Lawrence v. State

1

Joshua Lee Lawrence, Appellant v. The State of Texas

No. 02-23-00238-CR

Court of Appeals of Texas, Second District, Fort Worth

July 3, 2024

On Appeal from the 355th District Court Hood County, Texas Trial Court No. CR14757

Before Sudderth, C.J.; Womack and Walker, JJ.

OPINION

Brian Walker, Justice

After a jury trial, Appellant Joshua Lee Lawrence was convicted of Trafficking a Child with Sexual Assault and sentenced to fifty-eight years' confinement. See Tex. Pen Code § 20A. 02 (a)(7)(C). Lawrence appeals that judgment, challenging the legal sufficiency of the evidence to support the guilty verdict, various evidentiary rulings made by the trial court during the punishment phase of his trial, and the cumulative effect of those allegedly erroneous rulings on the punishment-phase verdict. We will affirm.

I. BACKGROUND^[1]

A. Guilt/Innocence Trial

Lawrence was thirty years old when he started communicating on the Snapchat social media application with complainant S.H., who was fourteen.^[2] S.H. testified that she and Lawrence became Snapchat "friends" when she contacted him after seeing a picture of his penis that he had posted on his Snapchat account. After a few weeks of communicating, they decided to meet in person to drink and stay the night at a hotel together in her hometown of Granbury, Texas. Their plan was to have S.H. walk from her home to a nearby park where Lawrence would pick her up. On July 29, 2019, Lawrence picked S.H. up at the park, and they drove to a local liquor store where he purchased alcohol. He then drove them both to a restaurant to pick up dinner and finally to a local motel. At the motel, the two ate dinner, watched television, and drank the alcohol. They then started to play drinking games that included them removing their clothing. This escalated to the two touching each other's genitals and eventually to having sex. They then went to sleep.

The next morning, Lawrence drove S.H. to an apartment complex where she had a babysitting job. Soon after, S.H. told a friend that she had had sex with Lawrence. S.H.'s mother also became aware of what had happened and alerted the police.

Lawrence was arrested in Florence, Texas (where he worked as a firefighter). While under arrest and having been properly Mirandized, Lawrence admitted that he had met S.H. at the park, had driven her to the motel, and had sex with her at the motel. He maintained, however, that he had believed her to have been eighteen years old.^[3] Evidence from the liquor store, motel, and area surveillance cameras corroborated that Lawrence was in Granbury and at those locations on the dates in question.

B. Punishment Trial

At the punishment phase of Lawrence's trial, a woman named Jillian Allan testified that her daughter, twelve-year-old J.A., had received Snapchat messages from a fireman who identified himself as being named Jakob. In the messages, J.A. told Jakob that she was twelve, and Jakob said that he was twenty-four. Jakob also told J.A. that she was beautiful, that he liked "boobs and butts," and that he had once had a threesome. Allan took screenshots of the messages and other information from Jakob's Snapchat profile and informed the police of the messages.^[4] Jakob's account included a profile picture and, at trial, Allan identified Lawrence as the person in that picture. Lawrence objected to the admission of the screenshots on hearsay, inadequate authentication, and confrontation grounds, and the trial court overruled those objections.

Also at punishment, Steven Ried (a peace officer in the Texas Attorney General's digital forensics unit) testified about a digital extraction report^[5] obtained from Lawrence's electronic devices.^[6] Ried testified that he did not perform the extraction from which Lawrence's report was obtained; rather, the extraction had been performed by Dave Szyperski, a former colleague who had since retired and did not testify at trial.

In a discussion about the chain of custody of these devices, Ried explained that it is a best practice to set seized electronic devices into "airplane mode" so that the devices do not connect to the internet or a cellular network. It is important that this not occur because if a seized device connects to an outside source, the information on the devices could be compromised. Ried testified that, from what he had seen, Szyperski had performed the extraction correctly and that the report indicated that no irregularities had occurred during the extraction. He could not, though, say for sure whether Szyperski had put the devices into airplane mode.

