Opinion
No. 11-16-00111-CR
04-30-2018
SHERMON VALENTINE RANSON, Appellant v. THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee
On Appeal from the 441st District Court Midland County, Texas
Trial Court Cause No. CR43681
MEMORANDUM OPINION
The jury convicted Shermon Valentine Ranson of murder and assessed his punishment at confinement for 99 years and a fine of $5,000; the trial court sentenced him accordingly. We affirm.
In a single issue on appeal, Appellant argues that the evidence presented at trial is insufficient to support the verdict of the jury. Specifically, Appellant argues that the evidence is insufficient to prove that Appellant acted as a party to the murder.
We review the sufficiency of the evidence under the standard of review set forth in Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307 (1979). Brooks v. State, 323 S.W.3d 893, 912 (Tex. Crim. App. 2010). Under the Jackson standard, we examine all the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict and determine whether, based on that evidence and any reasonable inferences from it, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt. Jackson, 443 U.S. at 319; Isassi v. State, 330 S.W.3d 633, 638 (Tex. Crim. App. 2010). As the sole judge of the credibility of the witnesses, the jury is free to accept or reject any or all of a witness's testimony, and we defer to the jury to resolve conflicts in the evidence, to weigh the evidence, and to draw reasonable inferences to reach ultimate facts. Gross v. State, 380 S.W.3d 181, 185 (Tex. Crim. App. 2012); Saxton v. State, 804 S.W.2d 910, 914 (Tex. Crim. App. 1991).
On the evening of May 14, Appellant phoned Savoy Hemphill and asked if Hemphill could find cocaine for Appellant to purchase. Hemphill phoned his cousin, Juravian Shaw, a "fairly well-known" drug dealer. Shaw told Hemphill to come to an apartment complex on Cowden Street, and Shaw and Appellant could complete the drug deal.
Appellant picked up Hemphill, and they went to the apartments on Cowden Street. Hemphill went into Apartment 508B to meet with Shaw. According to Michael Johnson, who lived in Apartment 508B with Alfer Lee Hemphill, Shaw sold crack cocaine out of the bathroom in that apartment.
Shaw told Hemphill that Shaw was waiting on "something" and that the drugs were not ready; Appellant and Hemphill left. Meanwhile, Shaw went to a Family Dollar store and bought a pack of tea candles. Shaw made fake crack cocaine by breaking the candles in half and placing them in a sandwich baggie.
Appellant and Hemphill returned to the apartment later that night. Only Hemphill went into Apartment 508B; Hemphill told Appellant to stay in the car. However, when Shaw and Hemphill walked out of the apartment, Appellant was in the courtyard. They walked across the street, and Shaw sold Appellant the fake crack cocaine for $1,000.
Appellant took Hemphill home and then went to Jana J. Robinson's house; Appellant lived there. Appellant asked Robinson to smell a "white and hard" substance in a baggie. Robinson thought the baggie contained drugs, but she smelled the substance and told Appellant that it smelled like soap. When she said that to Appellant, he became "a little upset" and told her, "They got me."
Appellant phoned Hemphill and told him that "the stuff was fake." Hemphill told Appellant to come get him, and they would go talk to Shaw. Appellant picked Hemphill up, and they returned to the apartments on Cowden Street. When they knocked on the door to Apartment 508B, no one came to the door. They knocked on the neighbor's door, and the neighbor told them that Shaw had "left out of there doing 80," which meant that Shaw had "rushed . . . and took off."
Appellant and Hemphill went to Appellant's house. Appellant showed Hemphill the fake crack cocaine. Hemphill agreed that, although the substance appeared to be genuine crack cocaine, it smelled like soap.
Appellant and Hemphill tried to phone Shaw. Cell phone records revealed that Appellant called Shaw seventeen times before Shaw turned his phone off around midnight. Although Hemphill testified that Shaw would not respond, Shaw testified that he answered "several" calls that he received from Appellant. According to Shaw, Appellant threatened that he was going to "f--k [Shaw] up," "shoot" him, and "get" him.
Appellant became agitated because he could not find Shaw. Hemphill recalled that Appellant said, "Something has to be done. I got to get him. . . . He got to get got." Appellant also told Hemphill that Appellant "had to get his little n----rs on him." Robinson heard Appellant say, "That little n----r is knocked out on those pills, but wait till he wake up. The one thing about it is don't nobody know him, and he'll bust that . . . thing." Robinson testified that "bust" means "shoot." When Appellant took Hemphill home that night, he continued to tell Hemphill that "he got to get him."
