Thornburg, Jeremy Paul

Citation: Not availableDocket: PD-1167-15

Court: Court of Appeals of Texas; September 16, 2015; Texas; State Appellate Court

Original Court Document: View Document

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Jeremy Paul Thornburg is the appellant in a case against the State of Texas, filed in the Court of Criminal Appeals in Austin, Texas, under cause number 02-14-00453-CR. His petition for discretionary review argues that the Court of Appeals erred by dismissing the admission of an expert's opinion regarding DNA found on a gun as a 'harmless error.' Thornburg contends that there was no evidence, aside from his own extrajudicial admission, to prove the victim was shot to death. He emphasizes that the forensic evidence linking the victim's DNA to his gun was critical to the prosecution's case and asserts the admission of this evidence was prejudicial, as it was based on a presumptive test without statistical validation. Thornburg argues that the Court of Appeals failed to recognize the substantial role this evidence played in his conviction, highlighting its significance in the sufficiency review and claiming it was the key factor leading to his guilt. The document includes various sections such as procedural history, statements of the case, and an index of authorities, supporting the arguments presented. The judge presiding over the trial was Honorable Stephen Bristow of the 90th Judicial District Court in Young County, Texas.

Jeremy Paul Thornburg, currently incarcerated at the Connally Unit in Texas, is appealing a murder conviction for the death of his former girlfriend, Candice Shields, for which he received a life sentence. His trial attorneys, Reginald Wilson and Mark Barber, and appellate attorney Tim Copeland are representing him. The District Attorney, Dee Peavy, and Assistant District Attorney Ryan Conway are representing the State of Texas in this matter.

The Second Court of Appeals affirmed Thornburg's conviction on August 6, 2015. The core issue raised in Thornburg's petition for discretionary review is whether the Court of Appeals erred in deeming the admission of an expert's opinion regarding DNA evidence from a bloodstain on Thornburg's gun as 'harmless error.' Thornburg argues that there was insufficient evidence to establish that the victim was shot to death, as her body was never recovered, and that the expert's conclusion was based solely on a presumptive blood test without supporting statistical evidence.

Background details indicate that Shields went missing on December 11, 2011, prompting extensive search efforts that ultimately did not locate her body. Thornburg became a suspect in January 2013 due to allegations made by his girlfriend regarding domestic violence, during which a gun was found in his possession. The blood evidence is central to the State's theory of the case, despite the lack of direct evidence linking Thornburg to the murder.

Santiago alleged that Thornburg threatened her with a gun, claiming he would kill her like he did Candice Shields. Evidence presented by the State included the fact that Shields had not contacted her mother since her disappearance on December 10, 2011, and that her personal belongings were found untouched in her bedroom. Communication records indicated that Thornburg interacted with Shields during the night of her disappearance, but much of this data had been deleted from her phone. Thornburg's cell phone records showed he traveled from Sweetwater late at night, despite lacking a vehicle, and his mother noticed her car's gas tank was unexpectedly empty. Prior to Shields’ disappearance, Thornburg had discussed killing her with an accomplice, Long. Witnesses testified that Long provided Thornburg with bleach late on December 10, and Long later implied to another witness that Thornburg killed Shields.

A crucial piece of evidence involved a gun found in Thornburg's apartment, which had a blood-stained spot. DNA testing suggested that Shields could not be excluded as a contributor, with an incredibly low probability of a random match. Forensic scientist Brent Hester testified about conducting a presumptive blood test on the gun, yielding a positive result for blood on a nearly invisible stain. He determined a one in 32.39 trillion probability of the DNA belonging to someone unrelated to Shields. Despite Thornburg's objection to the admission of Hester's testimony, the trial court allowed it, concluding that any potential error in admitting this evidence was harmless, as stated by the Court of Appeals.

