Garcia v. State
Decision Date | 03 October 2001 |
Docket Number | No. 73,804,73,804 |
Citation | 57 S.W.3d 436 |
Parties | (Tex.Crim.App. 2001) JUAN MARTIN GARCIA, Appellant v. THE STATE OF TEXAS |
Court | Texas Court of Criminal Appeals |
Holcomb, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Keller, P.J., and Meyers, Womack, Johnson, Keasler, Hervey, and Cochran, JJ., joined.
A Harris County jury found appellant, Juan Martin Garcia, guilty of capital murder. See Tex. Pen. Code § 19.03(a)(2) ( ). The trial court, acting in accordance with the jury's answers to the punishment stage special issues, sentenced appellant to death. Appellant now brings three points of error to this Court. We will affirm.
The evidence presented at appellant's trial showed that during August and September of 1998, he and three accomplices went on a crime spree in Harris County. As part of that crime spree, appellant attempted to rob 32-year-old Hugo Solano. When Solano refused to hand over any money, appellant shot him four times in the head and neck, killing him. It was for that murder that appellant was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death.
In his first point of error, appellant argues that his trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance, in violation of the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution,1 when, during the punishment stage of trial, counsel elicited certain damaging testimony from defense witness Dr. Walter Quijano, a clinical psychologist. Appellant, an Hispanic, argues that the testimony in question "tacitly asked [the jury] to consider race and ethnic stereotypes" in its determination of the first punishment issue, which concerned his future dangerousness to society.2
The record reflects that defense counsel's examination of Quijano covered his educational and professional background first and then turned generally to the subjects of predicting and, within a prison setting, controlling an individual's proclivity for criminal violence, i.e., his dangerousness. Defense counsel's examination also touched briefly on the subject of race vis-a-vis an individual's dangerousness:
Q [by Defense Counsel]: Dr. Quijano, are there certain factors that contribute to someone's dangerousness in society?
Prior assaultive crimes or prior assaults is also a strong predictor. The more prior assaults, the more violence in the past, the more dangerous in the future.
The use of drugs and alcohol during the commission of these assaultive events increases the probability of violence, and then, finally, the use of a weapon, the presence of which increases dangerousness. The absence of which decreases dangerousness.
The record does not reflect defense counsel's reasons for examining Quijano on the subject of race vis-a-vis an individual's dangerousness.
The Sixth Amendment guarantees the right to the reasonably effective assistance of counsel in state criminal prosecutions. McMann v. Richardson, 397 U.S. 759, 771 n. 14 (1970). In general, to obtain a reversal of a conviction on the ground of ineffective assistance, an appellant must demonstrate that (1) defense counsel's performance fell below an objective standard of reasonableness and (2) there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's unprofessional error(s), the result of the proceeding would have been different.3 Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687 (1984). In assessing a claim of ineffective assistance, an appellate court "must indulge a strong presumption that counsel's conduct [fell] within the wide range of reasonable professional assistance; that is, the [appellant] must overcome the presumption that, under the circumstances, the challenged action might be considered sound trial strategy." Id. at 689 (some punctuation omitted). Also, in the absence of evidence of counsel's reasons for the challenged conduct, an appellate court "commonly will assume a strategic motivation if any can possibly be imagined," 3 W. LaFave, et al., Criminal Procedure § 11.10(c) (2d. ed 1999), and will not conclude the challenged conduct constituted deficient performance unless the...
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