Court of Appeals
Tenth Appellate District of Texas
10-25-00210-CR
10-25-00211-CR
10-25-00212-CR
Kirk Glenn Reiber,
Appellant
v.
The State of Texas,
Appellee
On appeal from the
443rd District Court of Ellis County, Texas
Senior Judge Cindy Ermatinger, presiding
Trial Court Cause Nos. 48372CR, 48373CR, 48374CR
JUSTICE SMITH delivered the opinion of the Court.
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Following a jury trial, Kirk Glenn Reiber was convicted of two counts of
unauthorized use of a vehicle and one count of aggravated assault with a
deadly weapon.1 Finding two felony enhancement paragraphs to be true in
each case, the trial court assessed punishment at twenty years in prison on
1 Each charge was indicted in a separate cause number, but all three cases were tried together. each unauthorized use of a motor vehicle conviction and at Life in prison on
the aggravated assault with a deadly weapon conviction. Reiber phrases his
sole issue on appeal as a challenge to the legal sufficiency of the evidence
supporting the jury’s rejection of his insanity defense; however, he also
discusses the standard of review applicable to a factual sufficiency challenge
and argues that acquittal is appropriate pursuant to that standard. We
address both sufficiency challenges and affirm.
STANDARDS OF REVIEW AND RELEVANT LAW
A defendant cannot be convicted of a criminal offense if he is legally
insane at the time of its commission. TEX. PENAL CODE ANN. § 8.01(a). The
question is whether, “at the time of the conduct charged, the actor, as a result
of severe mental disease or defect, did not know that his conduct was wrong.”
Id. In the context of an insanity defense, the term “wrong” refers to a
defendant’s understanding of the illegality of his actions. See Ruffin v. State,
270 S.W.3d 586, 592 (Tex. Crim. App. 2008).
For legal sufficiency challenges to a jury’s rejection of an affirmative
defense, we first search the record for any evidence favorable to the jury’s
finding, disregarding all contrary evidence unless a reasonable factfinder could
not disregard it. Matlock v. State, 392 S.W.3d 662, 669 (Tex. Crim. App. 2013).
If no evidence supports the finding, we then determine whether the contrary
Kirk Glenn Reiber v. The State of Texas Page 2 proposition was established as a matter of law. Id. at 669-70. A defendant is
entitled to an acquittal only if the evidence conclusively establishes the
affirmative defense and no reasonable factfinder was free to think otherwise.
Id. at 670.
For factual sufficiency challenges to the jury’s rejection of an affirmative
defense, we view the evidence in a neutral light, but we “may not usurp the
function of the jury by substituting [our] judgment in place of the jury’s
assessment of the weight and credibility of the witnesses’ testimony.” Id. at
671. We may sustain a defendant’s claim of factual insufficiency only if the
verdict is so against the great weight of the evidence as to be manifestly unjust,
conscious-shocking, or clearly biased. Id.
EVIDENCE PRESENTED AT TRIAL
The State’s first witness at trial was the owner of the 24-Hour Mobile
Truck & Trailer Repair shop. The owner testified that on February 9, 2022,
Reiber entered the shop and asked the owner to repair a flat tire on his bicycle.
The owner informed Reiber that he did not fix bicycles and had no way of
repairing the tire. Reiber left the shop, but he returned approximately thirty
minutes later “demanding” that the owner fix the bicycle tire. The owner told
Reiber to leave, and Reiber complied. Later that evening, when the owner
walked out of the shop, he found that his service truck was missing. He also
Kirk Glenn Reiber v. The State of Texas Page 3 observed a bicycle that was left on the property. The owner reported the theft
of the service truck to the police department.
The next day, a customer brought a large car hauling trailer to the shop
for repair. In order for the customer to back the trailer onto the property, the
owner and his son had to stop traffic on the service road. The owner’s son
informed him that the stolen service truck was driving toward them on the
service road. The owner confronted Reiber, who was driving, about taking the
truck. The owner said Reiber “laughed, snickered” at him before complying
with his demand to exit the truck. Reiber asked for his bicycle, which had
already been removed from the property by the police. As the owner moved
the stolen service truck from the service road into the parking lot, he observed
Reiber walking toward the customer’s car hauling trailer. The owner told his
son to call the police.
