Zseron Donte Dukes v. State ( 2020 )

AFFIRMED as Modified; Opinion Filed February 24, 2020
In The
Court of Appeals
Fifth District of Texas at Dallas
No. 05-19-00215-CR
ZSERON DONTE DUKES, Appellant
V.
THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee
On Appeal from the 195th Judicial District Court
Dallas County, Texas
Trial Court Cause No. F-1747055-N
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Before Justices Myers, Schenck, and Carlyle
Opinion by Justice Schenck
Zseron Donte Dukes appeals his conviction for evading arrest. In six issues, appellant
challenges the jury’s rejection of his duress defense, his sentencing, the trial court’s neutrality, and
a recitation in the judgment. We affirm the judgment as modified by this opinion. Because all
issues are settled in law, we issue this memorandum opinion. TEX. R. APP. P. 47.4.
BACKGROUND
On the evening of February 10, 2017, appellant and his friend Gary Grayson drove around
trying to meet women using an application called “Plenty of Fish.” Appellant drove while Grayson
rode in the front passenger seat. As they were driving around, they happened to drive through a
neighborhood in Rowlett in which appellant’s former girlfriend lived. As they drove past her
home, one of the vehicle’s occupants fired at least two shots at her home. Appellant’s former
girlfriend suspected appellant was the shooter. She called 9-1-1 and advised the operator of her
suspicion and gave a description of appellant and his vehicle.
Rowlett police officer Timothy Coykendall responded to the call. He was given the
suspect’s name and a description of his vehicle. Within four minutes, Officer Coykendall saw a
vehicle matching the description given driving westbound on Interstate 30. He caught up with the
vehicle at Gus Thomasson Road in Mesquite. Another Rowlett police officer, Michael Davison,
was at appellant’s former girlfriend’s home at that time. Officer Davison communicated with
Officer Coykendall and confirmed that the vehicle belonged to appellant.
Shortly thereafter, appellant increased the speed at which he was traveling to nearly 100
miles per hour. Officer Coykendall then activated his overhead emergency lights and sirens to
conduct a traffic stop. Appellant did not stop, rather he continued to drive westbound on Interstate
30 and, around 10 seconds after Officer Coykendall activated his lights and sirens, an object was
thrown from the vehicle’s passenger window. Officers later retrieved pieces of a semiautomatic
handgun on westbound Interstate 30 between Carroll and Munger streets.
After the gun was thrown from the vehicle, appellant continued to drive west on Interstate
30 and then took the Interstate 75 North exit and exited onto Main Street. He then drove north on
Cesar Chavez Expressway and back onto Interstate 75. He then exited at Blackburn Street, made
a left turn onto Blackburn, lost control of the vehicle, hit a curb and took out a street sign. The
vehicle came to a stop and caught on fire. Officer Coykendall and at least two other officers drew
their guns and gave commands to the occupants to get out of the vehicle. The occupants exited
the vehicle and were taken into custody.
Appellant was indicted with one count of evading arrest, enhanced by a previous felony
conviction, and one count of deadly conduct. Appellant pleaded not guilty to the charges and
proceeded to a jury trial claiming Grayson was the shooter and that he acted under duress when he
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fled from the police.1 The jury found appellant not guilty of deadly conduct, but guilty of evading
arrest. Appellant elected to have his punishment assessed by the trial court, hoping to be granted
community supervision. Appellant pleaded true to the enhancement paragraph. Before
pronouncing sentence, the trial court discussed the contents of a presentence investigation report
(“PSI”) and recounted appellant’s criminal history, including his multiple violations of probation
terms, and a prior conviction for evading arrest. The trial court emphasized the seriousness of the
offense, the fact that appellant put numerous people at risk by driving over 100 miles per hour, and
appellant’s history of repeating the offense. The court sentenced appellant to 18 years’
confinement. This appeal followed.
DISCUSSION
I. Sufficiency of the Evidence
In his first and second issues, appellant urges there is legally and factually insufficient
evidence to support the jury’s rejection of his affirmative defense of duress.
We review affirmative defenses for both legal and factual sufficiency. Butcher v. State,
454 S.W.3d 13, 20 (Tex. Crim. App. 2015). In reviewing the legal-sufficiency of the evidence to
support a jury’s rejection of an affirmative defense in which the defendant has the burden of proof,
we first look for evidence favorable to the jury’s negative finding. Matlock v. State, 392 S.W.3d
662, 670 (Tex. Crim. App. 2013). When we review the record for favorable evidence, we disregard
all contrary evidence unless a reasonable factfinder could not. Id. Only if the affirmative defense
was conclusively proven may we conclude that the evidence is legally insufficient to support the
jury’s rejection of the affirmative defense. Id.
