ESPARZA V. The State Of Tex.
| Decision Date | 23 June 2010 |
| Docket Number | No. 08-08-00304-CR,No. 20060D05258,08-08-00304-CR,20060D05258 |
| Parties | JOSE ESPARZA, Appellant, v. THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee. |
| Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
Appeal from the 384th District Court of El Paso County, Texas
Jose Esparza, Appellant, appeals his conviction for capital murder and attempted murder, asserting that he was denied his Fifth Amendment and Sixth Amendment right to counsel and that his confession was involuntarily made due to coercion. For these reasons, Appellant complains that the trial court improperly admitted his custodial statement into evidence at trial. We affirm.
In a two-count indictment, Appellant was charged with capital murder (Count I) and attempted capital murder (Count II). After pleading not guilty, a jury found Appellant guilty of capital murder (Count I) and attempted murder (Count II), a lesser-included offense. The trial court sentenced Appellant to an automatic life sentence for his capital murder conviction as the State did not seek the death penalty. Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 12.31(a)(2) (Vernon Supp. 2009). For his attempted-murder conviction, the trial court sentenced Appellant to twenty years' confinement. Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 12.32(a) (Vernon Supp. 2009).
Before the commencement of trial, Appellant filed a motion to suppress evidence, including his video-recorded oral statement to police, and asserted that the statement was obtained as the resultof an illegal detention, arrest, and search of Appellant in violation of his constitutional rights and articles 1.06 and 38.23 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure.
The trial court heard and considered the following evidence in two pretrial hearings, a final oral argument, and at trial as Appellant sought to suppress the video recording in which Appellant made his custodial confession.
On Friday evening, August 25, 2006, Ruben Munoz and Maria Porras went to an El Paso nightclub to celebrate a friend's birthday, and they later left the nightclub at approximately 2 a.m. on Saturday, August 26, 2006, in a white van. Munoz stopped at a convenience store to use the restroom but it was not in working order. As his residence was nearby, Munoz pulled into the alleyway behind his home and exited the vehicle while Porras waited in the front passenger seat of the van. The last thing Munoz remembered of that evening was using the restroom in the alleyway.
At about 8:20 a.m. that same morning, Munoz was found badly beaten, but alive. However, Maria Porras and the white van were missing. Detective Jesus Pantoja, Jr. and other El Paso Police Department officers began interviewing Munoz's family members and his nightclub companions. The van was later found in a nearby alleyway and was processed for blood and fingerprints. Several of the fingerprints from the van and another found on a lug wrench discovered inside the van matched Appellant's known prints, and Detective Pantoja was notified of the fingerprint match at approximately 11 p.m. that evening.
Several hours later, at approximately 2 a.m. on Sunday, August 27, 2006, El Paso Police officers approached Appellant's residence to execute a warrant for his arrest for the aggravated robbery of Munoz. While other officers were approaching the front door of the residence, another officer observed the mostly nude and deceased body of Maria Porras in Appellant's backyard. Appellant was arrested and, except for the two youngest children, everyone in the home, including Appellant's wife, Patricia, and members of her family, were transported to the police station in police vehicles while officers secured the residence for further investigation.
At approximately 2:35 a.m., Detectives Pantoja and Yvette Nevarez, took Appellant to an interview room at the police station and asked Appellant to read aloud a Miranda warning card. Appellant complied and when asked by Detective Pantoja if he understood his rights, Appellant stated that he did, and then signed the card, marking it with the date and time. According to both Detective Pantoja and Detective Nevarez, Appellant did not invoke any of his rights, never asked for an attorney, and spoke with the detectives for approximately one and one-half hours, until close to 4 a.m. During this first interview, Appellant denied being involved in the crimes.
