Opinion
05-23-00348-CR
03-29-2024
MIKEAL XAVIER JACKSON, Appellant v. THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee
Do Not Publish TEX. R. APP. P. 47
On Appeal from the 282nd Judicial District Court Dallas County, Texas Trial Court Cause No. F22-20981-S
Before Justices Garcia, Breedlove, and Kennedy
MEMORANDUM OPINION
NANCY KENNEDY, JUSTICE
A jury found appellant, Mikeal Xavier Jackson, guilty of capital murder. The State did not seek the death penalty, so the trial court sentenced appellant to life imprisonment without parole. In a single issue, appellant asserts the trial court abused its discretion in admitting into evidence surveillance videos that appellant contends were not properly authenticated. In a cross issue, the State asserts that the judgment of conviction entered in appellant's case should be modified to properly reflect the offense for which appellant was convicted and the sentence imposed. We affirm the trial court's judgment as modified herein. Because all issues are settled in law, we issue this memorandum opinion. TEX. R. APP. P. 47.4.
Background
Appellant was indicted for the capital murder of Terrance Wayne Demus. The indictment alleged that on January 23, 2022, appellant intentionally caused the death of Demus by shooting him with a firearm while in the course of committing and attempting to commit the offense of robbery of Demus. Appellant pleaded "not guilty" to the charged offense and proceeded to trial before a jury.
The State's witnesses at trial included Julian Jones, an accomplice to the offense who acknowledged that he had been promised a plea bargain deal if he testified truthfully, as well as various law enforcement officials and civilians involved in the investigation of the murder. The defense did not call any witnesses.
For purposes of context, we set forth the background facts established at trial and then portions of the record that are relevant to the issue appellant raises.
At approximately 2:00 a.m. on January 23, 2022, law enforcement officers were dispatched on a shots-fired call to the apartment complex where Demus lived. Desoto Police Officer Shaun Quezada and three other officers arrived at the scene and found shell casings outside of Demus's apartment, a broken door frame, and Demus "face down and unresponsive." The cause of Demus's death was a single gunshot that perforated the sternum, the heart, and the right lung before exiting his body.
Multiple people were involved in the capital murder of Demus. One of those individuals was Julian Jones who turned State's witness. At the time of trial, Jones was nineteen years old. He was the youngest of the individuals involved in the robbery and murder of Demus. Jones and appellant had been friends since Jones was twelve or thirteen years old. Appellant is a little bit older than Jones. In January 2022, Jones and appellant exchanged text messages about going to the robbery of Demus. In the days leading up to the robbery and murder of Demus, appellant, Jones, and others drove by the Demus's apartment several times in a gold Porsche with a missing bumper that belonged to appellant. On the night of the shooting, appellant, Jones, and two individuals identified as Reggie and Trey drove in the gold Porsche to a local shopping center where they met an individual identified by the nickname "Pistol" and other individuals identified as Pistol's "guys." When they left the shopping center, appellant drove to the apartment complex where Demus lived, circled his apartment, and parked. Pistol and his guys also drove to the apartment complex. Trey approached the apartment first to check to see if anyone was there. He knocked on the door and no one answered. Trey returned to appellant's car. Appellant and Pistol were communicating by phone. Pistol told appellant that he and his guys were going to "go run in and do what we do." Appellant then instructed Jones and Trey to go to the apartment as well. Appellant and Reggie stayed in the car. Jones was the only individual who did not have a gun. He carried pepper spray because they understood there might be a dog in the apartment. Pistol and his guys kicked in the door to the apartment. As they went into the apartment, Jones followed and was shot in the leg. Jones crawled away from the apartment, and Trey helped him return to the parking lot. They hid between vehicles in the parking lot. Jones eventually crawled to a house or apartment nearby and knocked on the door. The occupant opened the door and let him use his phone. Jones called his grandmother, his aunt, and his girlfriend. Jones's aunt picked him up and drove him to a nearby hospital. When Jones was released from the hospital, he was taken to the Desoto Police Department where he was questioned and arrested for his role in the capital murder of Demus.
At first Jones was not forth coming with the details of the events leading up to the murder of Demus and instead fabricated one story about how he was shot walking down an alley and then another story that he was shot while attempting to buy marijuana. Eventually, Jones told the detectives most of what had occurred. Law enforcement was able to corroborate Jones's testimony with information gleaned from the cell phones belonging to participants in the offense. Text messages extracted from the phones corroborated the planning and surveillance and implicated appellant as one of the main planners of the robbery.