Around 7:00 the next morning, J.B. woke up when K.S.'s cell phone rang. K.S. was J.B.'s best friend, and he had left his cell phone at J.B.'s home. The call was from Appellant, and he was trying to contact K.S. At the time, J.B. was sixteen years old and in the tenth grade; K.S. was fourteen years old. Appellant was originally a friend of J.B.'s father and frequently visited J.B.'s house. However, in the month leading up to the shooting, Appellant began to hang out with K.S. "twice a day[,] three times a week." K.S. testified that he looked up to Appellant "like a big brother."
On the night of May 14, J.B. and K.S. drank alcohol, smoked marihuana, and took Xanax or Onax "bars." J.B. recalled that he fell asleep around 2:30 a.m. and that K.S. slept on the couch. When J.B. woke up, K.S. was gone, but K.S. had left his cell phone.
K.S.'s cell phone rang, and J.B. answered it; the call was from Appellant. Appellant said that he would take J.B. to school after they returned K.S.'s phone to him at his house. J.B. recalled that it was "unusual" for Appellant to take him to school. Appellant had not taken J.B. to school before.
Appellant picked up J.B., drove to K.S.'s house, and parked in front of the house. Appellant told J.B. to go inside and give K.S. the phone. J.B. testified that Appellant also told him to "tell [K.S.] to bring that --," but J.B. closed the door before he heard the end of the sentence. However, K.S. testified that, when J.B. woke him up, J.B. told him, "[Appellant] say come on. Bring the gun."
Two weeks before this incident, Appellant had given K.S. a "little" "black" "handgun" to use "for protection." K.S. had two cell phones, and he had woken up to an earlier text message from Appellant, in which Appellant texted, "Call me they got me!"
After J.B. told K.S. what Appellant had said, K.S. put on a hooded jacket, grabbed the gun, went outside, and got in Appellant's car. J.B. sat in the front passenger seat, and K.S. sat in the rear passenger-side seat. Appellant told K.S. that, after they took J.B. to school, they were "going to handle something." As Appellant drove, he repeated, "They got me." K.S. understood Appellant to mean that a drug deal had gone wrong.
Appellant did not take J.B. to school but, instead, drove directly to the apartments on Cowd.en Street. He parked parallel to the apartments. K.S. realized that the apartments were "where they got [Appellant] at."
Appellant told K.S. to "go handle that." K.S. tried to give Appellant the gun. Appellant refused to take the gun and said, "I can't do it because I've got to drive. Y'all too young to drive." When K.S. said that he would "do it," Appellant told him, "[I]t's the one with the dog." As K.S. got out of the car, Appellant handed him a black bandana; K.S. thought that the bandana was to be used to cover his face.
Testimony from neighbors in the apartment complex revealed that the occupants of the apartment next door to Apartment 508B kept a dog chained to a staircase that was directly in front of the door to Apartment 508B.
With the gun in his jacket pocket, K.S. walked through the gate to the apartment complex and looked for the apartment with the dog. K.S. stepped in front of the door to Apartment 508B, closed his eyes, and shot into the door until the gun was empty. When K.S. finished shooting, he ran through the back gate of the apartment complex and through an alley; Appellant and J.B. were "right there to pick [him] up."
J.B. recalled that, when he heard gunshots, he was afraid that someone was shooting at K.S., and he ducked. However, Appellant did not react: "[Appellant] was just sitting there looking around." K.S. testified that, when he got in the car, Appellant was "excited" and "hyped." Appellant said that "they'd know not to play with us no more."
Appellant quickly drove away from the apartments and took K.S. and J.B. to J.B.'s house. Appellant told K.S. to give him the gun and said that he would "handle it" or "get rid of it." K.S. gave the gun to Appellant, and K.S. never saw it again.
Alfer Lee and Johnson were inside the apartment when K.S. shot through the door. Johnson told Alfer Lee to lie down, but Alfer Lee stood up from the couch where he had been sleeping. K.S. shot Alfer Lee in the back of the head. That night, Alfer Lee died from that gunshot wound.
