
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testified that Officer Gonzales was wearing his official uniform and performing his
official duties at the time of the attack. Nevil further testified that Harris used a deadly
weapon, a table leg, when assaulting Officer Gonzales and that Officer Gonzales suffered
bodily injury because of the attack. The State then played surveillance footage, which
captured the attack. Nevil recounted that the video footage showed Harris rip a leg from
a table and run toward Sergeant Teresa Gandee, who was also in a jailer uniform. Nevil
further testified that the video footage showed Harris strike a computer monitor and a
Xerox copy machine with the table leg. Sergeant Gandee called for help, and Officer
Gonzales responded. When Officer Gonzales arrived, Harris struck Officer Gonzales in
the head forcefully with the table leg while Officer Gonzales was wearing his official
uniform and performing official duties. Officer Gonzales bled all over the floor and the
wall of the jail and required six staples on the back of his head and thirteen staples on the
top of his head to close the wounds. While Officer Gonzales was fighting with Harris on
the floor, Officer Gonzales’s jailer keys fell out of his pants, and Harris grabbed the keys.
Nevil noted that Harris admitted to using drugs and that Harris later exclaimed,
“I was on something, Brother.” Harris testified that he was upset and afraid of being put
in a regular holding cell because he did not want to be around anyone else who may have
had COVID-19. Harris explained that he struck Officer Gonzales with the table leg out
of fear of COVID-19, but he acknowledged that he was wrong and not justified in hitting
Harris v. State Page 8
Officer Gonzales. Later in his testimony, Harris noted that he saw Officer Gonzales a few
weeks later “back to his usual thing” and that he apologized.
It is also noteworthy that, in arguing for a mistake-of-fact instruction related to
COVID-19, defense counsel confirmed “[h]e had to admit the elements of the crime, that
he was guilty. We have done that. We have maintained that the entire trial.” From this
evidence, a reasonable factfinder could conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that Harris
committed the offense of aggravated assault of a public servant. As such, we cannot say
that this factor weighs in favor of a finding of egregious harm.
Arguments of Counsel
Under this factor, we consider whether any statements made during the trial by
the prosecutor, the defense counsel, or the trial court may have exacerbated or
ameliorated the error in the jury charge. Arrington, 451 S.W.3d at 844. During its closing
argument, the State detailed Harris’s intent to commit the assault and made a brief
statement about Officer Gonzales’s status as a public servant. However, defense counsel
acknowledged the following during closing argument: “One of the indisputable facts is
that an assault occurred. . . . The other is that Mr. Harris committed an assault.” In other
words, Harris’s defensive strategy was to not dispute that he committed an assault.
Rather, defense counsel emphasized Harris’s erratic behavior at and around the time of
the attack and that he should have been taken to the hospital and not placed in a holding
cell. Defense counsel also challenged some of the actions of the jailers, especially the fact
Harris v. State Page 9
that Sergeant Gandee, without backup, let Harris out of the holding cell unrestrained.
Later, defense counsel reiterated that: “Obviously, I made it very clear to you that Mr.
Harris is guilty.” However, according to defense counsel, the system failed Harris by not
taking him to the hospital on account of his erratic behavior. In rebuttal, the State urged
that Harris is unwilling to take responsibility for his actions and that all the arguments
made by defense counsel during closing do not negate the fact that Harris intentionally,
knowingly, or recklessly struck Officer Gonzales, a public servant. The State also
emphasized that Harris did not call any witnesses to opine on his mental health.
While there was discussion of the culpable mental states, Harris conceded that the
elements of assault were met. Furthermore, the parties did not emphasize Harris’s
knowledge of Officer Gonzales’s status as a public servant. Accordingly, we cannot say
that the closing arguments of the parties exacerbated the purported error in the jury
charge. Therefore, we conclude that this factor does not weigh in favor of a finding of
egregious harm.