The apartment complex where the offense occurred had motion-activated surveillance cameras. Detective Javier Acosta, the lead detective in the case, requested copies of the videos from the night of the shooting. The apartment complex provided videos from four different camera angles. According to Detective Acosta, a car fitting the description of the vehicle driven by appellant was seen and captured on the videos. When the videos and screenshots from same were offered into evidence, defense counsel objected on the grounds of "improper predicate," "relevance," and "hearsay." In part, defense counsel asserted the videos and screenshots were not admissible because there was no testimony from the owner of the surveillance system that the time stamps on the videos were correct or that the system was operating properly. In response, Detective Acosta testified that he was present at the scene after the shooting, he knew the apartment complex had a surveillance system, he received footage from the surveillance system electronically from the apartment complex and that the screenshots were accurate representations of the scene.
In a hearing outside the presence of the jury, Detective Acosta testified again that he was at the scene after the shooting and elaborated that the time stamps on the videos accurately show the time officers and other units arrived after the shooting. He further testified that the surveillance system is motion-activated and is a continuous play of the events leading up to the offense and after the offense with no interruption. He indicated that because the videos after the shooting were accurate from what he personally saw at the scene, what was in the report regarding the timing and the information other officers relayed, he concluded the videos also accurately depicted the actions visible on the videos prior to and immediately after the shooting based on the circumstances and the time stamps. In addition, Detective Acosta clarified that the time and date stamps on the videos accurately reflected the date and year of the offense; the time stamps coordinated with the time law enforcement arrived; the apartment complex pulled the videos at his request; the videos depict activity that Jones described and the car appellant drove; and there was nothing in the recordings to suggest the videos were edited or tampered with. The trial court overruled appellant's objections and admitted the videos and screenshots the State offered into evidence.
At the close of evidence, the jury was instructed on the law of parties and conspiracy. The jury found appellant guilty of capital murder and the trial court assessed the mandatory punishment of confinement for life without parole in the Institution Division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. TEX. PENAL CODE § 12.31(b)(2).
Discussion
I. Authentication of Evidence
In his sole issue, appellant contends the trial court improperly admitted the surveillance videos and screenshots because they were not properly authenticated.
We review a trial court's ruling on authentication issues under an abuse of discretion standard. Angleton v. State, 971 S.W.2d 65, 67 (Tex. Crim. App. 1998). This deferential standard requires an appellate court to uphold a trial court's admissibility decision when that decision is within the zone of reasonable disagreement. Powell v. State, 63 S.W.3d 435, 438 (Tex. Crim. App. 2001). A trial court judge is given considerable latitude with regard to evidentiary rulings. Different trial judges may "reach different conclusions in different trials on substantially similar facts without abusing their discretion." Winegarner v. State, 235 S.W.3d 787, 791 (Tex. Crim. App. 2007).
If the trial court's ruling that a jury could reasonably find proffered evidence authentic is at least "within the zone of reasonable disagreement," a reviewing court should not interfere. Tienda v. State, 358 S.W.3d 633, 638 (Tex. Crim. App. 2015). In Butler v. State, the court of criminal appeals clarified that "it is the jury's role ultimately to determine whether an item of evidence is indeed what its proponent claims; the trial court need only make the preliminary determination that the proponent of the item has supplied facts sufficient to support a reasonable jury determination that the proffered evidence is authentic." 459 S.W.3d 595, 600 (Tex. Crim. App. 2015) (citing Tienda, 358 S.W.3d at 638). This has been described as a liberal standard of admissibility. Id.
Texas Rule of Evidence 901 governs the authentication requirement for the admissibility of evidence:
(a) In General. To satisfy the requirement of authenticating or identifying an item of evidence, the proponent must produce evidence sufficient to support a finding that the item is what the proponent claims it is.
TEX. R. EVID. 901(a). Conclusive proof of authenticity before allowing admission of disputed evidence is not required. Reed v. State, 811 S.W.2d 582, 587 (Tex. Crim. App. 1991); Delgado v. State, 635 S.W.3d 730, 755 (Tex. App.-Dallas 2021, pet. ref'd). Rule 901 "merely requires some evidence sufficient to support a finding that evidence in question is what the proponent claims." Reed, 811 S.W.2d at 587 . In Fowler v. State, the court of criminal appeals held it is possible for the proponent of a video to sufficiently prove its authenticity without the testimony of someone who either witnessed what the video depicts or is familiar with the functioning of the recording device. 544 S.W.3d 844, 848 (Tex. Crim. App. 2018). Even though the most common way to authenticate a video is through the testimony of a witness with personal knowledge who observed the scene, that is not the only way. Id. at 849. Evidence can also be authenticated by "[t]he appearance, contents, substance, internal patterns, or other distinctive characteristics of the item, taken together with all the circumstances." Id. (quoting TEX. R. EVID. 901(B)(4)).
