Clifford Clark v. State ( 2020 )

In The
Court of Appeals
Sixth Appellate District of Texas at Texarkana
No. 06-19-00033-CR
CLIFFORD CLARK, Appellant
V.
THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee
On Appeal from the 102nd District Court
Bowie County, Texas
Trial Court No. 17F1218-102
Before Morriss, C.J., Burgess and Stevens, JJ.
Memorandum Opinion by Chief Justice Morriss
MEMORANDUM OPINION
After a bench trial, Clifford Clark was convicted of arson of a building and sentenced to
ten years’ imprisonment. See TEX. PENAL CODE ANN. § 28.02(a)(2)(A). The trial court ordered
the sentence to run concurrently with two other arson convictions Clark appeals in companion
cause numbers 06-19-00034-CR and 06-19-00051-CR, and consecutively with two convictions
for harassment while in a correctional or detention facility, which Clark appeals in companion case
number 06-19-00023-CR. See TEX. PENAL CODE ANN. § 22.11(a). The trial court also ordered
Clark to pay $234.00 in court costs for each of the five convictions even though the charges were
consolidated for trial.
Clark has filed a brief in which he raises issues common to all of his appeals. He argues
that (1) the record does not contain sufficient evidence showing his competence to stand trial was
evaluated by a qualified psychologist, (2) the trial court erred in finding him competent to stand
trial, (3) his counsel rendered ineffective assistance in failing to request an evaluation of his sanity
at the time of the offense, (4) his oral waiver of a jury trial was invalid and unintelligently made
on the trial court’s representation that all sentences would run concurrently, (5) each judgment
mistakenly references the existence of a plea bargain, and (6) the trial court erred in assessing
duplicative court costs.
We addressed these issues in detail in our opinion of this date on Clark’s appeal in cause
number 06-19-00023-CR. For the reasons stated therein, we likewise conclude that Clark’s first
complaint is meritless and unpreserved, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in finding Clark
competent to stand trial, and Clark failed to meet his burden to show counsel rendered ineffective
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assistance. We also find Clark’s jury trial waiver valid, because he was not harmed by the lack of
a written waiver and the record fails to show Clark’s waiver was based on misinformation that his
sentences would not be stacked.
Clark’s brief also raises an issue common to his appeals in this case and in cause numbers
06-19-00034-CR and 06-19-00051-CR. Specifically, Clark argues that the trial court erred in
admitting the hearsay testimony of Craig Hicks, a deputy fire marshall. Hicks testified that he
spoke to Harold Friday, the person who owned the habitation that burned that was referenced in
cause number 06-19-00034-CR. After the trial court overruled Clark’s objection to “anything the
homeowner told him as being hearsay,” Hicks testified that Friday identified a person named
“Gotti” as the person who started the fire and described “Gotti.”
“An error [if any] in the admission of evidence is cured where the same evidence comes in
elsewhere without objection.” Lane v. State, 151 S.W.3d 188, 193 (Tex. Crim. App. 2004)
(alteration in original) (quoting Valle v. State, 109 S.W.3d 500, 509 (Tex. Crim. App. 2003)); see
Leday v. State, 983 S.W.2d 713, 718 (Tex. Crim. App. 1998). Without objection, Check Weerts,
another deputy fire marshall, testified that he interviewed Clark, who referred to himself as “Gotti”
during the interview. According to Weerts, Clark placed himself in the area of all of the fires that
were set on the same day and said that he had started the fire at Friday’s house. Weerts testified
that Clark started the fires because he was upset about the murder of his friend. Also without
objection, Clark’s sister, Natalie Clark, testified that Clark admitted he had “set some houses on
fire” and had set a total of six fires. Natalie said that Clark’s clothing smelled of smoke and that
Clark complied with her request to get in her car and point out the houses and buildings he had set
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on fire. Weerts testified that Clark had started all of the fires, a statement supported by Natalie’s
testimony. Because substantially similar evidence showing that Clark burned Friday’s house came
in without objection, we find that Clark was not harmed by error, if any, in the admission of Hicks’s
statements. We overrule this point of error.
However, because we sustain Clark’s last two points of error, we modify the judgment by
deleting the phrase “Terms of Plea Bargain” and delete the assessment of court costs. We affirm
the trial court’s judgment, as modified.
Josh R. Morriss, III
Chief Justice
Date Submitted: November 13, 2019
Date Decided: January 6, 2020
Do Not Publish
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