Castruita v. State, 08-16-00030-CR

Decision Date31 July 2018
Docket NumberNo. 08-16-00030-CR,08-16-00030-CR
Citation584 S.W.3d 88
Parties Luis CASTRUITA, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee.
CourtTexas Court of Appeals

Hon. Jaime E. Esparza, El Paso, for Appellee.

Hon. Ruben P. Morales, El Paso, for Appellant.

Before McClure, C.J., Rodriguez, and Palafox, JJ.

OPINION

ANN CRAWFORD McCLURE, Chief Justice

Appellant was convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. He raises eight issues on appeal which can be boiled down to whether the trial court erred (1) in ruling on several suppression motions, (2) in limiting Appellant’s voir dire question about gangs, (3) in admitting a piece of physical evidence, (4) in failing to grant a mistrial, and to sustain an objection concerning the State’s closing argument, and (5) whether the cumulation of error, including claims of prosecutorial misconduct, merits reversal. We affirm.

FACTUAL SUMMARY

This case arises from an early morning shooting that took the life of Efren Gonzalez. On March 22, 2014, Efren and two of his friends, Matthew Scarbrough and Ernesto Sapien, were at a bar celebrating another friend’s birthday. They left the bar when it closed, and proceeded to walk home. As they crossed a street, they saw an on-coming silver mini-van. By Matthew’s account, the van sped up as if to strike them, but then stopped. Matthew quickly crossed the street in front of the mini-van and made eye contact with the driver. Efren and Ernesto stayed in the middle of the street and according to Ernesto, had an awkward moment, not knowing if they should cross or wait for the mini-van to pass. They ended up crossing in front of the mini-van and joined up with Matthew. The van proceeded forward, but then circled around and parked in front of Efren, Matthew, and Ernesto who by this time were walking across a parking lot.

According to Matthew, the mini-van’s driver shouted, "what the f* *k are you looking at?" at the three. The driver began having words with Efren. Matthew then saw the driver reach down and pull out a black handgun with a silver slide. Matthew jumped to the ground, heard a loud pop, and the mini-van drove off. The bullet pierced Efren Gonzalez’s liver and he died several hours later in the hospital.

Matthew picked Appellant out of a photo line-up, and identified him at trial as the shooter. He testified that Appellant was alone in the SUV at the time of the shooting. Matthew also recalled the driver’s distinctive clothing (a black shirt with "sheriff" in white lettering and a black cap). Ernesto also picked Appellant out of a photo line-up and positively identified him as the shooter at trial.1

At trial, the State presented additional evidence linking Appellant to the crime. Video from a nearby business showed a silver/light gray mini-van drive towards the crime scene at 2:25 a.m., and then back away two minutes later. In a nearby neighborhood, a silver/light gray mini-van was seen parked in front of a house where Appellant lives. The police asked Appellant to come outside and surrender himself. Instead, he climbed out a second story window onto the roof, jumped to the roof of a neighbor’s house, but eventually climbed down and surrendered to police.2 The police obtained a search warrant for the house and found a black handgun with a silver slide hidden inside a DVD player in Appellant’s bedroom. A spent bullet found at the scene had rifling marks indicating that it was fired from that same hand-gun.

Appellant’s girlfriend testified that he left their house that night at 12:45 to 1:00 a.m. to bring back some food. He returned empty handed about two hours later, wearing a black-cap and black t-shirt with the word "sheriff" in white lettering.3 He was acting "frantic," exemplified by looking out the windows with binoculars, and constantly checking the house’s surveillance cameras. She explained that Appellant hid his gun inside their DVD player. Appellant told his girlfriend that he "smoked" somebody, adding "That’s what happens when you don't pay up," and "That’s what happens when you f* *k with the devil." He asked her to wash the clothes he had on that night, and to look in the mini-van for the shell casing. While Appellant was in jail awaiting trial, he requested a transfer to a different jail cell. In his conversation with the detention officer, he volunteered that he had shot someone that was bothering him.

