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Alexander v. State3/5/1996
March 5, 1996
Dissenting Opinion by Chief Justice Cornelius
O P I N I O N
Frank Alexander appeals from a jury conviction for the murder of Joe Patrick Robbins, for which he was sentenced to sixty years' confinement. He contends on appeal that the evidence was insufficient to sustain his murder conviction; that the trial court erred in permitting impeachment of a witness to the effect that she refused to appear to testify despite reasonable efforts by the State; that the trial court erred in denying his motion for mistrial after a juror communicated a question to the bailiff, which was then communicated to the prosecuting attorney; that the trial court erred in overruling his objections to the punishment argument by the State referring to community expectations of a life sentence; and that the trial court erred in denying his objections to the State's use of peremptory challenges against two minority venire members.
The first trial against the appellant for this offense ended in a mistrial. This is an appeal from the second trial.
Alexander was having a barbecue on the afternoon of February 1, 1992. During the afternoon and early evening, the following persons were present at Alexander's apartment: Frank Alexander; Tatiana Alexander, Alexander's daughter; Ronnie Dean, a friend of Alexander's; Joe Robbins, Alexander's next-door neighbor; Tiffany Robbins, Robbins's daughter; and Kenny Williams, another neighbor. There was some testimony that Alexander's niece and nephew might have been present.
Tiffany Robbins testified that, in the early evening, Robbins broke Alexander's glass-topped coffee table by throwing it to the ground. Alexander then went to the closet and took out a gun. Robbins ran out of the apartment, followed by Alexander. Tiffany later heard two shots, ran out of the apartment, and saw her father lying on the ground, bleeding from his head and knees. A passenger in a car travelling along the street next to the parking lot heard a loud noise and saw a man, facing away from her, with his arm extended as if he were holding a gun. She also saw someone's legs on the ground behind the man. She could only identify the man as dark and broad-chested.
An officer arrived, found the body, and tried to stop the bleeding. No eyewitnesses, weapons, shell casings, or identifiable fingerprints were ever found by the police. Witnesses, however, heard the gunshots.
The medical examiner concluded that Robbins died from a gunshot wound to the head and that the trajectory of the bullet wound was from the left and slightly downward, and that the shot was probably fired from a distance of at least several feet. The firearms examiner concluded that the shots were probably fired from a revolver and were consistent with a .38 or .357 caliber bullet. A detective with the Dallas Police Department testified that Robbins's apartment showed no signs of burglary.
Alexander, Linda Alexander (Alexander's wife), Tatiana Alexander, and Tiffany Robbins spent the night at Alexander's mother's home. Tiffany Robbins was crying and asking for her daddy. Later, Tiffany told her mother that the neighbor shot her daddy. She picked Alexander out of a group of photographs as the man who "shot dad." Alexander contends that the evidence was insufficient to sustain his murder conviction. This contention might be fairly said to question both the legal and factual sufficiency of the evidence. In determining whether evidence is legally sufficient to support a verdict, we view the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution and determine whether any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the cr
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