The appellate court acknowledged that even without the disputed testimony, there was substantial evidence of Thornburg's guilt, thus dismissing any potential error related to it. However, it erred by not addressing the admissibility of the bloodstain evidence, which was significant to Thornburg's conviction. The absence of corroborating evidence regarding Shields' death undermined the relevance of the bloodstain evidence found on Thornburg's gun, especially given that the gun was found in a shared living space and lacked definitive links to the alleged crime. The State's argument relied heavily on speculative claims about the blood's origins and did not provide firm evidence that Shields had been shot or that her DNA's presence on the gun was indicative of a homicide. Furthermore, under Texas Rules of Evidence 403, the prejudicial impact of admitting such speculative testimony outweighed its probative value, particularly in the absence of direct evidence connecting Thornburg to Shields' death. The Court of Appeals concluded the error was harmless, but this conclusion was flawed as it relied on the very forensic evidence it contested. Thornburg contends that this evidence was crucial to the jury's decision, and its erroneous admission likely affected the verdict. Thornburg requests that the appellate court's judgment be reversed and the case remanded to assess the harmful impact of the improperly admitted testimony.

Tim Copeland, representing appellant Jeremy Paul Thornburg, certifies that on September 16, 2015, a true copy of the Petition for Discretionary Review was served to the State Prosecuting Attorney and the District Attorney of Young County, complying with Texas Rules of Appellate Procedure, specifically Rule 9. The petition contains 2,226 words. The Court of Appeals of the Second District of Texas reviewed the case, affirming the trial court's judgment of Thornburg's conviction for murder and life sentence, dismissing four issues raised by Thornburg regarding the sufficiency of evidence, denial of a motion to suppress, and admission of expert testimony. The factual background outlines the disappearance of Candice Shields, initiated by her grandfather, Johnny Salinas, who discovered her missing on December 11, 2011. Initial assumptions were made about her absence, but subsequent investigation revealed that her belongings were left behind, leading authorities to treat the case as a missing person investigation. Despite extensive searches, Shields was never located. Shields had a troubled background, including a juvenile conviction requiring her to register as a sex offender, and had moved in with her ex-boyfriend, Billy Wilson, where she had a child.

In May 2011, Shields left Wilson to live with Allen Faircloth in Abilene. After her relationship with Faircloth deteriorated in the summer, Shields sought a ride back to Graham from Wilson and subsequently moved in with Munn. By October 2011, she relocated to the home of friends James and Misty Barnett, where she met Thornburg, James's half-brother. Shortly after starting a romantic relationship, Shields announced her pregnancy with Thornburg's child. Tensions arose, leading to Shields and Thornburg being asked to leave the Barnetts' residence. Thornburg, unemployed, returned to his mother’s home in Sweetwater, while Shields moved in with her grandparents in Graham, disappearing about ten days later. Her mother had not heard from her since.

Lieutenant Jim Reeves, leading the investigation into Shields's disappearance, collected information from friends and family and traced her cell phone communications, which included frequent contact with Wilson, Faircloth, and Thornburg until her disappearance. Faircloth and Wilson provided alibis for the night Shields went missing. Thornburg claimed during a phone interview that he was in Sweetwater that night and lacked gas money to travel to Graham. A subsequent in-person interview on December 29, 2011, revealed Thornburg still denied knowledge of Shields's whereabouts. Reeves detailed extensive law enforcement efforts to locate Shields over the following months.

Thirteen months later, on January 21, 2013, Officer Lance Richburg of the Sweetwater Police Department interviewed Thornburg's ex-girlfriend, Sarah Santiago, regarding a domestic violence incident. Santiago, seven months pregnant with Thornburg's child, expressed fear for her life and that of her unborn baby, citing threats from Thornburg. She claimed he had previously harmed someone and evaded consequences. Richburg informed the Graham Police Department of Santiago's statement, leading to Thornburg being identified as a person of interest in Shields's unsolved disappearance. Following this, Richburg and other officers accompanied Santiago to her apartment for a civil standby as she retrieved her belongings.

