Howard Wayne Lewis v. The State of Texas

Summary

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reviews Howard Wayne Lewis’s automatic direct appeal from his capital-murder conviction and death sentence for the murders of his sixteen-month-old son and the child’s maternal grandmother. The court rejects his challenges to the sufficiency of the guilt-phase and future-dangerousness evidence and addresses his challenge to the denial of a change of venue, affirming the trial court’s judgment.

Holdings

1. The evidence was legally sufficient to support Lewis's capital-murder conviction. Direct and circumstantial evidence are equally probative, and the cumulative force of the evidence permitted a rational jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt that Lewis committed the charged murders.
2. The evidence was legally sufficient to support the jury's finding that Lewis would probably commit criminal acts of violence constituting a continuing threat to society.
3. The trial court did not abuse its discretion by denying a change of venue because Lewis failed to show that the pretrial publicity was pervasive, prejudicial, and inflammatory or that it caused actual, identifiable prejudice in the jury pool.
4. The four-year-and-nine-month delay triggered the Barker inquiry but did not violate Lewis's constitutional right to a speedy trial.
5. The trial court did not err by admitting Cunningham's testimony because the evidence supported the finding that Cunningham was not a government agent who deliberately elicited Lewis's incriminating statements.
6. The trial court did not abuse its discretion by admitting expert testimony that Lewis's DNA likelihood ratio was 995 and placed his profile in the inconclusive category.
7. Claims that were unpreserved, inadequately briefed, multifarious, unsupported by authority, or based on conclusory assertions presented no reversible error.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the evidence was legally sufficient to support Lewis's capital-murder conviction.
2. Whether the evidence was legally sufficient to support the jury's finding of future dangerousness.
3. Whether the trial court abused its discretion by denying a change of venue based on allegedly prejudicial pretrial publicity.
4. Whether the four-year-and-nine-month delay between indictment and trial violated Lewis's constitutional right to a speedy trial under Barker v. Wingo.
5. Whether the trial court erred in denying motions for continuance.
6. Whether the trial court erred in ruling on jury-selection challenges, including challenges for cause and Batson and J.E.B. claims.
7. Whether testimony from jail inmate Gregory Cunningham violated Lewis's Sixth Amendment right to counsel under Massiah v. United States.
8. Whether the trial court abused its discretion by admitting testimony concerning DNA likelihood ratios and testimony concerning future dangerousness.
9. Whether the remaining evidentiary, suppression, constitutional, and extraneous-conduct claims warranted reversal when they were unpreserved, inadequately briefed, unsupported, or meritless.

Disposition

affirmed