In the
Court of Appeals
Sixth Appellate District of Texas at Texarkana
No. 06-26-00013-CR
CINDI RAWLINS BAKER, Appellant
V.
THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee
On Appeal from the 97th District Court
Clay County, Texas
Trial Court No. 2020-0015C-CR
Before Stevens, C.J., van Cleef and Rambin, JJ.
Memorandum Opinion by Chief Justice Stevens
MEMORANDUM OPINION
A Clay County1 jury convicted Cindi Rawlins Baker of murdering her husband, James
Wayne Baker, II, and assessed punishment at twenty-three years’ imprisonment. Baker claimed
self-defense for stabbing James. In her sole issue, Baker argues that the trial court erred by
prohibiting her domestic-violence expert from testifying to her opinion that Baker was the victim
in the relationship. Because we find that the trial court was within its discretion to exclude the
expert from testifying, we affirm the trial court’s judgment.
I. Applicable Facts
After midnight on November 19, 2019, Baker called her and James’s daughter, Emily,
and told her that “she had stabbed [James] and [that] he was dead.” Emily drove about two
hours to her parents’ home and called 9-1-1 after she found her father dead in his bedroom.
On November 19, Jacob Sisson, a deputy with the Clay County Sheriff’s Office (CCSO),
was dispatched to a murder call. Baker was sitting on the couch when he arrived. Emily was
sitting on the floor in her parents’ bedroom next to James, crying. Sisson found James lying on a
pallet on the bedroom floor, without his shirt, with an entry wound in his chest and a kitchen
knife beside him. Sisson testified that Baker appeared intoxicated. Before Sisson could ask her
any questions, Baker told him that “[James] had told [her] to stab him, so [she] did.” Sisson read
Baker her Miranda2 warnings and put her in his patrol unit. Elizabeth Ventura, the chief medical
1
This appeal was transferred to this Court from the Second Court of Appeals pursuant to a Texas Supreme Court docket equalization order. See TEX. GOV’T CODE ANN. § 73.001 (Supp.). Accordingly, we apply the precedent of the Second Court of Appeals in deciding this case to the extent that it conflicts with our own. See TEX. R. APP. P. 41.3.
2
See Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 467 (1966).
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examiner for the Collin County Medical Examiner’s Office, testified that (1) James died of one
fatal-stab wound to his chest, (2) there were no other indications that he had been in a struggle,
(3) his blood-alcohol concentration was 0.267, and (4) he had no defensive injuries.
Captain and felony investigator, Richard “Donny” Johns, with the CCSO, testified that
Baker told him during her jail interview that she and James “were both laying side by side in the
bed and that he handed [Baker] . . . the knife, she took it with her right hand and went across . . .
and put it into [James’s] chest.” Baker told Johns that because she was scared, she stabbed
James in self-defense. Baker also informed him that James had two cases pending in Lubbock
for assaulting her.
The State also offered prior altercations between Baker and James. James Rindlisbacher,
an officer with the Lubbock Police Department, testified that he arrested James for domestic
violence after he responded several years earlier to a domestic disturbance where he observed
bruises on Baker’s thighs and a small puncture wound on James’s arm. Emily testified that her
parents frequently argued, Baker had caused injuries to James, and that James had recently told
Emily that he had broken Baker’s hand after Baker attempted to stab him, which resulted in a
stab wound to his upper chest. Michael Bush, Baker’s brother, testified that Baker told him that
she and James had prior domestic altercations. Shay Rucker, Baker’s sister, testified that she
observed Baker with a black eye, broken fingers, and a broken wrist. Melora “Missy” Webber,
an investigator with Child Protective Services, testified that she thought Baker was “more of the
aggressor.” Penny Colvin, James’s sister, testified that Baker had previously stabbed James, and
that he was hospitalized because of a punctured lung.
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Baker called Kelly Slaven, a licensed clinical-social worker supervisor, to testify “about
how trauma affects the mind, what a history of trauma does both physically and mentally to a
person, and being able to explain that [could] give the [j]ury insight into what Ms. Baker was
thinking and feeling at the time of the offense.” The State objected, and the trial court held a
hearing outside the jury’s presence. At the hearing, Slaven testified as follows:
[BY THE STATE:] And is it your intent to provide an opinion about
who was the abuser in the relationship based on your two-hour meeting with
Cindi Baker?
[BY SLAVEN:] Yes.
[BY THE STATE:] Do you believe that you have sufficient information
to give that basis?
[BY SLAVEN:] I do.
The trial court sustained the State’s objection and stated that Slaven “[could] explain domestic
violence generally and those things generally, but . . . sustain[ed] the objection as to her
testifying to [Baker] being the victim in the case.”
The jury found Baker guilty of murder, rejected her self-defense claim, and sentenced her
to twenty-three years’ imprisonment.
II. No Abuse of Discretion to Limit Testimony of Baker’s Expert Witness
In her sole issue, Baker argues that the trial court erred by prohibiting Baker’s domesticviolence expert from testifying to her opinion that Baker was the victim in the relationship.
A. Standard of Review
“A trial judge’s ruling on the admissibility of expert testimony is reviewed under an
abuse-of-discretion standard and will not be disturbed if it is within the zone of reasonable
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disagreement.” Wolfe v. State, 509 S.W.3d 325, 335 (Tex. Crim. App. 2017). “The trial court
abuses its discretion when it acts without reference to any guiding rules and principles or acts
arbitrarily or unreasonably.” Rhomer v. State, 569 S.W.3d 664, 669 (Tex. Crim. App. 2019).
