Aguilar v. State

Decision Date24 August 2017
Docket NumberNO. 01-15-00972-CR,01-15-00972-CR
PartiesADRIAN AGUILAR, Appellant v. THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee
CourtTexas Court of Appeals

On Appeal from the 174th District Court Harris County, Texas

Trial Court Case No. 1370058

MEMORANDUM OPINION

A jury found appellant, Adrian Aguilar, guilty of the offense of murder1 and assessed his punishment at confinement for ninety-nine years. In six issues,appellant contends that his trial counsel provided him with ineffective assistance and the trial court erred in limiting his cross-examination of a State's witness, admitting into evidence a photograph and victim-impact and hearsay testimony, overruling his objection to a portion of the State's closing argument, and as a result of its cumulative errors, violating his due process rights.

We affirm.

Background

Joe Aguilar, Sr. ("Joe Sr.") testified that on the morning of December 4, 2012, he, while he was driving a car and with his wife, Yolanda Aguilar, the complainant, as his passenger, saw George Aguilar ("George"), appellant's brother, turn his truck onto the same street on which he was driving. As Joe Sr. proceeded to drive behind George's truck, George began driving "real slowly," eventually stopping his truck in the middle of the street. George then stuck his middle finger up at Joe Sr. and "hollered," "Come on, you son-of-a-bitch, I'm going to fuck you up." This frightened the complainant, who instructed Joe Sr. to drive home.

Later that morning, Joe Sr. and the complainant drove to pick up their daughter-in-law, Kimberley Aguilar ("Kimberley"), to take her to work. When they arrived at Kimberley's home, she and her son, Joe Aguilar, III ("Baby Joe"), got into the car. As Joe Sr. then drove Kimberley to work, a "Jeep" began following behind his car. When Joe Sr. made a turn, the Jeep "continued coming . . . behind [him]."At that point, Joe Sr. "knew [that] something was wrong" because of the way that the Jeep was following him. For instance, when Joe Sr. moved his car to the left lane, the Jeep did the same. And then when he returned his car to the right lane, the Jeep again did the same. The complainant said to Joe Sr., "I believe that's George behind [us]."

Joe Sr. explained that when he initially looked into his rearview mirror while driving, he saw two people sitting in the front seat of the Jeep. As he looked back at the Jeep a second time, however, he saw only the driver. The other person that he had previously seen was no longer in the front-passenger seat. When Joe Sr. looked in his rearview mirror for a third time, he could no longer see the Jeep. He then heard "pop, pop, pop, pop, pop." At that point, the Jeep was "[s]ide-by-side" with his car. As the Jeep "sped up" to pass his car, Joe Sr. saw George in the driver's seat and appellant, who was holding a firearm and shooting, in the back seat of the Jeep, with his body half-way out the window. Joe Sr. explained that he clearly saw appellant's face and that appellant held the firearm "straight." When appellant fired the firearm at Joe Sr.'s car, he heard "pow, pow, pow, pow, pow."

Before the day of the shooting, Joe Sr. knew appellant's name and his face. And Joe Sr. opined that appellant had fired "more than four" shots at his car. After appellant had fired the shots, Joe Sr. felt the complainant's head on his chest, and she was unresponsive. When he realized that he had blood on his shirt, he stoppedhis car in a parking lot. While he waiting for emergency assistance to arrive, Joe Sr. held his wife, although he "knew she was gone."

Kimberley testified that when Joe Sr. and the complainant arrived to pick her up for work, she and Baby Joe2 got into Joe Sr.'s car. As they drove to Kimberley's workplace, Joe Sr. sat in the driver's seat of the car, the complainant sat in the front-passenger seat, Kimberley sat behind the complainant in the back seat, and Baby Joe sat on the left side of the car, in the back seat behind Joe Sr.

Kimberley explained that when Joe Sr. made a turn, she realized that something was "wrong." The complainant then said to Joe Sr. that "she believed [that they] were being followed" by George. Suddenly, a "Jeep" "pulled up on the left side" of Joe Sr.'s car and Kimberley "heard . . . gunshots" coming from the Jeep. She immediately ducked down and placed her body over Baby Joe in order to protect him. Kimberley opined that "three or four" shots had been fired; however, she did not see who was inside the Jeep or who was shooting.

After the shooting stopped, the complainant did not respond when Kimberley asked "if everybody was okay." As Joe Sr. turned the car into a parking lot, Kimberley saw the complainant's body fall over onto him and "blood coming fromher head." At the time, Baby Joe was crying and scared, and Kimberley called for emergency assistance.