Other Relevant Information in the Record
As to the fourth factor, Harris contends that there are no other considerations in
the record that are relevant to the egregious-harm analysis. We agree. As such, this factor
weighs against a finding of egregious harm.
Harris v. State Page 10
Summary
Based on the foregoing, we conclude that any error in the abstract portion of the
charge was not calculated to injure Harris’s rights or deprive him of a fair and impartial
trial. See Almanza, 686 S.W.2d at 171; see also Stuhler, 218 S.W.3d at 719; Sanchez, 209
S.W.3d at 121. We overrule Harris’s first issue.
Court Costs
In his second issue, Harris asserts that the trial court assessed $12 in
reimbursement fees that are not supported by the record or the facts. The State agrees.
Here, the trial court assessed $290 in court costs and $67 in reimbursement fees
with no fine or restitution. The attached order to withdraw funds indicated that the total
amount of court costs, fees, fines, and restitution incurred was $357, which is the
summation of the $290 in court costs and $67 in reimbursement fees assessed in the trial
court’s judgment. However, the certified bill of costs lists the balance due of $345, which
is $12 less than the amount assessed in the trial court’s judgment and recited in the
attached order to withdraw funds.
Included in the certified bill of costs are the “State Consolidated Court Costs,”
which are authorized by section 133.102(a)(1) of the Texas Local Government Code. See
TEX. LOC. GOV’T CODE ANN. § 133.102(a)(1). Furthermore, the line items in the certified
bill of costs corresponding with “Clerk of the Court [$40],” “Count & District Court
Technology Fund [$4],” “County Jury Fund [$1],” “County Records Mgmnt &
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Preservation [$25],” “County Specialty Court Acct [$25],” and “Courthouse Security
[$10]” account for the local consolidated fee that is authorized by section 134.101 of the
Texas Local Government Code. See id. § 134.101. The remaining line items in the certified
bill of costs—“Peace Officer: Commit or Release from Jail [$5]” and “Peace Officer:
Exec/Proc AW/Capias/Capias ProFine County [$50]”—are authorized under section
102.011(a)(1) and (a)(2). See TEX. CODE CRIM. PROC. ANN. art. 102.011(a)(1)-(2). These are
all the fees listed in the certified bill of costs, and the summation of these fees is $345.
There is no justification in this record for the additional $12 in reimbursement fees
assessed in the trial court’s judgment and referenced in the order to withdraw funds. As
such, we agree with Harris and the State that both the trial court’s judgment and the order
to withdraw funds should be modified to reduce the amount of reimbursement fees owed
by $12. See TEX. R. APP. P. 43.2(b); Bigley v. State, 865 S.W.2d 26, 27-28 (Tex. Crim. App.
1993); Nolan v. State, 39 S.W.3d 697, 698 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2001, no pet.)
(“An appellate court has the power to correct and reform a trial court judgment ‘to make
the record speak the truth when it has the necessary data and information to do so, or
make any appropriate order as the law and nature of the case may require.’” (quoting
Asberry v. State, 813 S.W.2d 526, 529 (Tex. App.—Dallas 1991, pet. ref’d)); see also Trotter
v. State, No. 02-20-00042-CR, 2021 Tex. App. LEXIS 3501, at *8 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth
May 6, 2021, no pet.) (mem. op., not designated for publication) (modifying both the
Harris v. State Page 12
judgment and the order to withdraw funds to reduce the amount of reparations owed).
Accordingly, we sustain Harris’s second issue.
Conclusion
Having sustained Harris’s second issue, we modify the judgment and the attached
order to withdraw funds to reduce the amount of reimbursement fees owed by $12. We
affirm the trial court’s judgment as modified.
STEVE SMITH
Justice
Before Chief Justice Gray,
Justice Johnson,
and Justice Smith
(Chief Justice Gray concurs)
Affirmed as modified
Opinion delivered and filed December 7, 2022
Do not publish
[CRPM]
Harris v. State Page 13