In reviewing the factual sufficiency of the evidence to support a jury’s rejection of an
affirmative defense in which the defendant has the burden of proof, we review the evidence in a
1
Appellant claimed Grayson demanded that he drive and he feared Grayson would shoot him if he did not succumb to his demands.
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neutral light and determine whether the finding is so against the great weight and preponderance
of the evidence so as to be manifestly unjust. Id. at 671. When conducting a review for legal or
factual sufficiency, we defer to the factfinder’s determination of the weight and credibility to give
the testimony and the evidence presented at trial. Id. at 669–70.
Duress is an affirmative defense to prosecution that excuses the conduct of the accused that
would otherwise expose him to criminal responsibility. TEX. PENAL CODE ANN. §§ 2.04(d), 8.05.
To establish this affirmative defense, appellant was required to prove by a preponderance of the
evidence that he committed the offense because he was compelled to do so by threat of imminent
death or serious bodily injury to himself or another. Id. § 8.05(a). A threat is imminent when (1)
the person making the threat intends and is prepared to carry out the threat immediately, and (2)
the threat is predicated on the threatened person’s failure to commit the charged offense
immediately. Bryant v. State, No. 05-16-01448-CR, 2018 WL 2382104, at *4 (Tex. App.—Dallas
May 25, 2018, no pet.) (mem. op., not designated for publication) (citing Cormier v. State, 540
S.W.3d 185, 190 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2017, pet. ref’d)).
Appellant and Grayson were the only occupants of the vehicle and thus were the only
persons who knew what transpired therein after the shots were filed. They both testified at trial
and had conflicting stories as to who fired the gun, how the gun came to rest on Grayson’s lap and
who decided to dispose of it. Appellant claimed Grayson was the individual who fired the shots
and then demanded that he keep driving. According to appellant, Grayson laid the gun on his lap
with the barrel pointing toward the driver’s side of the car. Appellant claimed he took the
positioning of the gun to be a threat and that is why he did not stop for the police.2 On cross-
examination, appellant admitted that Grayson was not holding the gun and that he could have
reached over and removed the gun from Grayson’s lap had he chosen to do so. Grayson testified
2
Appellant claimed Grayson rested the gun on his lap pointed in his direction.
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that appellant was the shooter. He indicated that appellant hit the gas when he noticed the police
behind them, then threw the gun onto his lap and told him to throw it out the window. Officer
Coykendall established the gun was thrown from the car 10 seconds after he began his pursuit.
The bulk of Officer Coykendall’s pursuit occurred after the gun had been ejected from the vehicle.
The uncontroverted evidence established that had there been a credible threat, it no longer
existed once Grayson threw the gun out of the window, which was mere seconds after Officer
Coykendall activated his vehicles’ emergency lights and sirens. Consequently, the record does not
conclusively prove appellant’s affirmative defense and the evidence is legally sufficient to support
the jury’s negative finding on the issue of duress. We overrule appellant’s first issue.
Appellant urges that the jury’s rejection of his duress defense was against the great weight
of the evidence because the jury found appellant not guilty of deadly conduct, and thus, must have
found Grayson’s testimony to be not credible. Regardless of the jury’s credibility determinations,
appellant made no allegation that Grayson made an explicit threat to shoot him if he did not flee
from the police and the undisputed evidence established appellant continued to flee of his own
accord after the gun was ejected from the vehicle and only stopped when he lost control of his
vehicle and crashed. Thus, the jury’s rejection of appellant’s claim of duress was not manifestly
unjust and there is factually sufficient evidence to support the jury’s finding. We overrule
appellant’s second issue.
II. Judicial Bias
In his third through fifth issues, appellant asserts the trial court judge abused his discretion
in considering another unrelated case in deciding the sentence he would impose and in doing so
abandoned his role as a neutral and detached arbiter and deprived appellant of his right to due
process under the Fourteenth Amendment of the United State Constitution and Article I, Section
19 of the Texas Constitution.
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Due process requires a neutral and detached hearing body or officer. Brumit v. State, 206
S.W.3d 639, 645 (Tex. Crim. App. 2006). A defendant has an absolute right to an impartial judge
at both the guilt-innocence and punishment phases of trial. Segovia v. State, 543 S.W.3d 497, 503
(Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2018, no pet.). Absent a clear showing of bias, a trial court’s
actions will be presumed to have been correct. Brumit, 206 S.W.3d at 645. To reverse a judgment
on the ground of improper conduct or comments of the judge, we must be presented with proof (1)
that judicial impropriety was in fact committed, and (2) of probable prejudice to the complaining
party. Id. Judicial remarks during the course of a trial that are critical or disapproving of, or even
hostile to counsel, the parties, or their cases, ordinarily do not support a bias or partiality
challenge. Id. Judges are not potted plants. Sims v. State, No. 05-18-00139-CR, 2018 WL
6333250, at *2 (Tex. App.—Dallas Nov. 29, 2018, no pet.) (mem. op., not designated for
publication). Of course, best practice might suggest a judge should refrain from sharing his or her
thoughts in many instances. Nevertheless, there is no requirement that a judge remain unmoved
by the evidence presented or be fully silent in the face of it, especially when called upon to make
a determination of the proper punishment based on the evidence presented.