At the end of the first interview, the detectives left Appellant in the interview room but cuffed Appellant's left hand to the chair while they proceeded to do follow-up work and awaited the results of an ongoing interview between another detective and Appellant's wife, Patricia. At some point, Detective Pantoja informed Appellant that officers were speaking with Patricia. Detective Pantoja periodically checked on Appellant during this time and during one of those checks, at approximately 4:40 a.m., Appellant asked to speak with Patricia and stated he would thereafter tell Detective Pantoja what had happened. Detective Pantoja informed Patricia that Appellant wished to speak with her, and she agreed to meet with him. Detective Pantoja stated that he moved Appellant to another interview room and then escorted Patricia to the room but never gave her any instructions. Police monitored and made a video recording of the 23 minute discussion between Appellant and Patricia, but never told either of them that a recording would be made. The recording is devoid of any statement or indication by Patricia that she was ever asked by any law enforcement officer to have Appellant give a statement explaining what happened or how Appellant may have been involved in the offenses.
At the conclusion of Appellant's conversation with Patricia, and while the video recording was continuing, Detectives Pantoja and Nevarez escorted Patricia from the room, and a few minutes later, at approximately 8:13 a.m., commenced a second interview with Appellant. Appellant again read his rights aloud from the Miranda warning card he had signed earlier and informed Detective Pantoja that he understood his rights. Over the course of the next 40 minutes, Appellant answered the detectives' questions and described the manner in which he had encountered and attacked Munoz and Porras. Appellant never asked for an attorney and never asked that the interview cease. At 8:53 a.m., as the second interview concluded, Appellant asked to see Patricia and the detectives brought her in to see Appellant.
Along with that of other witnesses, the trial court also heard and considered testimony from Patricia, her brother, and Appellant. During the first suppression hearing, Patricia testified that Detective Pantoja told her that Appellant did not want to tell them what had happened and had asked her "to see if [Appellant] would be able to give [her] any information since [she is] his wife." She testified that she spoke with Appellant because she understood that she was not otherwise going to "get [her] home back," where her parents, younger sister and brother, and brother-in-law lived. On cross-examination, Patricia stated that she was left with the impression that she would not get the home back because Appellant had not cooperated in providing any information about what had happened and, since her family had been removed from the home, it seemed that they would not be able to return home if Appellant did not say anything. Patricia testified that she knew that a body had been found in the backyard of the home, that it had been there for over 24 hours, and that the police were investigating that crime. She also admitted that Detective Pantoja never told her, "If you don't go in there and talk with him your family will not get its home back." Rather, she agreed, this concept was just something that was "in [her] mind."
When the suppression hearing continued on May 14, Patricia recanted this testimony and again stated, "Well, [Detective Pantoja] told me if Jose Esparza did not say anything we were not going to be able to get our home." She reiterated that Detective Pantoja wanted her to speak with Appellant to see if he would say something to her since she was his wife but he did not tell her what it was he wanted Appellant to say, only that he wanted Appellant to say what had happened. When she was transported from the police station by a police officer at approximately 10 a.m, she was taken to her uncle's house.
Patricia's brother, George Lomeli, Jr., who had also been removed from the residence after Appellant's arrest, testified that he was at the police station for approximately five hours and that an officer told him that they would need to go somewhere else for the moment until all of the evidence was collected, and they would be permitted to return home thereafter. He explained that many of the family members were transported from the police station at approximately 7:30 a.m. that same day by police who took them to an uncle's home. He testified that Patricia arrived there at approximately 10:30 a.m., and that they were able to return to their residence the next day at 8:30 p.m.
According to Appellant, he had informed the detectives during his first interview that he wished to speak with his attorney after receiving his warnings but never saw an attorney that day. At approximately 10 a.m., Appellant was taken to a jail magistrate who again advised him of his rights. However, Appellant did not tell the judge he wanted an attorney and he could not remember if the judge said he would appoint an attorney. Appellant testified that he never asked to speak to his wife and said that he confessed to the detectives because he felt pressured and motivated by his wife's emotional state, feeling that he did not have any other option.
The trial court directed Appellant's and the State's attorneys to prepare legal briefs on these
matters, and heard oral arguments before trial. During the pretrial hearings, in his legal brief, and at oral argument, Appellant asserted that after his initial interview with the detectives...
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