Willis v. State

CLARENCE DEWAYNE WILLIS, Appellant v. THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee

No. 06-19-00246-CR

Court of Appeals Sixth Appellate District of Texas at Texarkana

Date Submitted: September 15, 2020

November 18, 2020

On Appeal from the 5th District Court Bowie County, Texas

Trial Court No. 18-F-1425-005

Before Morriss, C.J., Burgess and Stevens, JJ.

Memorandum Opinion by Justice Burgess MEMORANDUM OPINION

A Bowie County jury convicted Clarence Dewayne Willis as a party to the murder of Tony Sanders. After Willis pled true to the State's punishment enhancement allegations of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and robbery, he was sentenced to ninety-nine years' imprisonment. On appeal, Willis argues that he did not receive a fair trial because (1) the trial court admitted hearsay statements by a co-defendant, (2) the trial court allowed the jury to hear allegedly false testimony, and (3) counsel rendered ineffective assistance by failing to "obtain[] a more favorable result."

We find that Willis failed to preserve his first two points of error. We also find that Willis has not shown that he received ineffective assistance of counsel. As a result, we affirm the trial court's judgment.

I. Factual Background

At trial, it was undisputed that Takyme James shot and killed Sanders.¹ The issue before the jury was whether Willis was a party to the offense. While Willis argued that James acted alone, several witnesses testified about Willis's involvement in the murder.

The State's first witness, Ricky Darden, testified that Sanders was hosting a Sunday night football watch party at a biker's clubhouse that was attended by James. According to Darden and Sanders's wife, Dorsanner Butler, Sanders asked James to leave after he became intoxicated and aggressive toward other partygoers. James responded to Sanders's request by punching himin the face, prompting a fight between the two that led to James fleeing the clubhouse. Butler testified that she and Sanders also left the clubhouse and went home.

Kim Willis, cousin to James, Willis, and LaPrince Willis, testified that James "beat[] on [her] door like he was the police and actually startled [her]." Kim said that James was bloody, "riled up," and reported that he had been "jumped." Kim called Willis and LaPrince and asked them to come to her home to help her determine what had happened to James. According to Kim, Willis and LaPrince reported that they were already headed to her house in LaPrince's black Chrysler because they had heard of the altercation. Kim said Willis and LaPrince picked James up and left. LaPrince's wife, Andrea Sanders, also testified that James, Willis, and LaPrince got into LaPrince's vehicle.

According to Butler, Sanders contacted Willis to smooth things over, but Butler and Sanders decided to leave the house because the conversation took an uneasy turn. Butler said that, just as they were going to leave, they saw LaPrince's vehicle coming down their street and decided to get back into the house. She testified that Sanders was fumbling with the keys to the front door and told her he noticed that James and Willis had guns when they got out of LaPrince's car. A neighbor also testified that he saw Willis outside of the car. Butler, who admitted that she did not see a weapon in Willis's hands, testified that James and Willis were "screaming and hollering" as she and Sanders rushed into their home and locked the door behind them. Butler ran into a closet and called 9-1-1. When she came out of the closet, she found Sanders laying on the ground barely responsive. He had been shot.

Butler identified James and Willis as the perpetrators during her 9-1-1 call and during conversations with responding police officers, including Brad Thacker, an officer with the Texarkana, Texas, Police Department (TTPD). According to Thacker, Butler said that James and Willis were both yelling at Sanders as they approached his home, and both told him, "[D]on't run in the house now . . . . Don't get scared now." Butler and Thacker testified that the front door was kicked in. According to Butler, Willis "wasn't trying to stop [James]," "was more crooked than [James] was[,] . . . [and] had more hardness than [James] did that night." Thacker said that, based on Butler's description of the getaway vehicle, LaPrince was identified as the driver.

Brian Purcell, a detective with TTPD, testified that LaPrince was the first to be apprehended after Sanders died at the hospital and told TTPD that he had been with Willis. Purcell testified that Willis agreed to an interview with TTPD but provided a version of events different from the versions given by LaPrince and James in their interviews. Willis admitted that Sanders called him when he was with James after the altercation. According to Purcell, telephone records showed that Willis's conversation with Sanders happened at 9:45 p.m. and that Butler's 9-1-1 call was placed at 9:52 p.m. During his interview, Willis claimed that James acted alone while he and LaPrince drove away. Yet, he told officers that, if they found a footprint at the door that could match his, it was because he had given James his shoes, which revealed to Purcell that Willis was there because "[he] specifically knew that the door was kicked instead of shouldered."