Thornburg was at home when police officers arrived, and Officer Richburg explained their presence under the 'civil standby' policy. Thornburg did not object and waited outside while Santiago collected her belongings, during which Santiago identified a gun on the bed, claiming Thornburg had threatened her with it. Officer Richburg subsequently seized the gun as evidence for a domestic violence charge. Santiago recounted that Thornburg had previously confessed to having harmed a woman named Candice Shields, detailing a violent incident in which he shot her and disposed of her body. 

Lieutenant Reeves executed a search warrant and retrieved the gun for forensic analysis. Following Santiago's allegations, law enforcement arranged a monitored phone call between her and Thornburg on February 1, 2013. During the call, Santiago expressed fear for her safety, and Thornburg acknowledged his past actions, stating he killed Shields to prevent losing access to his daughter. He suggested he wouldn't get away with harming Santiago as he did with Shields. 

Cell phone records revealed a series of communications between Thornburg and Shields leading up to her last text at 12:45 a.m. on December 11, 2011, followed by Thornburg's multiple calls to her phone that morning, suggesting he was trying to locate her. Thornburg claimed he fell asleep after his last call at 2:33 a.m., but Ranger Lain theorized that Shields was likely deceased before Thornburg's later calls, indicating potential evidence tampering with her phone records.

Brent Hester, a forensic scientist from DPS, testified about a presumptive blood test performed on two stains found on a gun, identifying one nearly invisible stain under one millimeter in diameter as positive for blood. Hester extracted a DNA sample from this stain and compared it to Shields's DNA from her sex-offender registration and a biopsy slide from a previous gall bladder surgery. He concluded that the likelihood of randomly selecting an unrelated individual matching the DNA profile was approximately one in 32.39 trillion for Caucasians.

Jeff Shaffer from the U.S. Secret Service digital forensics lab analyzed cell phone records for Thornburg, obtained via subpoena. His analysis revealed that Thornburg's phone traveled from the Abilene/Sweetwater area to the Vernon area during the night of December 10-11, 2011. However, Shaffer noted he could not definitively trace the path from Sweetwater to Graham due to unknown cell tower locations, only confirming general eastward movement.

Lajuana Long, Thornburg's girlfriend and mother of his child, initially denied knowledge of Shields's whereabouts during her first interview after Shields's disappearance in 2011. In subsequent interviews, her account changed, ultimately revealing that she knew Thornburg had murdered Shields and where to find her body. Long recounted living with Thornburg until September 2011, when he began dating Shields. She expressed her disapproval of Shields, a registered sex offender, and recounted Thornburg's threats and discussions about killing Shields. On December 10, 2011, Thornburg texted Long about visiting Graham to see Shields, and later that evening, Long met him outside with a half-full bottle of bleach. She observed a gun in Thornburg's car during their conversation, after which he took the bleach and left.

Thornburg informed Long that he had completed his actions regarding Shields and was returning home. When Shields failed to appear for work on December 11, 2011, Long questioned Thornburg about Shields' fate, to which he admitted to killing her. Long later visited Thornburg and recounted his detailed account of persuading Shields to leave her house, shooting her in the head, and subsequently shooting her again when she moved. Initially, Long lied to investigators out of fear of Thornburg but later pleaded guilty as a co-conspirator in exchange for a thirty-year sentence.

Thornburg's mother, Lychelle Doolittle, testified that she suspected her son’s involvement in Shields' disappearance, noting his lack of concern and a suspicious gas situation with her vehicle. Witness Steve Brown recounted an incident where Long took bleach to Thornburg late on December 10 after receiving a call from him. Long later confirmed to Jessica Cortez that she provided the bleach to Thornburg because he had killed Shields. Thornburg's half-brother Timothy testified that Thornburg confessed to him about the murder, detailing how he shot Shields multiple times and poured bleach on her body, describing her negatively.

The jury found Thornburg guilty of murder and sentenced him to life imprisonment. Thornburg later appealed, claiming that his confessions lacked corroborating evidence to establish the act of murder.

