Opinion
05-23-00244-CR
02-02-2024
DEMETRE DANGELO COOKS, Appellant v. THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee
Do Not Publish Tex.R.App.P. 47
On Appeal from the 439th Judicial District Court Rockwall County, Texas Trial Court Cause No. 2-21-1024
Before Justices Nowell, Miskel, and Kennedy
MEMORANDUM OPINION
NANCY KENNEDY JUSTICE
Demetre Dangelo Cooks appeals the judgment adjudicating him guilty of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. In his sole issue on appeal, appellant urges that the trial court erred by admitting certain photographs into evidence. We overrule this issue and affirm the trial court's judgment. Because all issues are settled in law, we issue this memorandum opinion. Tex.R.App.P. 47.4.
Background
On December 1, 2021, appellant was charged by indictment with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, to wit a firearm, against complainant K.W., with whom he had been in a romantic relationship. On February 15, 2022, appellant pleaded guilty to the offense as charged in the indictment and, in accordance with a plea bargain, the trial court signed an order of deferred adjudication and placed appellant on community supervision for six years.
On August 8, 2022, the State filed a motion to revoke unadjudicated community supervision and request for final adjudication, alleging appellant had violated seven of the conditions of his community supervision. Appellant entered a plea of not true to the two alleged violations of condition 1 and pleas of true to the remaining alleged violations. Condition 1 prohibited appellant from committing any "offense against the laws of this or any State or of the United States or any Country" and required he "notify the Community Supervision Officer in charge of the case within forty-eight (48) hours of being arrested and/or charged with a criminal offense." The State's motion alleged appellant had violated this condition on August 2, 2022, by (1) breaking into K.W.'s car with the intent to commit theft and (2) continuing to send multiple text messages to K.W. "in a manner reasonably likely to harass the complainant . . . despite numerous attempts by the complainant requesting the contact stop."
The trial court conducted several hearings on the State's motion. During the first hearing, K.W. testified regarding the numerous text messages appellant sent her after he had been given community supervision. She stated both the volume and the content was alarming, the content being that "he would show up at my work, that he would see me soon, that he was going to go nuts" if she did not unblock him by a certain time period. She also testified appellant "would always say that he was going to kill himself." To support why K.W. believed appellant would harm himself, she testified regarding a time she and appellant had gotten into a fight at her apartment. According to K.W., appellant "grabbed a knife from the knife block and started stabbing himself in my kitchen. And I locked myself in the bathroom, and then he asked me to help him rinse off, and so that's why there is blood in the bathtub." The State offered photographs of K.W.'s apartment showing blood in a bathtub, on the floor outside of a bathroom, and on a t-shirt and pair of shoes lying on the floor as exhibits 18, 19, and 20. Defense counsel objected to these photographs as lacking relevance and examined K.W. about the surrounding circumstances of the photographs on voir dire. The trial court overruled defense counsel's objections and admitted exhibits 18, 19, and 20 into evidence.
After considering appellant's plea and the evidence admitted at the hearings, the trial court found all of the alleged violations of conditions of appellant's community supervision to be true, revoked appellant's community supervision, found appellant guilty of the underlying offense, and sentenced him to five years' confinement in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Appellant timely filed his notice of appeal from the February 14, 2023 judgment adjudicating guilt.
Discussion
In his sole issue, appellant argues the trial court erred by admitting into evidence exhibits 18, 19, and 20 without the State's laying the proper predicate for the photographs under rules 901 and 401 of the Texas Rules of Evidence. He asserts this error violated his rights to due process and due course of law under the federal and state constitutions and that he is entitled to a new trial on punishment. The State responds that appellant only preserved an objection as to the photographs' relevance and thus failed to preserve any arguments regarding authenticity, due process, or due course of law.
To preserve error for appeal, a party must present to the trial court a timely and specific objection. Tex.R.App.P. 33.1. Furthermore, the complaint on appeal must comport with the objection at trial. Wilson v. State, 71 S.W.3d 346, 349 (Tex. Crim. App. 2002). In addition, the objection must be made at the earliest possible opportunity. Gillenwaters v. State, 205 S.W.3d 534, 537 (Tex. Crim. App. 2006).
As noted above, defense counsel's objection to the admission of exhibits 18, 19, and 20 was "relevance." However, the argument on appeal is that the trial court abused its discretion by admitting the photographs because they were not properly authenticated under rule 901. The trial objection, therefore, does not comport with the argument on appeal.
Appellant argues that authenticity is a component of relevance. He cites authority discussing authenticity as a "condition precedent" to the admissibility of evidence. See Butler v. State, 459 S.W.3d 595, 600 (Tex. Crim. App. 2015) (citing Tex. R. Evid. 901(a)); Tienda v. State, 358 S.W.3d 633, 638 (Tex. Crim. App. 2012) ("Evidence has no relevance if it is not authentically what its proponent claims it to be."); Jones v. State, 466 S.W.3d 252, 261 (Tex. App.-Houston [1st Dist.] 2015, pet. ref'd); see also Hines v. State, 608 S.W.3d 354, 365 (Tex. App.-Houston [1st Dist.] 2020, no pet.) (citing Tienda, 358 S.W.3d at 638 to state "key component of relevance is authentication"). However, appellant does not cite, nor have we found, authority suggesting that a relevance objection would preserve for appellate review a complaint regarding improper authentication under rule 901.
Even assuming, without deciding, appellant's authenticity argument was preserved by his relevance objection, we cannot conclude the trial court abused its discretion on this record. "The requirement of authentication or identification as a condition precedent to admissibility is satisfied by evidence sufficient to support a finding that the matter in question is what its proponent claims." Tex. R. Evid. 901(a). Photographs are properly authenticated when it can be proved that the images accurately represent the scene in question and are relevant to a disputed issue. See Fowler v. State, 544 S.W.3d 844, 849 (Tex. Crim. App. 2018) (citing Huffman v. State, 746 S.W.2d 212, 222 (Tex. Crim. App. 1988)). We review a trial court's ruling on authentication issues for an abuse of discretion, and a trial court judge is given considerable latitude with regard to evidentiary rulings. See id. at 848.
Here, the record reflects K.W. testified regarding her relationship with appellant and the numerous text messages he sent her after their relationship ended and while he was on community supervision, which included messages threatening to harm himself. To support her belief that he would carry out his threats, K.W. testified regarding an occasion when she and appellant fought at her apartment and he stabbed himself repeatedly. According to K.W., exhibits 18, 19, and 20 were "pictures of blood around my apartment." We conclude this testimony was relevant to the nature of the relationship between appellant and K.W. and established that the photographs accurately represented the scene in question. See Tex. Code Crim. Pro. art. 38.371 (permitting evidence of nature of relationship between actor and alleged victim when alleged victim is in dating relationship with actor); Fowler, 544 S.W.3d at 849; see, e.g., Bunton v. State, No. 05-17-01244-CR, 2018 WL 6695732, at *4 (Tex. App.-Dallas Dec. 20, 2018, no pet.) (mem. op., not designated for publication) (overruling relevance challenge to testimony regarding nature of relationship between defendant and victim "to the extent it demonstrated the toxicity or tumultuousness of the relationship"). Accordingly, we conclude the trial court did not abuse its discretion by admitting these photographs into evidence.
We overrule appellant's sole issue.
Conclusion
We affirm the trial court's judgment.
JUDGMENT
Based on the Court's opinion of this date, the judgment of the trial court is AFFIRMED.