Thompson v. State

JANE BLAND

Affirmed.

Stanley G. Schneider, Schneider & McKinney, P.C., Houston, for Appellant. Devon Anderson, Alan Curry, Chief Prosecutor, Appellate Div., Houston, for The State of Texas.

JANE BLAND, Justice.

A jury found appellant Cregory Thompson guilty of the second degree felony offense of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, and the trial court assessed a punishment of five years' imprisonment. See Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 22.02 (West 2012). On appeal, Thompson contends that the trial court erred in overruling his motion for new trial because he was denied effective assistance of counsel. Finding no reversible error, we affirm.

An appellate court generally assumes that trial counsel had a strategic reason to act as he did if any strategic motivation can possibly be imagined, and “will not conclude the challenged conduct constituted deficient performance unless the conduct was so outrageous that no competent attorney would have engaged in it.” Garcia v. State, 57 S.W.3d 436, 440 (Tex.Crim.App.2001). Thompson's trial counsel explained his reasons for not requesting a defense-of-property instruction during the motion for new trial hearing:

Q. And can you get into about why you did not request a defense of property instruction? Was that a strategic decision?

A. No. It was not. I—honestly, it didn't cross my mind. I'll be perfectly honest.

Q. Okay.

A. It didn't cross my—let me clarify. It didn't cross my mind because it wasn't his truck.

Q. Okay.

A. I mean, it wasn't his property.

Q. Okay.

A. So, I mean, it was just one of those—it didn't seem applicable to me.

At the motion for new trial hearing, Thompson testified that, even though the truck registration showed Coffman as the sole owner, the truck belonged to their business, and payments for the truck were drawn from a joint bank account held by Thompson and Coffman. Thompson claims that, because he had an ownership interest in the truck, he was entitled to a defense-of-property jury instruction and prejudiced by his trial counsel's failure to request its submission.

Proof of ownership, however, is only one of the elements that the evidence must raise before a defendant is entitled to a jury instruction on defense of property. Thompson was also required to show that (1) Bittner was acting unlawfully in attempting to repossess the truck and (2) Thompson reasonably believed that the force he used was immediately necessary to prevent Bittner's unlawful interference. See Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 9.41(a) (West 2011). No evidence presented during the guilt-innocence phase raised an issue about whether Bittner's attempted repossession was unlawful. During the punishment phase, Thompson admitted that he knew that his business partner had not kept up with the payments due on the truck and that he had tried to make arrangements with Bittner to pick up the truck the next morning.

Further, Thompson denied having brandished a gun at Bittner—the very conduct he would have had to admit to in order to claim defense of property in this case. See Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 9.42 (West 2011); East v. State, 76 S.W.3d 736, 738 (Tex.App.-Waco 2002, no pet.) (holding that defendant must admit to committing conduct which forms basis of affirmative defense before claiming that defense). Instead, he relied on the eyewitness testimony of an acquaintance who frequented the club and was present the night of the incident. The witness denied that Thompson held or used a weapon during his discussion with Bittner.

From the evidence presented at the new trial hearing, the trial court could have reasonably concluded that trial counsel made a strategic decision not to raise the issue of defense of property because the evidence at trial did not substantiate a need for Thompson to protect the property and counsel reasonably chose to employ the available trial strategy, namely, that Thompson was innocent of the alleged crime and never brandished a firearm at all. Because the defense of property issue would have undermined the reasonable trial strategy that trial counsel employed, Thompson has failed to satisfy the first prong of the Strickland test. See Strickland, 466 U.S. at 687, 104 S.Ct. at 2064.

Thompson next contends that his trial counsel failed to challenge the State's evidence in a meaningful way. First, Thompson points to Sergeant Hendrix's testimony that, in his 911 call, Thompson denied involvement in the incident. In testimony adduced at the punishment stage, Thompson explained that Coffman called him earlier that evening to tell him that Bittner had informed her that the police had an outstanding warrant for Thompson's arrest, and that he called 911 to demonstrate to Coffman that no warrant had been issued. Because trial counsel did not elicit testimony on this issue from Bittner during cross-examination, Thompson contends the jury was left with the impression that Thompson's call demonstrated his awareness of his guilt. Thompson also claims that his trial counsel should have developed the facts surrounding a conversation between Coffman and Thompson in which Coffman asked Thompson about what happened that night, and Thompson replied “I don't know what you're talking about.” Thompson explains that his reply referred to Bittner's allegations of assault, not to whether he had been present during the incident. Trial counsel's failure to elicit testimony from Coffman that would place Thompson's statement in context, he complains, left the appearance that he was being evasive and denying his involvement in the incident.

Thompson did not present either of these failure-to-investigate claims in his motion for new trial, and the hearing record does not affirmatively demonstrate that trial counsel was ignorant of those issues or that he lacked a strategic reason for not developing the testimony concerning them. Further, Thompson fails to account for Coffman's trial testimony in which she explained that, contrary to Thompson's assertion, she understood Thompson's response that “[h]e didn't know what I was talking about” to mean that “he wasn't there” when Bittner tried to repossess the truck. In any event, we hold that the record is insufficient to support Thompson's burden to prove these ineffective assistance complaints. See Thompson, 9 S.W.3d at 814.

We hold that Thompson has not met his burden to show that he was denied effective assistance of counsel. We therefore affirm the judgment of the trial court.