Opinion
No. 06-04-00127-CR
Submitted: May 18, 2005.
Decided: June 24, 2005. DO NOT PUBLISH.
On Appeal from the 124th Judicial District Court Gregg County, Texas, Trial Court No. 31211-B.
Before MORRISS, C.J., ROSS and CARTER, JJ.
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Just after 5:00 a.m. on a summer morning, led by their scent-tracking dog, Longview police officers discovered a sweaty and overexerted Chris Slaughter hiding in a children's playhouse in the neighborhood where Slaughter's mother lived. This concluded the officers' search for a black male wearing a white T-shirt who appeared to have fled the scene of a pawn shop burglary earlier that morning, where Slaughter's half brother had also been arrested for the burglary. Officers arrested Slaughter after some resistance. Appealing from his conviction for burglary of a building and his two-year sentence, Slaughter argues only that the evidence is factually insufficient to support his conviction. We affirm. When reviewing a challenge to the factual sufficiency of the evidence to support the conviction, we are required to determine whether, considering all the evidence in a neutral light, the jury was rationally justified in finding guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Zuniga v. State, 144 S.W.3d 477, 484 (Tex.Crim.App. 2004). There are two ways in which we may find the evidence to be factually insufficient. Id. First, if the evidence supporting the verdict, considered alone, is too weak to support the jury's finding of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, then we must find the evidence insufficient. Id. Second, if when we weigh the evidence supporting and contravening the conviction we conclude the contrary evidence is strong enough that the State could not have met its burden of proof, we must find the evidence insufficient. Id. "Stated another way, evidence supporting guilt can `outweigh' the contrary proof and still be factually insufficient under a beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard." Id. If the evidence is factually insufficient, then we must reverse the judgment and remand for a new trial. Clewis v. State, 922 S.W.2d 126, 135 (Tex.Crim.App. 1996). Admittedly, all the State's evidence against Slaughter was circumstantial in nature. In a circumstantial evidence case, each fact or piece of evidence need not point directly to the defendant's guilt; rather, the cumulative effect of all the incriminating facts may be sufficient to support the conviction. Hooker v. State, 621 S.W.2d 597, 601 (Tex.Crim.App. 1980) (op. on reh'g). Circumstantial evidence is no less trustworthy or probative than direct evidence. See Geesa v. State, 820 S.W.2d 154, 158-59 (Tex.Crim.App. 1991), overruled in part, Paulson v. State, 28 S.W.3d 570 (Tex.Crim.App. 2000) (same standard of review applies to direct as well as circumstantial evidence cases). "Circumstantial evidence alone may suffice . . . if the inferences arising therefrom prove the fact in question beyond a reasonable doubt." Hankins v. State, 646 S.W.2d 191, 199 (Tex.Crim.App. 1981). Mere presence of the accused at the scene of an offense is insufficient to support a conviction. Pickering v. State, 596 S.W.2d 124, 129 (Tex.Crim.App. 1980). But an accused's presence at the scene is a circumstance that tends to prove guilt and, when combined with other facts, may indeed show the accused to be guilty of the crime. Wright v. State, 603 S.W.2d 838, 840-41 (Tex.Crim.App. 1979) (op. on reh'g). The factfinder is the exclusive judge of each witness' credibility and the weight to be given each witness' testimony. Whitaker v. State, 977 S.W.2d 595, 598 (Tex.Crim.App. 1998). At the time police were alerted to the pawn shop burglary, Officer Chris Taylor was on his way home from working an off-duty security job. Taylor, driving his personal pickup truck, heard the police radio call and went to the scene to see if he could be of assistance. Seeing several officers already present at the scene, he turned to go home. As he was leaving, he saw a black male emerge from a wooded area and get in the passenger's side of a waiting white car. Thinking the person matched the radioed description of one of the burglary suspects who had fled on foot, Taylor followed the white car. Taylor was able to listen to the ongoing investigation on his police radio but could not radio in, due to failing battery power. He called the police dispatcher on his cell phone and advised he was following someone he thought was involved. Despite the darkness of the early hour, the white car's lights were off. Eventually, marked Longview police vehicles joined in a low-speed pursuit of the white car. The chase ended when the white car struck a parked vehicle in a residential area and came to rest partly in a driveway, partly in a yard. Two men ran from the white car, but Taylor could not catch them. A police dog was brought to the scene, and, from the scent on a T-shirt found near where the suspects abandoned the white car, the dog led officers to the playhouse where Slaughter was hiding. The evidence supporting the conviction included a break-in at a storage unit connected to a pawn shop, Slaughter's half-brother pawning items at that pawn shop, some of the items pawned by Slaughter's half-brother being stacked outside the pawn shop during the burglary, Slaughter's half-brother being arrested at the scene of the burglary, and Slaughter's other half-brother mysteriously arriving at the scene of the wrecked and abandoned white car shortly after Slaughter and the driver fled the scene of the accident. Officer Taylor heard over the radio that one of the suspects was seen fleeing the burglary scene on foot, wearing a white shirt. Taylor, near the burglary scene, saw a black male wearing a white T-shirt emerge from the woods and get into a white car, which was driven through the early morning darkness without lights for a period of time. When that car was in an accident, the driver and passenger fled the scene. Taylor identified one of the fleeing subjects as the one he had seen emerge from the wooded area near the burglary scene. Slaughter was found several houses away from the wrecked car, hiding in a children's playhouse and sweating as if he had been running. He offered at least some resistance to the officers arresting him. "While flight itself does not amount to a presumption of guilt, it is a circumstance from which an inference of guilt may be drawn." Arivette v. State, 513 S.W.2d 857, 862 (Tex.Crim.App. 1974). We find the evidence sufficient to support the jury's verdict. We overrule Slaughter's point of error and affirm the judgment of the trial court.
Longview police had responded to an alarm at the Insta-Cash Pawn shop, and found evidence of a break-in and burglary. Stereo equipment was stacked outside the rear of the shop, and a set of bolt cutters was found near an opened gate, through which entry had been made to the pawn shop. Slaughter's half-brother, Joseph Easley, was arrested at the scene and charged with burglary of a building. Easley had pawned numerous items at the shop, and some of his pawned items were among the items of stereo equipment stacked in the alley.