Video recordings without audio are treated as photographs and are properly authenticated when it can be proved that the images accurately represent the scene in question and are relevant to the disputed issue. Id. at 849 (citing Huffman v. State, 746 S.W.2d 212, 222 (Tex. Crim. App. 1988)). Here, the State presented the following circumstantial evidence to authenticate the video recordings:
• Detective Acosta requested surveillance footage from the apartment complex;
• The apartment complex sent links to the footage it gathered for the times requested by Detective Acosta to the Desoto Police Department;
• Detective Acosta compared the videos he received from the apartment complex to known activities of the responding officers and his own observations from having been present at the scene on the day of the murder;
• The fact that the date and time on the videos corresponds to the date and time the Desoto Police Department responded to the shots-fired call; and
• Events shown on the videos, such as the gold Porsche circling the apartment complex, corroborate statements Jones made to law enforcement.
Admittedly, the State could have produced testimony from witnesses who would have further authenticated the videos, such as the person responsible for securing the videos and sending them to the Desoto Police Department. However, a zone of reasonable disagreement is exactly that, a zone. Id. at 850. We conclude the trial court's determination that Detective Acosta supplied facts sufficient to support a reasonable jury determination that the videotapes were authentic was a decision within the zone of reasonable disagreement. See, e.g., id. The trial court did not err in admitting the videos and screenshots. Accordingly, we overrule appellant's sole issue.
II. Modification of Judgment
By cross issue, the State urges the sentence listed in the judgment should be modified to correctly reflect that the trial court, rather than the jury, assessed appellant's punishment at life without parole. In addition, the State urges that the judgment should be modified to correctly reflect that appellant was convicted of capital murder in the course of a robbery and not by terroristic threat.
This Court has the power to correct and reform the judgment of the trial court below "to make the record speak the truth" when it has the necessary data and information to do so. Asberry v. State, 813 S.W.2d 526, 529 (Tex. App.-Dallas 1991, pet. ref'd); see French v. State, 830 S.W.2d 607, 609 (Tex. Crim. App. 1992) (adopting reasoning of Asberry). In a criminal case, Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 43.2(b) provides that a court of appeals may "modify the trial court's judgment and affirm it as modified." TEX. R. APP. P. 43.2(B).
Here, the judgment states that the jury assessed appellant's life sentence without parole rather than the trial court. There is a mandatory sentence of life without parole upon a finding of guilt for the offense of capital murder when the State does not seek the death penalty. See TEX. PENAL CODE ANN. § 12.31. Immediately after the jury found appellant guilty of the charged offense, the trial court assessed the mandatory punishment. We modify the judgment to reflect that the court, rather than the jury, assessed appellant's punishment at life without parole.
In addition, the judgment shows appellant was convicted of capital murder by terroristic threat, however, the record reflects that appellant was charged with and convicted of capital murder in the course of robbery. See, e.g., Williams v. State, No. 05-20-00939-CR, 2022 WL 354587, at *2 (Tex. App.-Dallas Feb. 7, 2022, no pet.) (mem. op., not designated for publication) (modifying judgment to reflect correct offense); Navarro v. State, No. 05-22-00360-CR, 2023 WL 3220924, at *5 (Tex. App.-Dallas May 3, 2023, pet. ref'd) (mem. op., not designated for publication) (modifying judgment from "capital murder by terroristic threat" to reflect "capital murder in the course of a robbery"). We modify the judgment to reflect that appellant was convicted of the offense of capital murder in the course of robbery.
Because the judgment erroneously reflects that a jury imposed appellant's sentence and that appellant was convicted of capital murder by terroristic threat, we sustain the State's cross issue.
Conclusion
As modified herein, we affirm the trial court's judgment.
JUDGMENT
Based on the Court's opinion of this date, the judgment of the trial court is MODIFIED as follows: to reflect that the court, rather than the jury, assessed appellant's punishment at life imprisonment without parole, and to reflect that appellant was convicted of capital murder in the course of robbery, rather than capital murder by terroristic threat.
As REFORMED, the judgment is AFFIRMED.
Judgment entered this 29th day of March, 2024.