Gonzales v. State, 01-05-00066-CR.

• Decision Date: 15 December 2005
• Docket Number: No. 01-05-00066-CR.,01-05-00066-CR.
• Citation: 190 S.W.3d 125
• Parties: Luis GONZALES, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

190 S.W.3d 125

Luis GONZALES, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee.

No. 01-05-00066-CR.

Court of Appeals of Texas, Houston (1st Dist.).

December 15, 2005.

Discretionary Review Refused May 24, 2006.

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Randy McDonald, Houston, TX, for Appellant.

Eric Kugler, Asst. Dist. Atty. of Harris County, Houston, TX, for Appellee.

Panel consists of Justices NUCHIA, JENNINGS, and HIGLEY.

OPINION

LAURA CARTER HIGLEY, Justice.

Appellant was charged by indictment with capital murder for kidnapping and murdering his ex-wife, Maria Villatoro. TEX. PEN.CODE ANN. § 19.03 (Vernon Supp. 2005). After a plea of not guilty, the jury found appellant guilty and assessed punishment at life in prison. On appeal, appellant argues that (1) appellant's confession was inadmissible because it did not comply with Texas law, (2) the corpus delicti of kidnapping was not sufficiently established to support a charge of capital murder, (3) the evidence was legally and factually insufficient to support conviction, (4) the trial court erred in allowing hearsay testimony, and (5) certain evidence should not have been admitted because it was improperly obtained by a warrantless search.

We affirm.

BACKGROUND

Appellant and Villatoro were married and had two daughters together. Appellant became abusive to Villatoro and their daughters. Eventually, Villatoro left appellant and had him arrested on assault charges. Villatoro divorced appellant, later met another man, and remarried. She made efforts to avoid appellant and to prevent him from knowing where she was.

Appellant became upset about Villatoro's new marriage and began searching the city, hoping to find out where they lived. Appellant finally located the daycare for his two daughters. On July 31, 2003, appellant waited outside the daycare for Villatoro to arrive. After Villatoro picked up her daughters, appellant forced his way into Villatoro's car, showed her a handgun, and told her to drive off. Appellant spent between two and three hours in the car with Villatoro and her daughters, arguing with her, telling her where to drive, and looking for an isolated place to kill her. Eventually, appellant led her to a remote area of Katy, Texas. He shot Villatoro once while she was in the driver's seat, moved her to the passenger seat, and then shot her two more times.

At 7:30 that night, appellant called his brother, Andres Gonzales, and told Andres to meet him at a parking lot in Katy. Andres drove appellant's car to the location. There he saw appellant in Villatoro's car with a dead body in the passenger seat. Andres followed appellant to an isolated construction site, where appellant moved the girls into his car and left with his brother, leaving Villatoro's body in her car.

After dropping Andres off, appellant drove with his daughters to Mesquite, Texas. He pulled into a parking lot near a Greyhound bus station and purchased tickets to Santa Barbara, California.

Meanwhile, a worker at the construction site found Villatoro's body and contacted police. Based on their initial investigation, appellant became an immediate suspect and an Amber Alert was issued notifying the public that the daughters were missing. A man who had been at the Greyhound bus station in Mesquite learned about the Amber Alert and told police that he had seen appellant. Upon verifying appellant's destination, Houston authorities notified the Santa Barbara Police Department.

The Santa Barbara police arrested appellant as the bus came into the station. At the police station, he was read his Miranda rights. Appellant submitted to interrogation and eventually confessed to the murder. During this time, Mesquite police impounded appellant's car and, under instruction from Houston police, retrieved the handgun used in the shooting.

Custodial Confession

For his fourth point of error, appellant argues that his confession was erroneously admitted because it did not comply with Texas law.

A. Standard of Review

We review a trial court's ruling on a motion to suppress for an abuse of discretion. Balentine v. State, 71 S.W.3d 763, 768 (Tex.Crim.App.2002).

Applying this standard, we afford deference to the trial court's determination of the historical facts but decide de novo whether the trial court erred by misapplying the law to the facts. See Guzman v. State, 955 S.W.2d 85, 89 (Tex. Crim. App.1997). If no fact findings are filed, we presume that the trial court made implicit findings of fact that support its ruling, provided these facts are supported by the record. See Carmouche v. State, 10 S.W.3d 323, 328 (Tex.Crim.App.2000). We review de novo application-of-law-to-fact questions that do not turn on an evaluation of credibility and demeanor. See Guzman, 955 S.W.2d at 89.

