Joseph Webb Rogers v. The State of Texas--Appeal from Criminal District Court No. 4 of Tarrant County (Majority)

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State: Texas

Court: Texas Northern District Court

Docket No: 02-10-00506-CR

Case Date: 10/20/2011

Plaintiff: Joseph Webb Rogers

Defendant: The State of Texas--Appeal from Criminal District Court No. 4 of Tarrant County (Majority)

Preview:COURT OF APPEALS
SECOND DISTRICT OF TEXAS FORT WORTH

NO. 02-10-00506-CR NO. 02-10-00507-CR JOSEPH WEBB ROGERS V. THE STATE OF TEXAS ---------FROM CRIMINAL DISTRICT COURT NO. 4 OF TARRANT COUNTY ---------STATE APPELLANT

MEMORANDUM OPINION1
---------A jury found Appellant Joseph Webb Rogers guilty of robbery causing bodily injury and robbery causing serious bodily injury. The trial court assessed Appellant's punishment at three years' confinement and six years' confinement, respectively, and ordered the sentences to run concurrently. In his sole issue,

1

See Tex. R. App. P. 47.4.

Appellant argues that the evidence is legally insufficient to show that he caused serious bodily injury in the robbery-causing-serious-bodily-injury offense. In our due-process review of the sufficiency of the evidence to support a conviction, we view all of the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution to determine whether any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319, 99 S. Ct. 2781, 2789 (1979); Clayton v. State, 235 S.W.3d 772, 778 (Tex. Crim. App. 2007). At a Kroger grocery store, loss prevention personnel Brian Watson and Brady Wakefield noticed that Appellant had tied off the legs of his pants. Appellant placed several bottles of shampoo and several toothbrushes down his pants. Appellant exited the Kroger store without paying for the items, and he set off the store's security alarms. Watson and Wakefield followed Appellant out of the store, identified themselves as loss prevention officers, and asked Appellant to step back inside the store. Appellant punched Watson with a closed fist twice; the second punch landed square on the front of Watson's mouth. Watson felt tremendous pain and heard a popping sound. Eventually, after a protracted struggle, the men subdued Appellant and police arrived. Watson suffered severe dental injuries; five of his teeth broke off at the gum line and had to be removed by a dentist. He underwent surgery to place a bone graft on his jaw from the rear of his mouth all the way to his nose. Extensive dental work was necessary to drill metal bits into Watson's gum line on 2

which to affix crowns in the future. Three of the front teeth that Watson lost were already capped because of a prior dental injury he had received in a rodeo accident. Appellant does not dispute the dental injuries suffered by Watson, but instead contends that Watson's dental injuries do not satisfy the penal code's definition of serious bodily injury. The penal code defines serious bodily injury as "bodily injury that creates a substantial risk of death or that causes death, serious permanent disfigurement, or protracted loss or impairment of the function of any bodily member or organ." Tex. Penal Code Ann.

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