Adames v. State

• Decision Date: 05 October 2011
• Docket Number: No. PD–1126–10.,PD–1126–10.
• Citation: 353 S.W.3d 854
• Parties: Juan Eligio Garcia ADAMES, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas.
• Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals

353 S.W.3d 854

Juan Eligio Garcia ADAMES, Appellant,

v.The STATE of Texas.

No. PD–1126–10.

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.

Oct. 5, 2011.

Jonathan Ball, McAllen, for Appellant.

Jennifer M.L. Carson, Asst. D.A., Edinburgh, Lisa C. McMinn, State's Attorney, Austin, for State.

OPINION

JOHNSON, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.

Appellant was charged by indictment with one count of capital murder. ¹ The state did not seek the death penalty. At trial, the trial judge gave the jury a general instruction as to the law of parties, and then gave the jury the following charge:

Now, if you believe from the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that on or about October 23, 2003, in Hidalgo County, Texas, the defendant, Juan Eligio Garcia Adames, did then and there intentionally cause the death of an individual, namely Ann Marie Garcia, by strangulation with a shoe lace and the defendant was then and there in the course of committing and attempting to commit the offense of aggravated kidnapping of Ann Marie Garcia; then you will find the defendant guilty of the offense of capital murder as charged in the indictment.

Or, alternatively, if you find from the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that on or about October 23, 2003, in Hidalgo County, Texas, Luis Carlos Mares did then and there intentionally cause the death of an individual, namely, Ann Marie Garcia, by strangulation with a shoelace and Luis Carlos Mares was then and there in the course of committing and attempting to commit the offense of aggravated kidnapping of Ann Marie Garcia, and the defendant, Juan Eligio Garcia Adames, then and there knew of the intent, if any, of the said Luis Carlos Mares to commit the aggravated kidnapping of Ann Marie Garcia, and the defendant acting with the intent to promote or assist Luis Carlos Mares in the commission of the aggravated kidnapping solicited, encouraged, directed, aided, or attempted to aid Luis Carlos Mares in the commission of the aggravated kidnapping by lending Luis Carlos Mares his car or by injecting the victim with heroin or by driving Luis Carlos Mares and the victim to the murder scene, then you will find the defendant guilty of the offense of capital murder as charged in the indictment.

Unless you so find beyond a reasonable doubt or if you have a reasonable doubt thereof, you will acquit the defendant and say—of the offense of capital murder.²

The jury convicted appellant, and the trial court automatically sentenced appellant to life imprisonment without parole. On appeal, the Thirteenth Court of Appeals found the evidence to be legally sufficient to support appellant's conviction as a party to the offense of capital murder, but that the jury charge was erroneous as the application paragraph did not include instructions necessary for the jury to find Adames guilty as a party. ³ “The actual charge at trial charged him with that offense [capital murder] as a primary actor but, as a party, only with respect to the underlying aggravated kidnapping.” ⁴ The court of appeals reversed the judgment and remanded the case to the trial court for further proceedings. This Court granted part of appellant's petition for discretionary review in order to determine whether the court of appeals erred in refusing to review appellant's issues numbers 2–4 ⁵ regarding legal insufficiency under the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution, as required by Jackson v. Virginia.⁶ This Court granted an additional ground, on its own motion, to decide whether the court of appeals erred in failing to distinguish between a sufficiency review under Malik,⁷ an independent state-ground for review, and Jackson, a federal constitutional review. Finding that the court of appeals did not err, we affirm the judgment of the court of appeals.

Facts

Luis Carlos Mares (“Huicho”) and Rick Velasquez, both members of the Mexican Mafia, went to the home of Reynaldo Saenz on October 22, 2003, in order to rob him. Saenz was storing 3,000 pounds of marijuana in his house for an acquaintance in Mexico. The victim, Ann Marie Garcia, was partying at Saenz's house when Saenz heard car doors slamming outside between 11:30 p.m. and midnight. Saenz went outside to see who had arrived, when he encountered two men wearing ski masks and holding guns. One of the men pointed a gun at Saenz's head and led him inside the house. Inside, one of the gunmen pointed his gun at the victim and motioned for her to get up. She looked scared and complied with the gunman. The men bound Saenz's feet, hands, and mouth with duct tape, put him on the kitchen floor, kicked him, and asked him where he was storing the marijuana.⁸ One of the men stayed with Saenz in the kitchen while the other followed the victim down the hall to where the marijuana was stored. Saenz did not see the victim again, but she was not there after the men left and she left several personal items at his home. Before leaving, one of the gunmen took off his ski mask and pointed an automatic pistol at Saenz's head.