Article 38.22 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure controls the admissibility of custodial confessions in a criminal trial. TEX.CODE CRIM. PROC. ANN. art. 38.22 (Vernon 2005). In this case, whether the requirements of article 38.22 were satisfied is an application-of-law-to-fact question. Cf. Vann v. State, 93 S.W.3d 182, 184 (Tex.App.-Houston [14th Dist.] 2002, pet. ref'd) (applying de novo review to question of compliance with TEX. FAM.CODE ANN. § 52.02(b)). In making this determination, we will view the evidence at the suppression hearing in the light most favorable to the trial court's ruling and review de novo the trial court's resolution of the question. See id.

B. Analysis

After the police arrested appellant at the bus station in Santa Barbara, they took him into custody. Detective Velasco of the Santa Barbara Police Department read appellant his rights and proceeded to interrogate him. The interrogation was recorded on video and audio tape. The trial court admitted these tapes into evidence over appellant's objection.

Appellant argues that the interrogation violated the requirements of Texas Code of Criminal Procedure article 38.22, making the interrogation inadmissible at trial.¹ Section 3 of the article prescribes the requirements to make oral custodial statements admissible at trial and, among other things, codifies the Miranda warnings required to be given prior to custodial confessions. TEX.CODE CRIM. PROC. ANN. art. 38.22 § 3(a); Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 479, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 1630, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966). However, section 3 requires a fifth warning not explicitly required under Miranda, namely that the accused "has the right to terminate the interview at any time." TEX.CODE CRIM. PROC. ANN. art 38.22, §§ 2(a), 3(a)(1)(2). The Miranda warnings that appellant received in California did not contain this fifth warning, and appellant argues that this rendered the statements inadmissible for his trial.

Appellant, however, ignores section 8 of article 38.22 in making his argument. Section 8 provides that a statement obtained in another state in compliance with the laws of that state is admissible. TEX.CODE CRIM. PROC. ANN. art. 38.22 § 8(1). California does not have a statute similar to Texas Code of Criminal Procedure article 38.22. Instead, they directly observe the requirements set out by the United States Supreme Court in Miranda, 384 U.S. at 479, 86 S.Ct. at 1630; People v. Gurule, 28 Cal.4th 557, 123 Cal.Rptr.2d 345, 381-82, 51 P.3d 224 (2002).

During the hearing on the Motion to Suppress Oral Statements, the State offered the Gurule case to the court to establish California law on obtaining custodial confessions. The State also received testimony from Detective Velasco stating that the warnings that he gave to appellant prior to the interrogation were in compliance with California law. Detective Velasco also read at the hearing the warnings he read to appellant in English and in Spanish. These warnings tracked the language of Miranda. Appellant did not object to the evidence of California law, nor did he offer any contradicting evidence. Therefore, the State met its burden in showing that the requirements of article 38.22 had been met.

We hold that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in admitting appellant's oral statement into evidence. Appellant's fourth point of error is overruled.

Kidnapping Corpus Delicti

For his third point of error, appellant argues that the State failed to establish the corpus delicti of capital murder independent of the appellant's extra-judicial admission. If a defendant is charged with capital murder based on Texas Penal Code subsection 19.03(a)(2), as in the present case, the corpus delicti of capital murder consists of the corpus delicti of murder and the underlying offense. Gribble v. State, 808 S.W.2d 65, 71 (Tex.Crim.App. 1990). In appellant's brief, however, he admitted that the corpus delicti of murder was established at trial. Therefore, we only consider whether the State sufficiently established the corpus delicti of the underlying offense of kidnapping.

A. Standard of Review

A criminal conviction cannot be based upon a defendant's extrajudicial confession unless the confession is corroborated by independent evidence tending to establish the corpus delicti. Id. at 70. Texas defines corpus delicti as harm brought about by the criminal conduct of some person. Id. Therefore, we must review the evidence to determine whether there is some corroboration of an injury or loss and a criminal agent, though the independent evidence does not have to identify the defendant as the culprit. Salazar v. State, 86 S.W.3d 640, 644 (Tex.Crim.App. 2002). The corroborating evidence need not prove the underlying offense conclusively; there simply must be some evidence which renders the commission of the offense more probable than it would be without the evidence. Cardenas v. State, 30 S.W.3d 384, 390 (Tex.Crim.App. 2000); Chiles v. State, 988 S.W.2d 411, 414 (Tex.App.-Houston [1st Dist.] 1999, pet. ref'd).

B. Analysis

On the day she was murdered, Villatoro picked up her two daughters from day care at 4:25 in the afternoon. While she was...