Opinion
No. 05-16-00434-CR
04-24-2017
NICHOLAS JOHN MATEIK, Appellant v. THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee
On Appeal from the 265th Judicial District Court Dallas County, Texas
Trial Court Cause No. F15-44643-R
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Before Justices Lang-Miers, Evans, and Boatright
Opinion by Justice Lang-Miers
The State charged appellant Nicholas John Mateik with the felony offense of stalking. See TEX. PENAL CODE ANN. § 42.072 (West 2016). Appellant represented himself at trial. A jury found him guilty and assessed his sentence at six years in prison and a $10,000 fine. In his sole issue on appeal, appellant contends the evidence is insufficient to support the conviction. We affirm.
BACKGROUND
Appellant and HS were both welding students at Mountain View College in Dallas in the spring and summer of 2015. Although they were enrolled in different classes, at times the classes were in the same room, causing appellant and HS to be in the room together. HS described the welding department as three rooms: a classroom, a small welding room, and a large welding room.
The record is not clear about the first time HS became concerned about appellant's conduct, but it appears to have started when appellant began parking in the same lot in which she parked. HS testified that the campus was large and she parked in the first available parking lot on campus, which was a distance from the welding department. She did this because she is "a creature of habit" and not good with directions. She said "no one parks in that lot" so she "thought it was odd" when appellant started parking in that lot and walking with her "through all four of these buildings" to get to the parking lot.
The next incident HS testified about was on St. Patrick's Day in March. She was eating lunch at a Subway on campus and studying when appellant "came up and was hovering about a foot and a half, two feet behind me." She said she thought it was odd, but she motioned for him to sit and he did. She said they talked for about 15 minutes and then she "made an excuse to go to the library." She asked appellant for directions to the library and, despite her resistance, he insisted on walking with her. She was in the library for an hour and a half. When she came out, appellant was "sitting there on the floor with nothing, no phone, no books, no nothing, just sitting there staring at the front door." She made a sarcastic comment to him that it was "rather weird" to be "sitting on the floor just staring at the door" and he said he did not have anything better to do.
HS testified that after this she changed where she parked, started driving her husband's car to school, and asked for an escort to the welding department. HS told her blueprint-reading instructor that she was being followed and asked to be allowed to eat lunch in the blueprint classroom. She testified that every day she changed where she ate lunch, "but it didn't matter." At first, appellant did not approach HS or talk to her; he would sit at a table near her and stare at her. Sometimes HS did not even know he was there until she got up to leave. She said appellant did not have a phone, books, or a computer with him and was just sitting there staring at her.
HS testified that she was enrolled in classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1:00 to 4:00 in the afternoon and then from 6:00 to 9:00 at night, and appellant was enrolled in different night classes. He started showing up about 3:30 in the afternoon and followed HS around on her breaks. And later he began to show up even earlier, around 1:00 in the afternoon, and would be around "the entire time" HS was in class. She said he began cleaning up his work station at night earlier than other students and was sitting by the exit door by 8:30 p.m.
Later in March appellant was standing in the hallway as HS rounded the corner to go to class. She did not want to run into him so she waited, hoping he would leave. Finally, she had to go by him because she had to get to class. When appellant saw her, he asked her "Where have you been?" HS testified that appellant "demanded to know where I had been because I had not been in class on Thursday night, and I don't miss classes." She said appellant "was very demanding and standing right in the middle of the hallway, and I was not going to get around him until I gave him an answer." She told him she had taken off to be with her husband. She testified that this was about the fourth time she had told appellant she was married. She said "when I brought up my husband in such an obvious way, I was met with dead silence. He just stared at me."
HS testified that on another day she "was completely unnerved and scared out of [her] wits by the end of this day because every time I turned around, he was literally right behind me . . . ." She said she had no idea how long he had been standing there. She said appellant "took his heavy welding gloves and slapped me in the arm with them." She said it was offensive and terrifying because she did not know why he struck her with the gloves. She said she felt things were getting out of control and she was concerned about how she was going to get out that night without him following her.
One day after a break between classes, HS returned to class and sat down only to discover that appellant's backpack was next to hers. Appellant came into the room, reached "aggressively" over her shoulder to get his bag and then glared at her on the way out.