In his written statement, appellant told Rafael Garza, an investigator at the Sheriff's Department of Hidalgo County, that on the morning of October 23, 2003, between 2:00 a.m. and 3:00 a.m., Huicho Mares called appellant and told him to go to Rick Velasquez's house. Earlier in the night of October 22, 2003, appellant had lent his Yukon truck to Mares, Velasquez, and a young guy nicknamed “Cricket.” When appellant got to Velasquez's house, Mares and Velasquez informed him that they had stolen about 1,800 pounds of marijuana from a house in Starr County. They had a girl with them, and Mares told appellant that they had to bring her with them because she recognized him. Appellant stated that Velasquez gave him heroin and told him to inject it into the girl so that she would die, but he only injected her with a little of it and injected the rest into himself. He then got into the driver's seat of the Yukon, Cricket got in the passenger seat, and Mares got into the back seat with the girl, who was now unconscious. While he was driving, he saw Mares having sex with the unconscious girl and then strangle her with something. Appellant could not see what Mares was using to strangle her because he was driving. ⁹ As appellant was driving by a canal towards Mercedes, Mares told him to stop the vehicle. When he did, Mares threw the girl out of the truck.

The victim's body was found in a remote area along a canal on the outskirts of Edcouch, Texas, at around 10:53 a.m. on October 23, 2003. The victim was dead when found, was clothed but without shoes, and had a shoelace tied tightly around her neck. A pair of light blue tennis shoes was found a few yards away with the shoelace missing from one of the shoes. An autopsy conducted later that evening by Dr. Fulgencio Salinas determined that the cause of death was asphyxia by ligature strangulation and that the victim died within the previous 24 hours. Further, Dr. Salinas determined that there was a significant amount of cocaine and heroin metabolites in the victim's body, but that these substances were not the cause of death.

The Court of Appeals

The court of appeals conducted a legal- and factual-sufficiency review of the evidence presented at trial, measuring the evidence against the elements of the offense as defined by the hypothetically correct jury charge.¹⁰ Based upon its review, the court of appeals held that the evidence was legally insufficient to support appellant's conviction as a primary actor in light of the evidence that the cause of death was asphyxia by ligature strangulation and the lack of evidence that appellant was the one that strangled the victim. ¹¹ However, the court of appeals found the evidence legally sufficient to support appellant's conviction under the law of parties. ¹² Additionally, the court held that the independent evidence was sufficient to show the corpus delicti of both the murder and the underlying felony, and therefore, the evidence was factually sufficient to support the conviction.

This Court subsequently held that there is no meaningful distinction between the legal-sufficiency standard under Jackson v. Virginia,¹³ and the Clewis v. State¹⁴ factual-sufficiency standard.¹⁵ Thus, the Jackson standard is the “only standard that a reviewing court should apply in determining whether the evidence is sufficient to support each element of a criminal offense that the State is required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt.” ¹⁶ The court of appeals applied a Jackson evidentiary-sufficiency review, so there is no need to remand this case for re-analysis under Brooks.

Appellant contends that the court of appeals failed to distinguish between a sufficiency review under Malik, an independent state-ground review, and Jackson, a federal constitutional review, when it analyzed the hypothetically correct jury charge in its sufficiency review. Appellant sought only a federal constitutional review and argues that, by using the Malik hypothetically correct jury charge, the court of appeals did not review appellant's claim of legal insufficiency. Instead, appellant asserts, the correct federal due-process review requires the appellate court to measure the sufficiency of the evidence against the jury charge as submitted to the jury. Had the court of appeals used the erroneous jury charge submitted to the jury, it would have found the evidence legally insufficient as submitted and ordered a judicial acquittal.

Appellant is correct that the application paragraph in the jury charge submitted by the trial court was erroneous in its instruction regarding the law of parties as applied to the offense of capital murder. As given, the charge allowed for appellant's conviction as the primary actor of capital murder, but allowed for appellant's conviction as a party only to the underlying aggravated kidnapping. The court of appeals recognized this error when it noted, “There is a due process...