Crystal B. Williams v. State ( 2017 )

Fourth Court of Appeals
San Antonio, Texas
MEMORANDUM OPINION
No. 04-16-00431-CR
Crystal B. WILLIAMS,
Appellant
v.
The STATE of Texas,
Appellee
From the 379th Judicial District Court, Bexar County, Texas
Trial Court No. 2013CR2757C
Honorable Ron Rangel, Judge Presiding
Opinion by: Karen Angelini, Justice
Sitting: Karen Angelini, Justice
Marialyn Barnard, Justice
Luz Elena D. Chapa, Justice
Delivered and Filed: July 26, 2017
AFFIRMED
Appellant Crystal Williams pled guilty before a jury to one of two alternate manner and
means of causing serious bodily injury to a child. The jury found Williams guilty, and, following
a sentencing hearing, assessed punishment at ninety-nine years’ confinement and a $10,000 fine.
In a single issue on appeal, Williams asserts her trial attorney was ineffective by allowing her to
plead guilty. We affirm.
04-16-00431-CR
BACKGROUND
Williams’s stepson, J.W., was five years old when he died. Williams was charged with
one count of causing serious bodily injury to J.W. by two alternate manner and means. Paragraph
A of the indictment alleged Williams caused serious bodily harm to J.W. by failing to provide the
child with adequate nourishment. Paragraph B of the indictment alleged Williams caused serious
bodily harm to J.W. by failing to obtain and provide proper medical care for the child. After the
trial court read the indictment to the jury, Williams pled not guilty to Paragraph A, and guilty to
Paragraph B. After opening arguments before the jury, trial recessed for the day.
The next day, outside the jury’s presence, the trial court admonished Williams on her guilty
plea. Williams stated she read the indictment with her attorney; she understood the charges against
her and that the range of punishment was five to ninety-nine years or life in the Texas Department
of Corrections; she understood she had the right to have the jury hear all the State’s evidence; and
she elected to have the jury assess punishment. Williams also stated she understood she was not
required to plead guilty; no one had forced, pressured, or made promises to her to plead guilty to
Paragraph B; the jury could find her guilty based upon her plea alone; and the jury had the entire
range of punishment to assess. The trial court then found Williams’s plea to be voluntarily and
competently made.
After the jury was called into the courtroom, the trial court instructed the jury to find
Williams guilty as charged in the indictment under only Paragraph B, which alleged Williams
caused serious bodily harm to J.W. by failing to obtain and provide proper medical care for the
child. After a four-minute deliberation, the jury returned a unanimous verdict of guilty on
Paragraph B. Following the punishment phase of trial, during which several witnesses testified,
the jury assessed punishment at ninety-nine years’ confinement and a $10,000 fine.
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DISCUSSION
On appeal, Williams asserts trial counsel’s decision to allow her to plead guilty to
Paragraph B amounted to deficient representation because the State presented no evidence that any
serious bodily harm or death could have been prevented if J.W. had received proper medical care.
Williams contends that—but for her guilty plea—the State’s evidence would have been legally
insufficient to support the jury’s verdict.
We review an appellant’s claim of ineffective assistance of counsel under the well-
established standard of review. See Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 690-91 (1984);
Thompson v. State, 9 S.W.3d 808, 812 (Tex. Crim. App. 1999). The appellant must first show
counsel’s performance was deficient, and second, assuming appellant has demonstrated deficient
performance, appellant must affirmatively prove prejudice. Thompson, 9 S.W.3d at 812. A
reviewing court cannot speculate as to the reasons why trial counsel acted as he did, rather a
reviewing court must presume the actions were taken as part of a strategic plan for representing
the client. See Young v. State, 991 S.W.2d 835, 837-38 (Tex. Crim. App. 1999). The appellate
record must affirmatively demonstrate the alleged ineffective assistance of counsel. See
Thompson, 9 S.W.3d at 813. Generally, the trial record will not suffice to establish an ineffective
assistance of counsel claim. 1 Thompson, 9 S.W.3d at 813-14.