Lawrence objected to the admission of the extraction report on hearsay, inadequate authentication, and confrontation grounds, and the trial court overruled those objections.

Ried then testified using the extraction report as to five conversations that were found on Lawrence's devices between Lawrence and five people who told Lawrence that they were underage girls. In the first conversation, he spoke with a girl who stated that she was seventeen. Lawrence complimented the girl's appearance based on a photo she had sent him and told the girl that he was twenty-three. She asked him if he was "sensitive about age" to which he replied that he was "good with under age" and that "[u]sually girls like older guys and guys like younger girls." Lawrence then told the girl that her age did not bother him and that he was a "good friend to have" because he could "buy alcohol and stuff."

In the second conversation, another girl told Lawrence that she was fourteen years old, and Lawrence told her that he was "fine with [that]," that he could be her big brother, and that there was nothing wrong with them just being friends. He told the girl that he would like to hang out with her, but she did not respond in kind.

In the third conversation, Lawrence told a girl that he was twenty-three and a firefighter. He asked her if she liked firefighters and she said, "Yeah, but I'm way too young." She then told him that he was too old for her, but he assured her that they could still be friends.

In the fourth conversation, Lawrence asked another girl to describe her body, to which she responded, "Petite but curvy around the waist and legs." Lawrence said, "Oh, wow. Sounds nice. I like how you sound." He then told her that he was twenty-two years old, and she told him that she was seventeen. On Lawrence's request, the girl sent him a photo of herself. He told her that he was eager to see her in person and that she "look[ed] great" and had "nice legs, butt, stomach, arms, [and] face." Later in their conversation, Lawrence asked if she liked "ass massages." When she replied in the affirmative, he told her that they should "give each other booty massages."

The fifth conversation occurred between Lawrence and a girl who said she was fifteen. He told the girl that he was twenty-two, that it was "good to have older friends," and that he was okay with her age if she was okay with his. He also told the girl that he was a good friend to have because he could buy alcohol. He asked her on a number of occasions if she wanted to meet in person, inviting her to his house and suggesting that he could pick her up from a friend's house. She told him that he was too old for her and that her parents were strict; Lawrence again responded that they could just be friends.

II. DISCUSSION

Lawrence raises four issues on appeal: (1) the evidence was legally insufficient to support the jury's verdict that he committed the crime of child sex trafficking; (2) the trial court abused its discretion by admitting the Snapchat screenshots between him and J.A. because they were not properly authenticated; (3) the trial court abused its discretion by admitting the extraction report because its authentication was based on inadmissible hearsay; and (4) the cumulative error in admitting the Snapchat screenshots and extraction report affected his substantial rights and cast doubt on the integrity of the punishment verdict.

A. Legal Sufficiency

In his first issue, Lawrence argues that the evidence was legally insufficient to support the guilty verdict because his conduct did not actually constitute "trafficking" under a proper interpretation of Texas Penal Code Section § 20A.02(a)(7) (the Trafficking Statute).

1. Standard of Review and Relevant Law

Usually, we review for legal sufficiency of the evidence by asking whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the State, a rational factfinder could have found the essential elements of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt. Liverman v. State, 470 S.W.3d 831, 835-36 (Tex. Crim. App. 2015). But in some cases, our review turns on the meaning of the statute under which the defendant has been charged, thus we must ask whether his conduct actually constituted an offense under the statute. Id. at 836. That question is one of statutory construction that we review de novo. Id.

"In construing a statute, we give effect to the plain meaning of its language, unless the statute is ambiguous or the plain meaning would lead to absurd results that the legislature could not have possibly intended." Id. To determine plain meaning, we read words and phrases in context and construe them according to the normal rules of grammar and usage. Id. Only if the statute is ambiguous or its plain meaning would lead to absurd results do we look to extratextual factors, such as legislative history. Id.

The Trafficking Statute provides that a person commits the offense of trafficking a child if he knowingly "traffics a child . . . and by any means causes the trafficked child . . to engage in, or become the victim of" a sexual crime, including sexual assault under Section 22.011 of the Penal Code. Tex. Penal...