Appellant testified at trial, and claimed that he picked up another person ("Mr. Robinson") that night, who was the actual shooter.4 Appellant left his house about 2:00 a.m. after getting a call from Mr. Robinson who needed help because his car’s battery was not working. As he got close to the car’s location, he saw Mr. Robinson walking (oddly enough along a street named "Robinson") and picked him up. Mr. Robinson commented that he had been arguing with someone. As they began driving, three persons "cut in front" of them, and Mr. Robinson said that these were the individuals in question. The three persons positioned themselves to force Appellant to turn into a parking lot. Mr. Robinson then jumped to the back of the mini-van. One of the trio began hitting the back of the vehicle and one person came to the passenger side window. Appellant then claimed to have heard the gunshot. Appellant and Mr. Robinson left the scene to jump-start Mr. Robinson’s vehicle. Mr. Robinson then went his own way, but left the gun in Appellant’s mini-van. Appellant got scared and hid the gun in his DVD player when he got home. He denied ever wearing a black shirt with "sheriff" lettering on it. He also claimed he was too scared to call the police, but did call Mr. Robinson to come pick up his gun. He denied making any of the statements attributed to him by his girlfriend and the detention officer.

The jury found Appellant guilty. In the punishment phase, the State admitted evidence of Appellant’s prior felony conviction for possession with intent to distribute more than 1000 kilograms of marijuana. The State also admitted evidence of an additional conviction for a 2002 family violence assault, along with a judgment revoking probation in that case. Yet another witness testified that in 2012 while he was walking along the street, Appellant pulled in front of him in a vehicle, and shot at him four times, striking him once in the arm. The pedestrian had never met Appellant before, nor was there any apparent motive for the shooting. A Gang Intelligence Coordinator told the jury that Appellant admitted to being "Barrio Azteca" which is a Texas prison gang, and threatened to "activate his rank" if the jail did not agree to place him in a cell with another Barrio Azteca inmate. The State offered evidence that a baggy with almost ten grams of methamphetamine was found in the DVR in Appellant’s room, alongside the gun. When the police searched the room, they also noticed a puppy sitting motionless in the corner. Appellant’s girlfriend said the dog could not stand on its leg after Appellant kicked it down a flight of stairs. Appellant had also dragged her outside by her hair, and threatened to throw her and the dog off a balcony.

Appellant called several siblings who testified that he was a good brother to them. He also marshalled testimony from a former employer who praised his work, and a psychiatrist who suggested that Appellant has a treatable psychiatric condition.

The jury sentenced Appellant to life imprisonment along with a $10,000 fine. He raises eight issues challenging that judgment of conviction. We address his issues in a slightly different order.

THE SUPPRESSION ISSUES

In Appellant’s sixth and seventh issues, he challenges the trial court’s ruling denying a pre-trial motion to suppress a videotaped interrogation, claiming that the statement was not given voluntarily (Issue Six) and that he was denied the right to counsel (Issue Seven). In Appellant’s eighth issue, he challenged the admissibility of a statement made to a detention officer while he was awaiting trial. He claims that the statement was given without Miranda5 warnings, and was not taken in accordance with the requirements of TEX.CODE CRIM.PROC.ANN. art. 38.22 (West 2018). The trial court denied all of Appellant’s motions to suppress.

Standard of Review

We review a trial court’s ruling on a motion to suppress for an abuse of discretion. Crain v. State , 315 S.W.3d 43, 48 (Tex. Crim. App. 2010). That discretion is tested under a bifurcated standard of review as articulated in Guzman v. State , 955 S.W.2d 85 (Tex. Crim. App. 1997). See Amador v. State , 221 S.W.3d 666, 673 (Tex. Crim. App. 2007) ; Krug v. State , 86 S.W.3d 764, 765 (Tex.App.—El Paso 2002, pet. ref'd). "At a motion to suppress hearing, the trial judge is the sole trier of fact and judge of credibility of witnesses and the weight to be given to their testimony." Lerma v. State , 543 S.W.3d 184, 190 (Tex. Crim. App. 2018). Accordingly, we give almost total deference to the trial court’s resolution of questions of historical fact, especially when those determinations are based on assessments of credibility and demeanor. Arguellez v. State , 409 S.W.3d 657, 662 (Tex. Crim. App. 2013). Likewise, we give deference to trial court rulings that apply the law to the facts if those determinations turn on credibility or demeanor. Arguellez , 409 S.W.3d at 662. We review de novo mixed questions of law and fact that do not turn on credibility and demeanor. Id.

Where, as here, the trial court does not make explicit findings of fact, we "review the evidence in a light most favorable to the trial court’s ruling" and "assume that the trial court made implicit findings of fact supported in the record that buttress its conclusion." Carmouche v. State , 10 S.W.3d 323, 328 (Tex. Crim. App. 2000) ; see also Lerma , 543 S.W.3d at 190. Regardless of whether the motion to suppress was granted or denied, the prevailing party is entitled to "the strongest legitimate view of the evidence and all reasonable inferences that...

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