The entirety of Williams’s argument that trial counsel was deficient is premised on the
following provision of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure:
No person can be convicted of a felony except upon the verdict of a jury
duly rendered and recorded, unless the defendant, upon entering a plea, has in open
court in person waived his right of trial by jury in writing in accordance with
Articles 1.13 and 1.14; provided, however, that it shall be necessary for the state to
introduce evidence into the record showing the guilt of the defendant and said
evidence shall be accepted by the court as the basis for its judgment and in no event
shall a person charged be convicted upon his plea without sufficient evidence to
1
Williams did not file a motion for new trial.
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support the same. The evidence may be stipulated if the defendant in such case
consents in writing, in open court, to waive the appearance, confrontation, and
cross-examination of witnesses, and further consents either to an oral stipulation of
the evidence and testimony or to the introduction of testimony by affidavits, written
statements of witnesses, and any other documentary evidence in support of the
judgment of the court. Such waiver and consent must be approved by the court in
writing, and be filed in the file of the papers of the cause. [Emphasis added.]
TEX. CRIM. PROC. CODE ANN. art. 1.15 (West 2005).
“By its plain terms [article 1.15] requires evidence in addition to, and independent of, the
plea itself to establish the defendant’s guilt.” Menefee v. State, 287 S.W.3d 9, 14 (Tex. Crim. App.
2009). According to Williams, the State did not present any evidence, during the guilt-innocence
phase of trial, “in addition to, and independent of,” her plea to substantiate that she was in fact
guilty. Therefore, Williams argues, because the State’s evidence was legally insufficient to
support the verdict, her attorney’s “allowing” her to plead guilty amounted to ineffective assistance
of counsel. Williams contends the trial court instructed the jury to find her guilty “based on nothing
more than her unsubstantiated plea, despite the mandatory provisions of article 1.15.”
However, on appeal, Williams acknowledges article 1.15 does not apply in cases, such as
this one, where a jury was the fact-finder. “By its plain language, Article 1.15 applies only to
cases in which a jury trial has been waived.” Wright v. State, 28 S.W.3d 526, 537 (Tex. Crim.
App. 2000); see also Messer v. State, 729 S.W.2d 694, 699 (Tex. Crim. App. 1986) (“Stipulations,
oral or written, in criminal cases where the plea of not guilty is entered before the jury do not have
to comply with Article 1.15.”); Lindley v. State, 736 S.W.2d 267, 275 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth
1987, pet. ref’d, untimely filed) (“[A]rticle 1.15 applies only when the defendant has ‘waived his
right of trial by jury.’”). 2 Despite her acknowledgement that article 1.15 does not apply because
2
Williams suggests this court is free to adopt a rule that article 1.15 applies to cases in which a jury serves as the fact-
finder for guilt-innocence. However, we are bound by the precedent of the Court of Criminal Appeals and we have
no authority to disregard or overrule its precedent. See Hailey v. State, 413 S.W.3d 457, 489 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth
2012, pet. ref’d).
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she did not waive her right to a jury, and with no further assertions of how counsel was deficient,
Williams then argues counsel’s deficient advice harmed her by depriving her of the right to seek
appellate review of the sufficiency of the evidence in support of the jury’s verdict.
A plea of guilty to a felony before a jury admits the existence of all incriminating facts
necessary to establish guilt. Wilkerson v. State, 736 S.W.2d 656, 659 (Tex. Crim. App. 1987);
Williams v. State, 674 S.W.2d 315, 318 (Tex. Crim. App. 1984); Brinson v. State, 570 S.W.2d 937,
938 (Tex. Crim. App. 1978). Introduction of evidence by the State in a felony case involving a
guilty plea before the jury is to enable the jury to intelligently exercise discretion in determining
the appropriate punishment. York v. State, 566 S.W.2d 936, 938 (Tex. Crim. App. 1978); Brown
v. State, 487 S.W.2d 86, 86-87 (Tex. Crim. App. 1972); see also TEX. CODE CRIM. PROC. ANN. art.
26.14 (West 2009) (“Where a defendant in a [felony] case . . . persists in pleading guilty[,] if the
punishment is not absolutely fixed by law, a jury shall be impaneled to assess the punishment and
evidence may be heard to enable them to decide thereupon, unless the defendant in accordance
with Articles 1.13 or 37.07 shall have waived his right to trial by jury.”). Williams asserts her
guilty plea to the jury admitted the existence of all incriminating facts necessary to establish her
guilt; therefore, she was prejudiced by her attorney’s deficient performance because her plea
before the jury amounted to a waiver of her right to direct appellate review of the sufficiency of
the State’s evidence.