The trial judge recounted appellant’s criminal history and then turned to appellant’s PSI,
detailing, among other things, the reasons appellant failed to comply with terms of his various
community supervisions. The trial judge noted that the interviewer stated that while appellant was
out on bond for the current offense, he continued to acquire new charges as well as abuse drugs.
The interviewer further noted that appellant’s probation records showed appellant had substantial
issues with compliance. The interviewer further commented, “It seems that Mr. Dukes believes
his behavior is acceptable and he’s become quite comfortable maintaining his anti-social values
and following through with criminal cognitions. [Appellant] believes it’s okay to tell a lie as he
denies ever being written up for any behavioral issues while in custody, yet the jail records clearly
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prove otherwise.” The interviewer stated that appellant is a moderate risk for failure to be placed
on probation and he seems to express significant criminal attitudes. The trial judge then stopped
reviewing appellant’s prior history and the PSI and linked appellant’s prior conviction for evasion
with the conviction for evasion in this case and stated:
Those are very important to me because part of my job is to do what is right for you
and for the public. And I have looked at where we’ve been in the last several years,
and I am watching particularly evading arrest charges. Everybody is taking this as
no big deal. The police turn on their lights, you step on it, which for the life of me
I can’t understand because in this date and time I don’t know how in the world you
would ever outrun a police officer . . . . But my point is [] that everybody seems to
think that evading arrest is no big deal. There was one this last week, same set of
circumstances, ended in the same result. The person evading arrest ended up
crashing the car it burst into flames. The two people had to be cut out of that car,
saved their lives.
It is apparent that the trial judge’s reference to “where we’ve been in the last several years”
reflects appellant’s own conduct and history within the criminal justice system. The trial judge’s
statements about watching particularly evading arrest charges reflects the court’s concern about
appellant’s repetitive and recidivist behavior. The trial judge simply used an example of an
unrelated evasion case to import the seriousness of the offense for which appellant had been
convicted and the risk to life his actions created. In fact, the trial judge stated
And when I look back at that video, you put a lot of people in danger. You put a
lot of citizens in danger and police officers who are trying to do their job and to
stop this type of activity. That’s a long way of saying, after I have reviewed all of
this, Mr. Dukes, I’m not going to give you probation. There is no way I could live
with my conscious if I did that – conscience, excuse me. And I have gone back
over and I have calculated this every which way but loose. I don’t think you’re
going to make it no matter what I do. So long story short, with the full range of
punishment that I have, two to twenty years, I’m going to sentence you to eighteen
years in the Texas Department of Corrections. That’s going to be my sentence . . .
. This stuff is going to stop.
Looking at the trial judge’s comments in the context of the entire record, we conclude they do not
reflect bias, partiality, or that the judge considered other’s actions in fashioning appellant’s
punishment. Rather, the record reveals the trial judge spent considerable time reviewing
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appellant’s criminal history, probation history, and the PSI in reaching his decision not to grant
appellant community supervision and to assess punishment at eighteen years’ confinement, a time
period within the statutory guidelines. Accordingly, we overrule appellants’ third, fourth, and fifth
issues.
III. Modification of judgment
In his sixth issue, appellant urges that this Court reform the judgment to reflect that the
judge, not the jury, assessed punishment in this case.
We have the authority to modify the trial court’s judgment to make the record speak
the truth. TEX. R. APP. P. 43.2(b); French v. State, 830 S.W.2d 607, 609 (Tex. Crim. App. 1992).
We sustain appellant’s sixth issue and modify the judgment to reflect the trial judge assessed
punishment in this case.
CONCLUSION
As modified, we affirm the trial court’s judgment.
/David J. Schenck/
DAVID J. SCHENCK
JUSTICE
DO NOT PUBLISH
TEX. R. APP. P. 47
190215F.U05
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Court of Appeals
Fifth District of Texas at Dallas
JUDGMENT
ZSERON DONTE DUKES, Appellant On Appeal from the 195th Judicial District
Court, Dallas County, Texas
No. 05-19-00215-CR V. Trial Court Cause No. F-1747055-N.
Opinion delivered by Justice Schenck.
THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee Justices Myers and Carlyle participating.
Based on the Court’s opinion of this date, the judgment of the trial court is AFFIRMED.
Judgment entered this 24th day of February, 2020.
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