K.S. subsequently pleaded guilty to the murder of Alfer Lee. The State charged that Appellant:
In the indictment against Appellant, the State alleged three alternative theories for K.S.'s guilt under Section 19.02(b) of the Texas Penal Code. TEX. PENAL CODE ANN. § 19.02(b) (West 2011). On appeal, Appellant does not challenge the sufficiency of the evidence to prove that K.S. committed murder. See Richardson v. State, 879 S.W.2d 874, 882 (Tex. Crim. App. 1993) (explaining that, to prove an accused's guilt as a party, the State must first prove the guilt of another person as the primary actor).
[A]cting with the intent to promote and assist the commission of the aforesaid offense of murder by the said [K.S.], did then and there solicit, encourage, direct, aid, and attempt to aid, the said [K.S.] to commit the said offense of murder[.]
"A person is criminally responsible as a party to an offense if the offense is committed by his own conduct, by the conduct of another for which he is criminally responsible, or by both." TEX. PENAL CODE ANN. § 7.01(a) (West 2011). A person is criminally responsible for an offense committed by the conduct of another if, with the intent to promote or assist the commission of the offense, the person solicits, encourages, directs, aids, or attempts to aid the other person to commit the offense. Id. § 7.02(a)(2).
"[M]ere presence of a person at the scene of a crime, or even flight from the scene, without more, is insufficient to support a conviction as a party to the offense." Gross v. State, 380 S.W.3d 181, 186 (Tex. Crim. App. 2012). However, evidence is sufficient to convict a defendant under the law of parties if he was physically present at the commission of the offense and encouraged the commission of the offense either by words or other agreement. Cordova v. State, 698 S.W.2d 107, 111 (Tex. Crim. App. 1985).
"[T]he evidence must show that at the time of the commission of the offense the parties were acting together, each doing some part of the execution of the common purpose." Brooks v. State, 580 S.W.2d 825, 831 (Tex. Crim. App. 1979). The court may look to events before, during, and after the commission of the offense to determine whether an individual is a party to the offense. Medellin v. State, 617 S.W.2d 229, 231 (Tex. Crim. App. 1981). The court may also rely on the actions of the defendant that show an understanding and common design to do the prohibited act. Brooks, 580 S.W.2d at 832. Finally, circumstantial evidence may be used to prove that the accused is a party to an offense. Wygal v. State, 555 S.W.2d 465, 469 (Tex. Crim. App. 1977).
We have reviewed the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict, and we hold that a rational trier of fact could have found beyond a reasonable doubt that Appellant committed the offense of murder under the law of parties.
The jury was entitled to draw reasonable inferences from the evidence. Jackson, 443 U.S. at 319. Here, the evidence allowed the jury to infer that Appellant intended for K.S. to shoot at the apartment when he instructed K.S. to "go handle that." This inference is supported by Appellant's motive to "get" Shaw for selling him fake drugs. It is also supported by Appellant's stated desire to "get his little n----rs" on Shaw and his request for K.S. to "[b]ring the gun." When K.S. attempted to give Appellant the gun, Appellant responded only by saying that he could not "do it" himself because he had to drive; he then directed K.S. to the apartment where he had seen Shaw and Hemphill the night before. When K.S. agreed to "do it," Appellant handed him a bandana to conceal his face. These facts reveal that Appellant was not merely present but also solicited, encouraged, directed, and aided K.S. in committing the murder. See PENAL § 7.02(a)(2).
Appellant argues that the shooting was an act of K.S.'s "own volition." However, a rational trier of fact, considering the events that occurred during and after the shooting, could conclude otherwise. First, although J.B. was afraid that K.S. had been shot and ducked when he heard gunshots, Appellant remained calm and did not react. When K.S. ran away from the apartments, Appellant was already in the alley waiting for him. As Appellant drove away from the apartments, he acted "excited" and said that "they'd know not to play with us no more." Moreover, after the shooting, Appellant told K.S. to give him the gun so that he could "get rid of it." From these circumstances, the jury could further infer an agreement or common purpose to commit murder. See Cordova, 698 S.W.2d at 111; Medellin, 617 S.W.2d at 231, 233. We overrule Appellant's single issue on appeal.
We affirm the judgment of the trial court.
JIM R. WRIGHT
SENIOR CHIEF JUSTICE April 30, 2018 Do not publish. See TEX. R. APP. P. 47.2(b). Panel consists of: Willson, J.,
Bailey, J., and Wright, S.C.J.
Jim R. Wright, Senior Chief Justice (Retired), Court of Appeals, 11th District of Texas at Eastland, sitting by assignment.