Williams’s argument on appeal conflates the two prongs of Strickland. Williams does not
allege counsel should not have advised her to plead guilty. Instead, she relies on article 1.15 to
argue deficient performance, despite conceding article 1.15 does not apply to her case. Williams
then asserts counsel’s deficient performance relieved the State of its burden to prove her guilt
beyond a reasonable doubt, thereby prejudicing her ability to seek appellate review of the
sufficiency of the State’s evidence. On this record, we cannot conclude trial counsel’s performance
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was deficient because the appellate record does not affirmatively demonstrate the alleged
ineffective assistance of counsel. There are many reasons trial counsel may have advised Williams
to plead guilty to a jury. “[G]uilty pleas allow the parties to avoid the uncertainties of litigation[
and the] decision to plead guilty . . . may be influenced by factors that have nothing to do with the
defendant’s guilt.” Ex parte Tuley, 109 S.W.3d 388, 393 (Tex. Crim. App. 2002). “The inability
to disprove the State’s case, the inability to afford counsel, the inability to afford bail, family
obligations, the need to return to work, and other considerations may influence a defendant’s
choice to plead guilty or go to trial.” In this case, perhaps counsel believed a jury would reach a
more favorable decision on punishment. However, because we can only speculate about trial
counsel’s reason for advising Williams to plead guilty to a jury rather than to the trial court, the
trial record does not suffice to establish an ineffective assistance of counsel claim. See Thompson,
9 S.W.3d at 813-14.
Even if we were to find deficient performance, we conclude the second prong of Strickland
is not satisfied. In the context of determining whether a defendant who has pled guilty was
prejudiced by an attorney’s deficient advice, we focus “on whether counsel’s constitutionally
ineffective performance affected the outcome of the plea process. In other words, in order to
satisfy the ‘prejudice’ requirement, the defendant must show that there is a reasonable probability
that, but for counsel’s errors, [she] would not have pleaded guilty and would have insisted on going
to trial.” Hill v. Lockhart, 474 U.S. 52, 59 (1985); see also Ex Parte Torres, 483 S.W.3d 35, 46
(Tex. Crim. App. 2016) (concluding proper standard for determining prejudice is the one set forth
in Hill). “The point is not merely semantical or formulaic; the absence [of such an assertion]
speaks to a lack of substantive prejudice an applicant must experience to entitle her to relief under
this particular claim.” Ex parte Knelsen, PD-1566-15, 2017 WL 2462329, at *4 (Tex. Crim. App.
June 7, 2017) (not designated for publication) (“When this Court adopted the Hill v. Lockhart
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analysis for involuntary-plea claims as a result of ineffective assistance of counsel, it adopted the
exacting pleading burden Hill itself embraced.”).
In this case, Williams does not assert her guilty plea was involuntary, nor does she assert
that, but for counsel’s deficient performance, she would have pled not guilty and instead insisted
on going to trial or she would have pled guilty but she would have pled to the court instead of to
the jury thereby triggering the requirements of article 1.15.
Finally, Williams’s assertions of prejudice are entirely speculative. She contends that trial
counsel’s “errant advice” prevented her from direct appellate review of the sufficiency of the
evidence in support of the jury’s verdict. She alleges the defensive evidence included her own
denial that her failure to obtain medical care caused J.W. serious bodily injury and her board-
certified pediatric pathologist expert opined that the cause and manner of death could not be
determined to any degree of medical certainty. Williams’s argument requires this court to
speculate on whether the State would have offered, during the guilt-innocence phase of a trial or
at a plea hearing held pursuant to article 1.15, the same or additional evidence as it presented
during the punishment phase in this case. Her argument also requires this court to speculate about
the quantity and quality of such evidence.
For these reasons, on this record, we conclude Williams has not demonstrated the
proceedings would have been different if she had not pled guilty to the jury.
CONCLUSION
We overrule Williams’s issue on appeal and affirm the trial court’s judgment.
Karen Angelini, Justice
Do not publish
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