The owner testified that after he pulled his service truck into the parking
lot, he heard “commotion and arguing” and observed Reiber inside of the
customer’s truck. His son was standing on the truck’s running boards with the
door open, fighting with Reiber. His wife was standing nearby. The owner
described hearing the tires squeal and observing the truck move backward at
a high rate of speed when his wife was hit by the open car door and dragged
for several feet down the street. He testified that he ran to the truck and a
Kirk Glenn Reiber v. The State of Texas Page 4 struggle ensued, with the participants starting and stopping the truck and
shifting it in and out of gear. The owner eventually restrained Reiber and kept
him there until police arrived.
The State’s second witness was the shop owner’s wife. She testified that
the day after the service truck was stolen, she called 9-1-1 because the person
who stole the truck “was back and trying to steal another one.” She observed
Reiber sitting in the driver’s seat of the customer’s car hauler and testified that
her son was fighting with Reiber to keep him from getting the truck in gear
while Reiber was “just laughing.” She described being hit and dragged by the
door of the truck, which caused her to sustain a concussion and a labrum tear
in her hip.
The State’s third witness was the customer who brought in the car
hauler for repair. The customer testified that Reiber walked up to his truck
and told him that he worked for the shop. He described Reiber as wearing a
“service shirt” that made him appear as if he worked for a repair shop. The
customer exited the truck, and Reiber, claiming he would back the trailer into
the property, got inside the truck. The customer then observed the owner’s son
waving at him and saying Reiber did not work for the shop. The customer told
Reiber to exit the truck, and Reiber refused. The customer testified that after
Kirk Glenn Reiber v. The State of Texas Page 5 Reiber learned that 9-1-1 was being called, he put the truck in reverse and
“floored it.”
The State next called the owner’s son. As to the initial interaction
between his father and Reiber, he testified to substantially the same facts as
his father. He described Reiber as “laughing at us.” As to his interaction with
Reiber in the customer’s truck, he explained that he was trying to turn the
vehicle off while Reiber was trying to turn it on and put it in gear. Reiber
eventually “jerked it down into reverse” and “floored” it. The owner’s son said
his mother was dragged twenty to thirty yards before he was able to stop the
truck. He described Reiber continuing to fight to get the truck back into gear
before his father was able to restrain him. The owner’s son also testified to the
condition of the stolen service truck upon its return. He explained that it “looks
like somebody tried to pry the back doors open.”
The State’s final witness in its case-in-chief was one of the responding
officers to the scene. He testified that he removed Reiber from the customer’s
truck and placed him in handcuffs. Though Reiber indicated that he did not
want to speak about the incident, he stated that he was there to retrieve his
bicycle. When asked if he was ever concerned for Reiber’s mental health at the
scene, the officer responded, “Not once.” He testified that Reiber never seemed
confused, and characterized his attitude as sarcastic and nonchalant.
Kirk Glenn Reiber v. The State of Texas Page 6
The defense called Reiber’s brother as its first witness. The brother
testified that Reiber sustained a head injury from a serious car accident in
2016. Approximately one year later, the brother started noticing that Reiber
was becoming paranoid and delusional. The brother testified that these
symptoms escalated a few months prior to the underlying incident. About one
month before the incident, Reiber was admitted to the hospital on two separate
occasions, once for twenty-four hours because he was not “in his right mind”
and once on a seventy-two-hour mental health hold. The week before the
incident, the brother again sought help for Reiber’s mental health; however,
after speaking with a doctor, Reiber was released from the hospital. The
brother also testified that in Reiber’s phone calls from the jail, he seemed
confused about why he was there. Reiber told the brother that someone at the
shop started the service truck and left it running, which made him believe he
could use it to go buy parts to fix his bicycle. Reiber said he drove the truck to
Walmart and purchased a new tube, bicycle tire, and air pump.
The defense also called an expert psychologist who assessed Reiber for
both competency and insanity in November of 2023. The expert witness
testified that she reviewed approximately fourteen or fifteen pages of medical
records from the jail, informally spoke with some of the jail medical staff, and
interviewed Reiber. She explained that the jail medical records show that
Kirk Glenn Reiber v. The State of Texas Page 7 Reiber was placed on an anti-psychotic medication after a few months in
custody, which was discontinued in the following year. Reiber told the expert
that someone at the shop gave him the keys to the vehicle so that he could go
purchase supplies to fix his bicycle. He claimed that he went to Walmart,
purchased a patch and air pump, and returned the truck to the shop. He
further claimed that while he was working on his bicycle, one of the employees
told him that another vehicle needed to be backed up, so he offered to help.