Several days later, HS was working in her welding cubby when the door opened. It was appellant. HS stated it was "super bad form" to open another welder's cubby while they were working "[b]ecause you're ruining the other person's weld." Appellant asked her how it was going and she told him, "It's not going well. I want this to stop." She told appellant that he was scaring her, unnerving her, she was happily married, and she wanted him to leave her alone. When he said he just wanted to be friends, she again told him to leave her alone. He closed the door to her welding cubby and she thought it was over. But then "the door opened with such force, it bounced off of a MIG welder which is about the size of a small kitchen table . . . and I jerked up from my dark weld. And he started screaming." The cubby was approximately a four foot square space with lots of equipment in it, and appellant was very close to her. She described appellant's demeanor as "furious initially." He blocked her exit and told her, "You are not going to the cops. You are not going to ruin my life. You are not going to accuse me." She kept telling him he was scaring her, and suddenly he "got weirdly calm" and said he just wanted to be friends. Then he started yelling again. He said, "We are going to solve this right now." She asked him what he was talking about and told him to get out. She said his demeanor went "back and forth from being super agitated and yelling to being weirdly calm and explaining things to me like I was two years old." She testified that appellant's drastic change in demeanor "was more upsetting and unnerving than the screaming . . . [b]ecause I had no idea what was triggering the all of a sudden calm talk to me like I was a two year old." She was afraid the confrontation might escalate "to the point of death or maybe not being able to get out of" there because the cubby was small and "[t]here was all kinds of equipment around." She "absolutely thought that" appellant was going to hurt her.
After this confrontation, HS said nothing happened for about two weeks. Nevertheless, she said she tried to always be with other people, park in different places, and have all her personal items with her at all times in case she needed to leave quickly. Suddenly one day she was scared again when appellant appeared next to her and in a normal voice apologized for scaring her. He turned and walked away. She said she really thought this was the end of it. But then in early June as she was walking to her car, she saw appellant about twenty feet in front of her. She did not think he saw her so she slowed down and waited. When she finally started out of the parking lot, she saw appellant in her rear view mirror. He followed her for about four miles. She was concerned that appellant saw the direction she took to leave school. Then suddenly appellant "hit the gas, came close and sped away alongside of me."
The final incident happened in mid-June. HS had a break between classes and ate in the blueprint classroom. She waited to leave for class until just before the doors were scheduled to open to her welding class. She looked down to check a text message and suddenly appellant was right next to her. He grabbed her wrist and held it up around his collarbone; he was right at her face and yelled, "Where have you been?" (HS told the jury she had not been in the welding department for a week because she had orientation and then "had been at blueprint reading.") She told appellant to let go, but he would not. She explained that she has "tiny wrists" and appellant's "fingers were all the way around and encircling my wrist." She said "[h]e was not playing around." She managed to twist her wrist out of his grasp and ran toward the welding classroom. Appellant chased her yelling, "Where have you been?" Several male students were waiting for the doors to the welding classroom to open, and she got behind them. She repeatedly yelled to them that appellant "has been following me. Please get the cops." Appellant said, "I just need five minutes to do what I need to do" and "[H], don't make what I need to do something I do in front of all of these guys." She said she had no idea what appellant was talking about. Then someone banged on the classroom door, and appellant "seemed to get a little more panicked" and said, "I love you. I have been in love with you for seven months" and kept repeating that. About that time, the doors to the classroom opened, and HS ran in and got behind the instructor. She said appellant was still following her because no one had stopped him at that point. She ran into a corner of the classroom, and appellant was stopped at the doorway. They were about 15 feet apart and appellant just stared at her. Everyone was talking, and the police had arrived. Appellant "crouched down on the floor with his hands over his ears." Then "in his I'm ta[l]king to a two year old voice, [said] 'I just need five minutes.'" He told HS he loved her and said "don't make me tell everybody how I know that's not true" that you are happily married.
Several students observed this incident. One testified that HS "looked to be scared for her life," ran "into a group of guys for protection," was "frantic," and had her "hand out in a defensive manner trying to stop [appellant] from touching her." Appellant "tried to muscle his way through" the group of guys, who "didn't seem to deter him." Appellant said, "Are you really gonna make me do this, are you gonna make me profess my love for you?" Another student described appellant's demeanor as "[p]retty aggravated, almost angry" and that HS was "[f]rightened, very scared." The instructor said appellant "shoved past me and he was all tense." He said appellant shouted, "I love you. I've loved you for seven months." He testified that appellant was not acting rationally at that moment and "was a crazy ass." The instructor testified that he "was as freaked out" by appellant's behavior "as everybody else was."