“We will respect the discretion of trial court judges in performing their gatekeeping function and
will not disturb their rulings on the reliability of expert testimony unless it appears from the
record they acted without reference to the pertinent guiding rules or principles.” Hernandez v.
State, 53 S.W.3d 742, 752 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2001, pet. ref’d).
B. Applicable Law
In Wolfe, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals stated,
The admissibility of expert testimony is governed by Texas Rule of Evidence 702,
which provides that “[a] witness who is qualified as an expert by knowledge,
skill, experience, training, or education may testify in the form of an opinion or
otherwise if the expert’s scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge will
help the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue.”
Wolfe, 509 S.W.3d at 335 (alteration in original) (quoting TEX. R. EVID. 702). Even so, “[a]n
expert’s opinion is inadmissible if the underlying facts or data do not provide a sufficient basis
for the opinion.” TEX. R. EVID. 705(c); see Petriciolet v. State, 442 S.W.3d 643, 650 (Tex.
App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2014, pet. ref’d).
“For expert testimony to be admissible under these rules, the proponent of the expert
scientific evidence must demonstrate by clear and convincing evidence that the testimony is
‘sufficiently reliable and relevant to help the jury in reaching accurate results.’” Wolfe, 509
S.W.3d at 335 (quoting Kelly v. State, 824 S.W.2d 568, 572 (Tex. Crim. App. 1992)). “In other
words, the proponent must prove two prongs: (1) the testimony is based on a reliable scientific
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foundation, and (2) it is relevant to the issues in the case.” Tillman v. State, 354 S.W.3d 425, 435
(Tex. Crim. App. 2011). “The substance of the [expert’s] testimony must be considered. . . .
[A]n expert’s bald assurance of validity is not enough. . . . The underlying data should be
independently evaluated in determining if the opinion itself is reliable.” Merrell Dow Pharms.,
Inc. v. Havner, 953 S.W.2d 706, 711–13 (Tex. 1997) (footnote omitted) (citations omitted).
“The trial court will examine the basis for such expert opinion and determine whether the
disclosure of such facts would be more prejudicial than probative to the jury’s consideration.”
Joiner v. State, 825 S.W.2d 701, 708 (Tex. Crim. App. 1992). “In some cases, however, the
source upon which an expert’s opinion relies is of such little weight that the jury should not be
permitted to receive that opinion.” Viterbo v. Dow Chem. Co., 826 F.2d 420, 422 (5th Cir.
1987).
C. Analysis
In Vela v. State, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals held that “[w]ithout more than
credentials and a subjective opinion, an expert’s testimony that ‘it is so’ is not admissible.” Vela
v. State, 209 S.W.3d 128, 134 (Tex. Crim. App. 2006) (quoting Viterbo, 826 F.2d at 424).
There, the expert did not review any medical tests or academic literature and solely relied on
what the patient told him to diagnose the patient. Id. The court stated that the expert’s opinion
was merely the patient’s own account “dressed up and sanctified as the opinion of an expert.”
Id. (quoting Viterbo, 826 F.2d at 424). Thus, even though the trial court gives “wide latitude” to
experts in selecting the sources, the trial court is required to evaluate the reliability of those
sources because the basis of an opinion may be “of such little weight that the jury should not be
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permitted to receive that opinion.” Id. at 134–35 (quoting Viterbo, 826 F.2d at 422). The trial
court is the gatekeeper and must “determine the reliability, relevancy, and admissibility of
scientific evidence.” Id. at 136 (quoting Vela v. State, 159 S.W.3d 172, 180 (Tex. App.—
Corpus Christi–Edinburg 2004), vacated, 209 S.W.3d 128 (Tex. Crim. App. 2006)). “A jury
should evaluate credibility, but unreliable evidence should never make it to the jury.” Id. at 135–
36.
Here, the trial court could have reasonably determined that the information Slaven relied
upon to form her expert opinion was incomplete, and thus unreliable. Slaven had one meeting
with Baker that lasted approximately two hours, and she had not reviewed police reports or video
recordings and had not spoken with any other witness. Even though Slaven testified that it was
standard practice in the industry to base an opinion such as this solely on information from the
interviewee, the trial court heard evidence of Baker’s potential culpability in previous
altercations as a mutual wrongdoer or combatant. Slaven also testified that additional
information could have changed her analysis, and a one-sided portrayal could mislead the jury.
Additionally, there is no indication in the record that Slaven reassessed her opinion after being
informed of that information.
For these reasons, we find that the record does not show an abuse of the trial court’s
discretion. As a result, we overrule Baker’s sole issue.3
3
Baker also argues that Articles 38.36 and 38.371 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure allow the expert testimony at issue here. See TEX. CODE CRIM. PROC. ANN. art. 38.36, art. 38.371 (Supp.). Baker did not present Article 38.36 to the trial court, and Article 38.371 explicitly states, “subject to the Texas Rules of Evidence or other applicable law.” TEX. CODE CRIM. PROC. ANN. art. 38.371(b); see TEX. CODE CRIM. PROC. ANN. art. 38.36(b); TEX. R. APP. P. 33.1(a)(1).
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III. Conclusion
We affirm the trial court’s judgment.
Scott E. Stevens
Chief Justice
Date Submitted: September 3, 2026
Date Decided: September 25, 2026
Do Not Publish
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