Reginald Williams v. the State of Texas ( 2023 )

TEXAS COURT OF APPEALS, THIRD DISTRICT, AT AUSTIN
NO. 03-22-00529-CR
Reginald Williams, Appellant
v.
The State of Texas, Appellee
FROM THE 299TH DISTRICT COURT OF TRAVIS COUNTY
NO. D-1-DC-21-904023, THE HONORABLE KAREN SAGE, JUDGE PRESIDING
MEMORANDUM OPINION
A jury convicted appellant Reginald Williams of the offense of murder and
assessed punishment at 25 years’ imprisonment. See Tex. Penal Code § 19.02. The district court
sentenced Williams in accordance with the jury’s verdict. This appeal followed.
Williams’s court-appointed counsel on appeal has filed a motion to withdraw and
a brief pursuant to Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738, 744 (1967). The brief meets the
requirements of Anders by presenting a professional evaluation of the record demonstrating why
there are no arguable grounds to be advanced. See id. at 744-45; see also Penson v. Ohio,
488 U.S. 75, 81–82 (1988); Garner v. State, 300 S.W.3d 763, 766 (Tex. Crim. App. 2009).
Counsel has certified to this Court that he has provided Williams with a copy of the motion and
brief, advised him of his right to examine the appellate record and file a pro se response, and
supplied him with a form motion for pro se access to the appellate record. See Kelly v. State,
436 S.W.3d 313, 319-20 (Tex. Crim. App. 2014). No pro se brief or other response has
been filed.
Upon receiving an Anders brief, we must conduct a full examination of the record
to determine whether the appeal is wholly frivolous. See Penson, 488 U.S. at 80; Bledsoe
v. State, 178 S.W.3d 824, 826–27 (Tex. Crim. App. 2005); Stafford v. State, 813 S.W.2d 503,
511 (Tex. Crim. App. 1991). The indictment alleged in three paragraphs that on or about
October 13, 2019, Williams either (1) intentionally or knowingly caused the death of Emmett
Infante Ramos by shooting him with a firearm; (2) committed an act clearly dangerous to human
life, with intent to cause serious bodily injury, that caused the death of Ramos by shooting him
with a firearm; or (3) committed or attempted to commit the offense of robbery and, in the course
of and in furtherance of and in immediate flight from the commission of that offense, committed
an act clearly dangerous to human life that caused the death of Ramos by shooting him with a
firearm. See Tex. Penal Code § 19.02(b)(1), (2), (3).
The jury heard evidence that Ramos was killed during a drug deal. Ramos’s
girlfriend, Deisy Calderon, testified that Ramos had arranged to sell THC cartridges to a buyer
on the night that he was killed. Ramos and Calderon drove to the location specified by the buyer
and, upon arrival at that location, Ramos got out of the car and walked to the back of the vehicle
with the cartridges. Calderon remained inside the car and heard male voices outside. Shortly
thereafter, Calderon heard Ramos say, “Chill, chill” in a loud and scared voice as he walked to
the front of the car and opened the driver’s side door. Calderon looked up from her phone, saw
“like a flash” and heard “a shot go off,” and saw “two bodies,” one “bigger than the other,”
immediately behind Ramos. The two individuals “took off running” while Ramos fell to the
ground, telling Calderon that he had been shot and asking her to call the police. Calderon called
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911, and the police and paramedics arrived shortly thereafter. Ramos was transported to a
hospital, where he died. The cause of death was a gunshot wound to Ramos’s back.
During the investigation into the shooting, police searched Ramos’s phone and
determined that the person to whom Ramos had arranged to sell the THC cartridges was Elijah
Malone. Text messages between Ramos and Malone, in which they discussed the sale of the
cartridges, were admitted into evidence. The last text message between them was at 11:53 p.m.
on the night that Ramos was killed. Approximately four minutes later, Calderon called 911.
Police executed a search warrant at the apartment where Malone lived. Inside his room, they
found “five unopened Rove THC cartridges in [] rectangular boxes.” Rove was the brand of
cartridges that Calderon testified Ramos had in his possession that night.
Police interviewed Malone’s then-girlfriend, Dejza Zeigler, who told them that
Malone was with Reginald Williams when she picked him up the day after the shooting. At trial,
Zeigler testified that she had picked Malone up at the apartment where “Reggie’s baby momma”
lived. That woman was identified as Jayla Sifuentes, who testified that Williams and Malone
were “chilling” at her apartment the night of the shooting and that they left her apartment
together at the same time, sometime after 11:00 p.m., without telling her where they were going.
Sifuentes testified that they returned to her apartment later that night, with Malone “running
through [the] door” first and “breathing heavily” and Williams coming through the door shortly
thereafter, also “breathing heavy” and looking “shocked, too, like he just wasn’t there.” She also
testified that Malone and Williams were holding THC cartridges when they returned to her
apartment and that they told her that they had robbed someone during a drug deal. Sifuentes
recounted that Malone and Williams slept at her apartment that night and that Malone’s
girlfriend picked him up the next day.
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Later during the investigation, the police arrested Williams and searched the
residence where he lived. During the search, officers discovered additional THC cartridges that
matched the description of those that Ramos had in his possession when he was shot. Other
evidence admitted at trial included surveillance camera footage taken from an auto shop near the
location of the shooting that showed two men, matching the physical descriptions of Malone and
Williams, walking in the direction of where the crime occurred and then, several minutes later,
running away in the opposite direction; a copy of the search history from Williams’s cell phone,
which showed that on the day of the shooting, he had been searching for information on firearms
that might have been used during the shooting; 1 and a copy of a news article found on
Williams’s phone related to the shooting and other searches on his phone for an “update on
deadly shooting [A]ustin,” made in the days immediately after the shooting, before Williams was
arrested.
At the conclusion of trial, the district court charged the jury on the law related to
the offense of murder, including instructions on the law of parties. The court’s charge tracked
the allegations in the indictment, and the jury found Williams guilty of murder as charged.
Following a hearing on punishment, at which witnesses for both the State and the defense
testified, the jury assessed punishment at 25 years’ imprisonment, and the district court
sentenced Williams accordingly as noted above.
1 The police were unable to locate or identify the actual firearm that was used to
shoot Ramos.
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We have reviewed the record and counsel’s brief. We agree with counsel that the
appeal is frivolous and without merit. We find nothing in the record that might arguably support
the appeal. We grant counsel’s motion to withdraw and affirm the judgment of conviction.
__________________________________________
Gisela D. Triana, Justice
Before Chief Justice Byrne, Justices Triana and Smith
Affirmed
Filed: June 30, 2023
Do Not Publish
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