Purcell testified that James admitted to shooting Sanders, "would not tell [the TTPD] who kicked in the door," but "adamantly denied" that he had kicked in the door. James did tell TTPD that Willis and LaPrince were "hot" after Willis's conversation with Sanders and that "[Sanders] tried to talk [Willis] down, and [Willis] wasn't having it."

Jerome Washington, Willis's cellmate, claimed that Willis said he was involved in Sanders's murder. Without objection, Washington testified that Willis said that "he came to [James's] aid, . . . kicked the door [to Sanders's home], and his cousin . . . shot the gun." Washington said that Willis took the gun to Melvin Hill's home and that it would never be found. Washington also said that James was covering for Willis by not revealing to TTPD who was with him during the crime. Cody Harris, a TTPD detective, testified that Willis said he had gone to Hill's house after the incident during the interview, that this fact had not been released to the public, and that Washington could have only obtained that information from Willis.

After hearing this evidence, the jury found that Willis was a party to the murder. During punishment, Willis pled true to the State's punishment enhancement allegations. The evidence showed that Willis had previously committed an aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon and aggravated sexual assault, that those offenses were reduced pursuant to charge bargains in exchange for pleas of guilty to robbery and sexual assault, and that Willis was sentenced to twenty years' imprisonment for each offense. The State also showed that Willis was previously convicted of both misdemeanor and felony evading arrest, escape, theft, and failing to identify a fugitive from justice and that he was on federal probation for possession with intent to distributemethamphetamine. As a result of this punishment evidence, the jury assessed a sentence of ninety-nine years' imprisonment.

I. Willis Did Not Preserve His Hearsay Complaints

During the State's redirect examination of Purcell, the State argued, outside of the jury's presence, that it should be allowed to question Purcell about James's desire to protect Willis. The State argued that Willis had left a false impression that James was trying to protect himself by not revealing who was with him and wished to offer testimony that James was instead trying to protect Willis. Willis argued that he did not open the door to such testimony and that James's statement, "I'm trying to protect my folks," did not specifically name Willis. Willis made no other argument or objection.

After the trial court allowed the questioning, Purcell testified that James made the following statements: (1) "I'm just trying to keep everyone else out of trouble," (2) "Everybody went to tripping, hooting and hollering," (3) "[Willis] and them were on their way to do something," (4) "Willis and LaPrince were the only ones who knew where Sanders lived," and (5) "I don't want to put nobody else's name in this." On appeal, Willis argues that the trial court erred in admitting this evidence because it did not fit the hearsay exception under Rule 801(e)(2)(E) of the Texas Rules of Evidence.² The State argues that this issue is unpreserved. We agree.

A "point of error on appeal must comport with the objection made at trial." Wilson v. State, 71 S.W.3d 346, 349 (Tex. Crim. App. 2002); see Swain v. State, 181 S.W.3d 359, 368 (Tex. Crim. App. 2005). As stated in Resendez v. State, 306 S.W.3d 308 (Tex. Crim. App. 2009),

Rule 33.1(a) of the Texas Rules of Appellate Procedure provides that a complaint is not preserved for appeal unless it was made to the trial court "by a timely request, objection or motion" that "stated the grounds for the ruling that the complaining party sought from the trial court with sufficient specificity to make the trial court aware of the complaint, unless the specific grounds were apparent from the context."

Resendez, 306 S.W.3d at 312 (quoting TEX. R. APP. P. 33.1(a)(1)(A)).

"The purpose of requiring a specific objection in the trial court is twofold: (1) to inform the trial judge of the basis of the objection and give him the opportunity to rule on it; [and] (2) to give opposing counsel the opportunity to respond to the complaint." Id. As explained in Resendez,

Although there are no technical considerations or forms of words required to preserve an error for appeal, a party must be specific enough so as to "let the trial judge know what he wants, why he thinks himself entitled to it, and do so clearly enough for the judge to understand him at a time when the trial court is in a proper position to do something about it."

Id. at 312-13 (quoting Lankston v....