Elaine Elda Garza, the niece of the complainant and Joe Sr., testified that she had previously been in a relationship with George and had lived with him in a trailer home next door to appellant. When Garza, on the morning of December 4, 2012, drove George's "Jeep" over to her mother's home for breakfast, George also left their trailer home to drive around in his truck. When Garza returned home, George was back at the trailer home and appeared to be "very upset." According to George, he had, that morning, "r[u]n into" Joe Sr., who had "call[ed] him names and stuff." George then left the trailer home and went next door to appellant's home. When he returned with appellant, Garza made breakfast for them. After breakfast, George told Garza that he was "going to town," and he left with appellant in his Jeep. Sometime later, Garza's mother telephoned her to ask whether George could pick her up from a doctor's appointment. When Garza subsequently telephoned George, he told her that "he was somewhere in town still" and he could pick up her mother from her doctor's appointment.

Garza explained that later that day, her mother telephoned her again to inform her that the complainant had been shot and killed. After that telephone call, Georgeand appellant returned home in the Jeep.3 When George came into the trailer home, he told Garza that he and appellant were "going to the store" and they would "be back." He and appellant then left the trailer park in George's "Buick."

Subsequently, George telephoned Garza from a nearby gas station and asked her to come and pick him up. When she arrived at the gas station driving the Jeep, George asked her to drive back to their trailer home to "get the bullets out of the house." When she arrived back at their trailer home, the doors were locked, and she could not get inside. Garza then telephoned George, who told her to "come back" to the gas station. As Garza was driving the Jeep back to the gas station, she saw law enforcement officers driving behind her. Upon her arrival at the gas station, Garza parked the Jeep and exited it as instructed by the officers. George then emerged from inside of the gas station.

Garza explained that George had told her that appellant had "dropped him off" at the gas station and left, but he did not tell her where appellant went. And Garza noted that appellant never returned to his trailer home after the shooting of the complainant.

Pasadena Police Department ("PPD") Officer C. Shafer testified that on December 4, 2012, he was on duty in his patrol car when he heard a radio call about"a shooting that had just occurred." He proceeded to the area and met with Joe Sr. Shafer saw the complainant "sitting in the passenger side front seat" and "slumped over onto [Joe Sr.]'s right shoulder." Joe Sr. then told Shafer, "She's gone." The complainant appeared to have "head injuries," and Shafter did not see any sign that she was alive. He noted that Kimberley and Baby Joe were also inside the car.

In regard to who had shot the complainant, Joe Sr. told Officer Shafer that George was "the driver" of a "Jeep" and appellant had "done the shooting." "EMS records," admitted into evidence during Shafer's testimony, state that the complainant had been shot in the head, suffered a "[t]raumatic [b]rain [i]njury" and "[c]ardiac [a]rrest," and was pronounced "[d]ead at [the] [s]cene."

PPD Detective C. MacGregor testified that on December 4, 2012, he was dispatched to the scene of the shooting, where Joe Sr. informed him that George and appellant were responsible. MacGregor noted that appellant was not located or arrested until September 30, 2013.

PPD Detective R. Sorrell testified that while on duty in his patrol car on December 4, 2012, he heard a radio call about a shooting and a description of a "Jeep." Upon learning the location of the Jeep, Sorrell drove to a trailer park and subsequently followed the Jeep to a gas station. When the Jeep stopped, Sorrell exited his patrol car and instructed the driver of the Jeep to also exit. A woman thenexited the Jeep, and George "came from around the backside of the . . . gas station," walking towards Sorrell and other law enforcement officers with his hands in the air.

Dr. Dwayne Wolf, deputy chief medical examiner for the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences, testified that he supervised the autopsy performed on the complainant, who died on December 4, 2012. An initial examination of her body revealed that she had suffered "multiple gunshot wounds," which were located primarily on the left side of her body. One gunshot wound, designated as "Gunshot Wound A," showed that a "bullet [had gone] into [her] skull, passed all the way through [her] brain and the central part of the cerebrum," "perforated through the skull on the right side of the [complainant's] head[,] and then exited the scalp on the right side."4 Wolf explained that this injury to the complainant was "immediately life-threatening" and an "immediately incapacitating wound." Wolf noted that the cause of her death was "[m]ultiple gunshot wounds," a firearm is a deadly weapon, and shooting someone with a firearm is an act clearly...

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