Thornburg contends that the evidence is inadequate to establish that he caused Shields's death through a firearm, citing the absence of her body and lack of evidence linking the recovered gun to the crime. The review of evidence for sufficiency follows a standard that favors the verdict, allowing for rational conclusions drawn from the facts. Under Texas law, murder requires that a person intentionally or knowingly causes another's death. The corpus delicti rule mandates that a defendant's confession is insufficient on its own; independent evidence must demonstrate that the essential nature of the crime occurred. The elements of murder's corpus delicti include proof of a human's death resulting from another's criminal act, which does not necessitate conclusive proof but rather some evidence making the crime's commission more probable. Circumstantial evidence can establish the corpus delicti, and the victim's body is not essential for this proof.

In analyzing the sufficiency of evidence for murder, it was noted that Shields vanished on December 10, 2011, with no contact with her mother since then, despite daily calls prior. Personal belongings, including her purse and cell phone, remained in her room. Communications between Thornburg and Shields occurred on the evening of her disappearance, with many messages deleted from her phone.

Thornburg's cell phone records showed nighttime travel east from Sweetwater, despite his lack of a vehicle. His mother noted her car's gas tank was empty after filling it the previous day, coinciding with the period surrounding Shields's disappearance. A month prior, Thornburg had discussed killing Shields with Long. Witness Brown observed Long handing Thornburg a bottle of bleach late on December 10, 2011. When Cortez inquired about the missing bleach, Long claimed to have given it to Thornburg because he killed Shields. A gun found in Thornburg's apartment tested positive for a blood stain that linked Shields to the DNA, with a probability of one in 32.39 trillion for a random match. The evidence collectively indicated that Shields was likely murdered, establishing sufficient corpus delicti. Thornburg's extrajudicial confessions to multiple individuals further supported his conviction for murder beyond a reasonable doubt. His claims that the gun was not tied to the murder and that Shields's body was never found did not invalidate the evidence, as Texas law does not require proof of a specific murder weapon or the victim's body to secure a murder conviction. Circumstantial evidence sufficed to prove all elements of the offense.

A rational trier of fact could reasonably conclude that Thornburg intentionally caused Shields' death by shooting her, supported by evidence including his extrajudicial confessions. Thornburg's first issue is overruled. Regarding the third issue, Thornburg contends that the trial court wrongly denied his motion to suppress the handgun seized, arguing that the warrantless search of his home was unjustified under the plain-view doctrine or exigent circumstances. However, the State asserts that Thornburg's appellate argument differs from what he presented at trial. To preserve a complaint for appeal, specific grounds must have been stated in the trial court, and Thornburg's motion focused solely on the consent exception to the warrant requirement. His failure to raise the other exceptions on appeal means he forfeited that complaint. Thus, his third issue is also overruled. In his fourth issue, Thornburg claims the trial court erred by admitting expert testimony about blood on his gun. However, even if this was an error, it is deemed harmless as it did not affect his substantial rights, aligning with appellate procedure rule 44.2(b).

In Coble v. State, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals determined that a violation of evidentiary rules resulting in the erroneous admission of evidence constitutes a nonconstitutional error. A substantial right is affected if the error significantly influences the jury's verdict. The court referenced Kotteakos v. United States, emphasizing that an error does not affect a substantial right if there is fair assurance it did not influence the jury or had only a minimal effect. 

The assessment of whether an error substantially affected a right involves a comprehensive review of the trial record, including testimony, physical evidence, jury instructions, and the theories presented by both the prosecution and defense. In this case, despite a potential error in admitting certain testimony, the evidence against Thornburg was overwhelming, including his confessions and a recorded conversation where he acknowledged the killings. The jury was instructed to consider all evidence without undue emphasis on any specific element, including DNA evidence. 

Ultimately, the court concluded that any error in admitting the testimony did not have a substantial or injurious effect on the jury's verdict, thus affirming Thornburg's conviction. The judgment of the trial court was upheld, and the appellate court overruled Thornburg's issues.