The campus police officer arrived and heard appellant say, "Don't make me do this in public. I love you." The officer escorted appellant to the nearby police office where he calmed down enough to write a voluntary statement about what happened. In the statement, appellant said he met HS seven months ago and "had feelings for her at first sight." He said he struck up "casual conversation with her which further solidified my before mentioned feelings." He wrote how he "ran into her by chance at the Subway on campus and asked her if I could sit with her and eat." He said that was when he first fell in love with HS. When she asked for directions to the library, "out of the kindness of my heart I personally walked her there and sat outside and watched her food so no one would throw it away while she went inside and graded papers." Then he wrote how they "both by chance happened to park in the same parking lot" and how "on several occasions we walked to the lot together." On the day he was arrested, appellant said he had decided he was going to tell HS how he felt about her, that he loved her and wanted to be with her. He said he caused a scene and in a flood of emotion told her how he felt, which was like "a monumentous [sic] weight had been lifted off my chest." He concluded his statement by writing that the only thing he was guilty of was "falling for an incredible woman."
STANDARD OF REVIEW & APPLICABLE LAW
We review a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence under the well-established standards set forth in Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307 (1979). Wilson v. State, 448 S.W.3d 418, 425 (Tex. Crim. App. 2014). We view the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict and determine whether a rational jury could have found all the elements of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt. Id. "We will uphold the verdict unless a rational factfinder must have had reasonable doubt with respect to any essential element of the offense." Id.
The offense of stalking, as charged in the indictment, required the State to prove that appellant (1) on more than one occasion and pursuant to the same scheme or course of conduct directed specifically at HS (2) knowingly engaged in conduct constituting an offense under section 42.07 of the penal code (3) that caused HS to feel harassed, annoyed, alarmed, abused, tormented, embarrassed, or offended and (4) that would cause a reasonable person to feel harassed, annoyed, alarmed, abused, tormented, embarrassed, or offended. See TEX. PENAL CODE ANN. § 42.072(a).
Section 42.07 of the penal code defines the offense of harassment. To prove harassment, as alleged in the indictment, the State had to establish that appellant, with intent to harass, annoy, alarm, abuse, torment, or embarrass HS, threatened, in a manner reasonably likely to alarm HS, to inflict bodily injury on HS or to commit a felony against her, a member of her family, or her property. See id. § 42.07(a)(2). To convict appellant of stalking, the State had to prove appellant engaged in this harassing conduct on more than one occasion. See id. § 42.072(a). The conduct alleged by the State to constitute harassment was (1) "approaching complainant and demanding to know complainant's whereabouts and by chasing complainant into a classroom while proclaiming [his] love for complainant"; and (2) "following [complainant] around campus and following complainant from campus for several blocks." Appellant challenges the conviction only with regard to the State's proof that these two allegations constituted harassment.
DISCUSSION
Appellant's arguments focus on his contention that the State failed to prove he harassed HS on more than one occasion. Appellant concedes his actions toward HS "were juvenile, unwelcomed, inappropriate, and likely scared her to a degree," but he argues that "an actual threat" of bodily injury is required and there is no evidence he ever threatened HS with bodily injury or acted with the requisite intent.
1. Appellant approached HS and demanded to know her whereabouts and chased her into a classroom while proclaiming his love for her.
Appellant argues that "the record is completely devoid of any threats made in connection with [his] proclamation of love" and "would likely have been contrary to [his] whole purpose in proclaiming his love" and "is certainly devoid of any evidence that [he] proclaimed his love with 'the intent to harass, annoy, alarm, abuse, torment, or embarrass' [HS]."
The events to which this allegation relate happened on the day of appellant's arrest. He met HS in the hallway, grabbed her wrist, and yelled in her face, "Where have you been?" HS managed to get away from appellant and ran toward the welding classroom where other students could help her. Appellant chased her, all the while yelling "Where have you been?" and "I just need five minutes to do what I need to do." HS said she did not know what this meant. Witnesses described appellant's demeanor as "[p]retty aggravated, almost angry" and "crazy ass." Only as HS approached the classroom door did appellant start yelling that he loved her.
