Case Summary - Jimmy Lee Simmons v. State

Simmons was convicted of aggravated robbery for his part in the armed robbery of Justin Mendoza and his pregnant girlfriend. Mendoza had been waiting at a friend's house for his girlfriend to get off work when Johnson came to the door looking for "Mike". Finding no Mike, Johnson left, and later Mendoza's girlfriend arrived. Then, Johnson returned, but this time with a masked man. The masked man held a gun on Mendoza while Johnson rummaged through the house. Johnson took Mendoza's cell phone and money from his pockets and took the purse of Mendoza's girlfriend. Then, the masked man punched Mendoza with brass knuckles and the two robbers fled.

Johnson testifed that Simmons was the masked man that carried out the robbery with him. Mendoza thought the masked man's voice sounded like a person he knew as "Jimmy Lee", though he was not positive. Simmons was dating Johnson's mother at the time, and Johnson testified that Simmons wrote him a letter while Johnson was in jail. The letter indicated that Simmons was planning to write an alphadavit [presumably without using Alphabits ceral] that he wanted Johnson to sign. The letter also questioned why Johnson would bring Simmons down if Johnson had any love for Simmons. Johnson refused to sign an affidavit prepared by Simmons, and two jail employees refused to sign an affidavit that they had seen Johnson sign the "alphadavit" because they had not seen him do so.

The court of appeals held in an unpublished opinion that the evidence was insufficient to corroborate Johnson's testimony. According to the court of appeals, Mendoza couldn't be sure that the man who robbed him sounded like "Jimmy Lee" and Simmons's letter did not admit to involvement, but merely chastized Johnson for giving up Simmons' name to the police. Justice Waldrop dissented because the letter did not have to be interpreted as Simmons's expressing frustration because Johnson was truthfully ratting him out, but a rational jury could certainly read it that way. [Here's a link to the court of appeals case information.]

The Court of Criminal Appeals reversed, holding that the court of appeals failed to read the letter in a light most favorable to the verdict. The court of appeals erroneously looked at the letter and independently ascertained whether it tended to connect Simmons to the crime rather than whether a rational juror could read it as connecting Simmons to the crime. A rational juror could also find that Simmons's attempt to get Johnson to sign an affidavit was suspicious and that Simmons's attempts to get jail employees to lie about it to be equally suspicious. These circumstances tended to connect Simmons to the crime and thus they sufficiently corroborated Johnson's testimony. [Here's a link to the CCA case information.]