Reiber told the expert that he was confused when people started threatening
to call police and fighting with him to get him out of the truck. The expert
diagnosed Reiber with unspecified depressive disorder with psychotic features
and cannabis use disorder, severe. Ultimately, she concluded that Reiber was
competent to stand trial; however, he did not understand his actions were
wrong at the time of the offense as a result of his mental health diagnosis and
was legally insane at the time of the offense.
In rebuttal, the State called the law enforcement officer who searched
Reiber’s backpack incident to arrest. The officer testified that he did not locate
any type of tire repair kit or receipt from Walmart in the backpack.
ANALYSIS
Reiber emphasizes on appeal that the State did not present any evidence
to rebut his evidence of insanity. The State, however, was not required to do
Kirk Glenn Reiber v. The State of Texas Page 8 so.2 Dashield v. State, 110 S.W.3d 111, 115 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.]
2003, pet. ref’d). Because insanity is an affirmative defense, the defendant
bears both the burden of proof and the burden of persuasion. See TEX. PENAL
CODE ANN. §§ 2.04(d), 8.01. The defendant must prove insanity by a
preponderance of the evidence, and the State is under no obligation to present
any direct rebuttal evidence. See Graham v. State, 566 S.W.2d 941, 950 (Tex.
Crim. App. 1978).
Furthermore, the issue of insanity is not a purely medical question; it
invokes legal and ethical considerations that only the jury can resolve. Bigby
v. State, 892 S.W.2d 864, 877-78 (Tex. Crim. App. 1994). Thus, expert medical
testimony, even if uncontradicted, does not establish a defendant’s insanity as
a matter of law. Id. A medical expert’s opinion that a defendant did not know
his conduct was wrong does not bind the jury. Dashield, 110 S.W.3d at 115.
The jury may reject such expert opinion testimony in whole or in part, weigh
it against lay testimony and circumstantial evidence, and determine for itself
whether the defendant satisfied the legal standard for insanity. See id.
As to Reiber’s legal insufficiency claim, our first step is to look for more
than a scintilla of evidence supporting the jury’s rejection of his insanity
2 There exists an exception to this general rule when the defendant has previously been adjudicated
insane and the adjudication has not been vacated. Riley v. State, 830 S.W.2d 584, 585 (Tex. Crim. App. 1992). Neither party contends, and the record does not reflect, that this exception applies in this case.
Kirk Glenn Reiber v. The State of Texas Page 9 defense. Matlock, 392 S.W.3d at 669. We find that there is at least some
evidence in the record that reasonably supports a finding that Reiber was
aware that his conduct was illegal at the time of the offenses. For example,
testimony that Reiber attempted to flee when he learned that law enforcement
was contacted may indicate knowledge of illegal conduct. See Graham, 566
S.W.2d at 951. Additionally, the evidence that it appeared that Reiber “tried
to pry the back doors [of the service truck] open” reasonably suggests that
Reiber was aware he did not have permission to use the service truck. We
overrule Reiber’s legal sufficiency challenge.
As to Reiber’s factual sufficiency claim, we find that the verdict is not so
much against the great weight of the evidence as to be manifestly unjust. In
addition to the aforementioned evidence, the jury also reasonably could have
determined that Reiber’s impersonation of a shop worker was an intentionally
deceitful ploy to gain access to the car hauler, not a result of confusion or
delusion due to his mental defect. As the State argues, the jury also could have
credited the testimony of the law enforcement officer “who dealt with [Reiber]
and saw his demeanor and evaluated his actions on scene,” over the defense
expert’s testimony who did not evaluate Reiber until well over a year later. We
overrule Reiber’s factual sufficiency challenge.
Kirk Glenn Reiber v. The State of Texas Page 10
Conclusion
Having overruled Reiber’s sole issue in each appeal, we affirm the trial
court’s judgments.
STEVE SMITH
Justice
OPINION DELIVERED and FILED: July 9, 2026
Before Chief Justice Johnson,
Justice Smith, and
Justice Harris
Affirmed
Do not publish
CRPM
Kirk Glenn Reiber v. The State of Texas Page 11