A threat may be communicated by actions as well as words. See Horn v. State, 647 S.W.2d 283, 284-85 (Tex. Crim. App. [Panel Op.] 1983). A rational jury could have found that the act of appellant grabbing HS's wrist and chasing her down the hallway while yelling at her about where she had been was sufficient to prove appellant threatened and actually did inflict bodily injury on HS. See id.; see also Werner v. State, 412 S.W.3d 542, 550 n.41 (Tex. Crim. App. 2013) ("'The offense of stalking contemplates the presentation of evidence that covers the entire course of alleged unlawful conduct specifically directed toward a complainant.'") (quoting McGowan v. State, 375 S.W.3d 585, 590 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2012, pet. ref'd)); see also Schmidt v. State, 232 S.W.3d 66, 67-68 (Tex. Crim. App. 2007) (whether threat was communicated is fact-specific inquiry).
Additionally, appellant knew his conduct scared HS because she told him it did, and, at one point, he told her he was sorry he scared her. She also asked him to leave her alone, and she told him repeatedly that she was happily married. But appellant repeatedly rejected HS's requests and continued to follow her and engage in conduct that frightened and alarmed her. Based on the record, a rational jury could have found that appellant made the threat with the requisite intent. See Hart v. State, 89 S.W.3d 61, 64 (Tex. Crim. App. 2002) (intent of accused determined through circumstantial evidence, considering accused's words, actions, and conduct); see also Schmidt, 232 S.W.3d at 68-69 (evidence victim felt threatened may be considered in weighing sufficiency of evidence of threat); McGowan, 375 S.W.3d at 591 (evidence appellant told repeatedly to leave complainant alone but refused revealed his knowledge complainant would view conduct as threatening bodily injury); Wilmeth v. State, 808 S.W.2d 703, 705 (Tex. App.—Tyler 1991, no pet.) (clenched fists and look in eyes sufficient under circumstances to cause fear of bodily injury).
2. Appellant followed HS around campus and followed her from campus for several blocks.
Appellant also argues there is no evidence that he made any threat against HS when he was following her around campus or in his truck. We disagree. By following HS around campus, he knew where she was eating, where she was taking a break, and when she was working. In one of the incidents where appellant followed HS during her breaks, appellant physically assaulted HS by slapping her arm with his heavy welding gloves. In another, he opened her welding cubby and when HS told appellant to leave her alone, he blocked her exit and began to scream and yell "You are not going to the cops. You are not going to ruin my life. You are not going to accuse me." HS said there were many tools in the cubby that appellant could have used to inflict harm on her. Additionally, HS described how appellant followed her in her car for several miles and "came close" and "alongside" her vehicle before he sped up and left. Given the circumstances of the previous several months, a rational jury could have found that appellant's words and conduct threatened HS with bodily injury. See Werner, 412 S.W.3d at 550 n.41 (consider entire course of alleged unlawful conduct specifically directed toward complainant).
And for the same reason as in the first allegation of harassment, we conclude that a rational jury could have found, based on appellant's words, conduct, the surrounding circumstances, and his knowledge that HS wanted him to leave her alone, that appellant acted with the requisite intent to commit the offense of harassment. See id.; see also Hart, 89 SW3d at 64 (intent of accused determined through circumstantial evidence, considering accused's words, actions, and conduct); McGowan, 375 S.W.3d at 591 (evidence appellant told repeatedly to leave complainant alone but refused revealed his knowledge complainant would view conduct as threatening bodily injury).
Having viewed the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict, we conclude it is sufficient to support the conviction.
CONCLUSION
We affirm the trial court's judgment.
/Elizabeth Lang-Miers/
ELIZABETH LANG-MIERS
JUSTICE Do Not Publish
TEX. R. APP. P. 47.2(b) 160434F.U05
JUDGMENT
On Appeal from the 265th Judicial District Court, Dallas County, Texas
Trial Court Cause No. F15-44643-R.
Opinion delivered by Justice Lang-Miers. Justices Evans and Boatright participating.
Based on the Court's opinion of this date, the judgment of the trial court is AFFIRMED. Judgment entered this 24th day of April, 2017.